Clarifications of Internally Assessed Standards in French

Writing with the Support of Resources - Standards 90089, 90400, 90563

Feedback to students

Feedback for this standard should not be as specific as underlining specific errors on a student draft. Feedback and feed forward should be more descriptive than this and focus on what is needed to achieve the standard. Feedback and feed forward could include the following forms:

• Teacher student conferencing where the teacher asks questions of the student around their work. Where teachers ask questions they 'avoid the dilemma where they have intervened so directly in correcting a student's errors that the work is no longer evidence of the student's own achievement' (Assessment Guidelines for NCEA Learning Languages 2006). For example if a teacher is looking at a piece of writing and notices all the agreements are missing, the teacher might ask 'What do you remember about agreements in French writing ?' 'Do you have some places in your work where you have words that need agreements ?' After alerting the student to the type of error that is occurring and gaining a clear picture of what the student understands, the student can then be directed to a dictionary to check the gender of words they are unsure of, or to the relevant grammar page/notes if the point needs some revision.
  
  
• Whole class teaching of a point. Where the teacher is noticing that a large portion of the class is making the same mistake , the teacher can take the time to address the issue with the whole class.
  
  
• Agreed code/marking rubrics. Many teachers have descriptive codes (agreed on and understood by the students) which they place in the margin. These codes still need to remain true to the idea of general feedback and cannot give students specific information on error correction. For example, writing a 'V' in the margin to indicate there is a verb error will still expect the student to locate the error, identify the problem and research how to correct it. More precise feedback should not be given to students. For example, 'V/fut' indicating that the verb was incorrect and needed to be put into the future tense has told the student what the error is and how to correct it. This would not be suitable feedback.

It is possible that after an assessment has started the teacher realises from the drafts that the class was not yet quite ready for assessment. The assessment can stop so that further teaching can take place as long as the security is maintained i.e. scripts are kept by the teacher.

Feedback and feed forward does not need to be limited to correcting language. The teacher can feed forward as to what would be needed to reach the next grade by referring to the assessment schedule criteria and to exemplars or models.

The aim of feedback is to guide students in finding their own errors. Feed forward will help them see what needs to be done to achieve or to achieve at a higher level.

Tasks

Good tasks allow one or more of the following:

• They assess the learning that has been taking place in the classroom. For example, some teachers choose the task 'Writing a letter of recommendation for a famous New Zealander' (level 2). This task is only satisfactory if students have been learning appropriate language in class i.e. how to write a description, how to give information about a person, how to give your opinion about someone etc. Often this task leads to students trying to translate from English instead of relying on acquired and formulaic language for the situation.
• They allow for a personalised response
• They have a context which is realistic and/or interesting for today's young people
• They give choice e.g. personal choice of an issue to write about

As this is a standard which requires crafting and drafting, task design will be more valid if it is a task that would naturally call for a piece of writing to be reworked. A diary entry or letter to a friend might not be sensible here, whereas an email to a French teacher or the French class would realistically engender the desire to produce a piece of crafted writing.

The crafting and drafting process should be largely in French.

Resources

It is for the teacher and students to decide which resources will assist in the writing of the crafted text. The most important thing here is that "the students must all have equal access to good quality resources" ( Assessment Guidelines for NCEA learning languages 2006). For example, if students wish to bring a resource from home or that they have found on the internet, there is no problem with this ; however this resource must be available, at the beginning of the assessment, for all students to use.

Authentic texts and exemplars are resources. Students need to be aware that they can not copy large chunks of text and that they must adapt and rework the language. If using a piece of direct text in their work , students will need to reference their work and this will not count as language towards the assessment.

'Variety' in language

With regard to 'variety' of language used, incorrect language will only affect a grade if it hinders communication. It can not however count towards the language criteria. For example level three standards require use of a curriculum level eight example of complex language. If a student writes

'Il faut que je vais en ville'

• This sentence will not count as "an error which hinders communication" as the message is still clear. A student who writes this could still go on to achieve Excellence.
• However, the sentence cannot count as an example of "complex language" as the correct phrase here uses the subjunctive 'il faut que j'aille en ville'. Some teachers are highlighting the 'il faut que' on their mark schedule to show that a complex structure has been used yet this, by itself, does not communicate anything in the way the standard intends. No complex language has been used. The student who made this error would need to use other complex language to fulfil the language criteria.

General

At all times students need to communicate the relevant achievement objectives. For level 1 this is up to and including level 6 of French in the New Zealand Curriculum.

It should be very clear whether any corrections made are made by the student or by the assessor during marking. For this reason it is preferable to send original copies and these should be a student's good copy. There should be few, if any, changes on the final copy.

Drafts must be handed in with the final copy for verification purposes, including for external moderation.

The assessor should ensure that the following conditions are included:

• The task is given at the beginning of the first session
• All resources are available to all students
• Previously marked work on the topic may not be used as a resource
• If text books (or other printed material) are used the students may not copy directly from them. They must significantly manipulate the text/s to show that it is their own work
• If a computer is used during the assessment process the disk is handed in and stored by the assessor at the end of each session
• Computer Spellcheckers play the same role as a dictionary - students need to make their own decisions
• Students may bring nothing in and take nothing out of the assessment room
• All student produced work stays in the assessment room
• Students are reminded that quality is more important than quantity.

Last updated: 19 June 2009