SCHOOL-BASED ASSESSMENT: Integrating assessments into the regular English programme

BACKGROUND Most of our students have little intrinsic motivation and are difficult to motivate. Their English is generally weak. Many students are new immigrants with a Beginner level of English.

SCHOOL SUPPORT We have established good coordination across S4. We have bought 45 class readers for teaching. We have bought 2 new video cameras and microphones for recording. 5 DVD players (with 7” monitor) are available in the library for students’ use. They can watch movies there after school. A DVD player is placed in the English Corner where groups of students can watch movies and carry out discussions after school.

HKED CITY

How do we prepare our lessons? Teachers can design their own teaching tasks for their students according to their ability levels. Teachers talk about their progress and experiences in the panel meeting. I have prepared worksheets for every unit of the class reader.

Students focus only on one task type each time. Since two pages are assigned each time, it is easy for even the low achievers to follow. If the students are weak in English, we can focus on two to three task types in one semester.

WORKSHEET Example: Romeo & Juliet

SBA LOG BOOK

THE FIRST ASSESSMENT The score of this assessment is only for internal academic record. The students’ school report shows scores of all 5 papers.(1A,1B, II, III and SBA) Students’ reports are given out on Parents’ Day. This gives us a good chance to explain the new syllabus to all parents.

ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE Students chose one out of five films before the Mid-year Examination. They watched the movies during the Chinese New Year holiday. As the assessment was after the long break, students had enough time to get ready. We let students know their groupings two days before the day of the actual assessment.

Students felt comfortable after they knew their grouping. Although they didn’t know the actual assessment task, they practised some tasks that we had taught during recess times and after school. We found that some low achievers had downloaded relevant information of their films from websites. We appreciated their efforts in preparing for this assessment.

THE DAY OF THE ASSESSMENT Our technician helped us set up three video cameras in 3 different classrooms. One classroom served as a preparation room. One English teacher (not F.4 teacher) was responsible for distributing the assessment task and the preparation. Students were allowed to bring only their log book to the room. Each batch of students had 10 minutes for making notes on their 4”X6” note-card. When time was up, students were sent to their respective Assessment Rooms.

Equipment A DVD Camera (Panasonic $3800) A tripod A microphone ($180) / ($388)

$30 to $40 each / 30 minutes each side

Setting

The End