March 22-24, 2018 University of Miami II IMFLIT: International Meeting on Foreign Language Learning in Tandem March 22-24, 2018 University of Miami Suzi M. S. Cavalari Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos Linguísticos UNESP – S J Rio Preto Institutional Integrated Teletandem: a Discussion on Agents and Purposes of Assessment

Teletandem underlying principles The Teletandem Brasil Project of UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil, matches up Brazilian university students who are learning a foreign language with students in other countries who are learning Portuguese. (http://www.teletandembrasil.org/) Teletandem underlying principles

Institutional integrated teletandem at UNESP (São José do Rio preto) … a series of teletandem sessions that are embedded in regular foreign language lessons, so that such lessons both feed and are fed by teletandem practice. (Cavalari; Aranha, 2016)

Institutional integrated teletandem at UNESP (São José do Rio Preto) integrating procedures: carried out by the professor preparing students for iiTTD both in practical and theoretical terms – the tutorial; blending teletandem sessions and FL syllabus – integrating tasks + mediation sessions; incorporating different assessment practices (by the learner, by the partner and by the FL professor) tasks: carried out by the learners answering questionnaires (initial and final) participating in the teletandem oral sessions and in the mediation sessions writing learning diaries working in collaborative writing tasks

Assessment issues Purposes: Agents: formative summative Agents: learner (self-assessment) peer teacher Instruments (classroom-based assessment): teacher developed tests interviews written/oral assignments observation portfolios checklists perspectiva formativa: a avaliação é entendida como um ciclo de observação, análise e tomada de decisões que retroalimenta o processo de ensino-aprendizagem em direção aos objetivos estabelecidos

Teacher’s assessment in iiTTD Assessment practice in iiTTD should (ideally) involve: the perspectives of the three agents involved (learner; his/her TTD partner; FL professor); formative and summative purposes of assessment; the different tasks carried out in the telecollaborative learning. no TTDii, esse ciclo, se engendrado nas três dimensões, pode, ao mesmo tempo, potencializar as oportunidades de aprendizagem autônoma e colaborativa de línguas e informar a avaliação sob a ótica somativa isso quer dizer que a avaliação da produção do participante poderá ter um julgamento numérico que contemple uma visão mais holística do processo de aprendizagem.

assessment in teletandem: what has been investigated a few studies on self-assessment (Cavalari, 2009; 2011), on peer assessment (Brocco, 2012; Aranha; Cavalari, 2015), and on general aspects of assessing language during TTD oral sessions (Furtoso, 2011; Consolo; Furtoso, 2015) no study on teacher’s assessment practice when Teletandem is integrated into regular lessons How do teachers assess language learning in iiTTD?

theoretical framework: sustainable assessment (BOUD, 2000) The summative and formative purposes of assessment are inextricably woven together and they both influence learning summative assessment provides the agenda for learning and an authoritative statement of “what counts” (implicitly sometimes). It guides learning at the same time it seeks to measure it formative assessment provides the “fine tuning mechanism” for what we learn. It tells us how well we are doing in order “to get there” However, assessment practices are usually not an act of the learner, but an act on the learner.

Sustainable assessment (BOUD, 2000) How do we replace this misleading image with one that locates assessment in the hands of the learners, while acknowledging the legitimate role of the certification by others? It is crucial not only to incorporate good formative assessment resources into our courses, but also to find ways of enabling students to develop their own skills of putting together schemes of formative assessment

learning how to learn = learning ho to assess? in order to become autonomous learners, students need to be prepared to undertake assessment ... learning how to assess entails reciprocal collaboration? which means they should be able to identify whether they have met the standards appropriate for the task and seek forms of feedback from their environment

this presentation Report the assessment practice implemented within iiTTD at UNESP – SJRP (ongoing study) when: 2016 (October-November) course: Língua Inglesa I, anual course (180 hours ) offered in the first year of Translation Studies major number of participants: 16 Brazilian learners and their professor

Data collection and assessment instruments Data was collected for 8 weeks (October-November) by means of the following assessment instruments: - observation and field notes (by the professor) - sharing of files (by each learner): 06 learning diaries - (Google docs) 02 texts written in English (and revised by TTD partner) - (Google docs) 02 questionnaires (initial and final) - (Google docs) 06 teletandem oral sessions by Skype (recorded by means of Evaer and saved at the PC desktop protected by a password)

Questionnaires: self-assessment; formative purpose iiTTD: assessment instruments according to their purposes and agents Questionnaires: self-assessment; formative purpose Self-assessment Initial questionnaire: CEFR self-assessment grid + goal setting Final questionnaire: final self-assessment

Questionnaires 3. What is your proficiency level in English? How well can you read, write, listen, speak English? listenig: A2, reading: A2, speaking: A2, writing: A2 4. Based on your self-assessment, establish a learning goal for your participation in teletandem. Think about these questions: (i) what you need to know in order to go to the next level in the self-assessment grid? (ii) how can you learn what you need (or want) with the help of your teletandem partner? (i) I need to gain experience and discover my difficulties during the talk with my partner (ii) I can ask to my partner or my teacher how I can improve my skills. Making and correcting the texts. And looking for my errors and my partner errors (participant 13)

iiTTD: assessment instruments according to their purposes and agents Learning diaries: self and teacher assessment; formative and summative purposes Self-assessment (continuous reflection on the learning experience) teacher’s assessment (one-to-one feedback and percentage of final grade)

Learning diaries With no doubts, my text is much better after her help [….]. (diary 6, participant 15). […] the thing that helped me the most was to talk about the movie with my partner, and to try to explain what I wanted to say before I wrote it, because saying it makes it more concrete than just thinking of it. (diary 5, participant 12). This activity has helped me learn new vocabulary; expressions and appropriate connectors for a good text6. (diary 6, participant 01).

Diaries: teacher’s assessment I had to take off my WISDOM TEETH, what was too difficult to explain and she had to ask to her teacher because I hadn’t have no idea of how to say could I said that in Eenglish and I wrote to her “dente do sizo ou dente do juizo” and she called claim  her teacher to read and asked said how we could say said that in Eenglish, and so I learned a curious and new word. (diary I, participant 2)

iiTTD: assessment instruments according to their purposes and agents collaborative writing: two written texts in English revised by TTD partner; formative and summative purposes self-assessment (learners ask for clarifications) peer assessment (feedback + comments during oral session) teacher’s assessment (percentage of final grade)

Collaborative writing: peer feedback

iiTTD: assessment instruments according to their purposes and agents oral sessions: self and peer assessment; formative purpose / summative purpose(feasibility?) self-assessment (?) peer assessment (feedback) teacher’s assessment (recordings were not always possible due to technical problems; time consuming activity)

Oral sessions: self and peer assessment B Ethny is right? A Ethnicities Or ethnic background. The residents include… What is residents? Community members, you reside in a community, therefore you’re a resident Oh The residents include white cops and their spouses...there’s a director, right? Yeah, a director

Final remarks - the integrating tasks seemed appropriate formative assessment instruments and involved all the agents (the learner, his/her TTD partner; the EFL professor), which is in accordance with the sustainable assessment proposal - formative and summative purposes are interwoven: summative assessment is fed by the information gathered (built?) during the process - especially by means of mediation (both in class and through diaries)

Final remarks Challenges to overcome: - integrating self and peer assessment into summative purposes of evaluation - establishing criteria for the summative assessment that could be shared by the three agents involved - developing criteria used for final grading - taking the oral production during sessions into consideration for summative purposes: learners could create a portfolio to showcase their achievements (?)

smscavalari@gmail.com teletandem.riopreto@gmail.com @teletandemriopreto www.teletandembrasil.org