Languages - Moderator's newsletter
November 2011
Content
The new interaction standards – 90870, 90880, 90885, 90895, 90905, 90910
A rehearsed role play is not providing the evidence needed for this standard. Students do need to prepare and practise the language they will use; however, this standard assesses genuine purpose, negotiating meaning, initiating and maintaining, natural language and interactive strategies (fillers, questioning, thanking, apologising, pausing, prompting, seeking clarification). To do these things there must be some reflection of an interaction that is not completely rehearsed. Students will obviously be using and practicing the language in class time – the assessment will show that they can use the language in context, transferring it to use at the appropriate time, and being able to call upon enough language to convey meaning.
There is error tolerance in this standard – students need to know how they will gain Excellence (by interacting) and that they do not need to be word perfect or completely accurate. Students are still able to prepare for the assessment - as they are aware of the assessment task in advance they can still reflect on what language they can use within the interaction. Yes/no answers will still not provide evidence if that is all a student can contribute.
As students need to be clearly identified for this standard visual evidence should be supplied on DVD-R disks. The Visual Evidence Cover Sheet should be sent with student evidence.
Level 2 exemplars
When the level 2 standards are registered in December, annotated exemplars of student work will be available on the NZQA web site. It is important to note with the written exemplars that only the borderline feature of the exemplar was published from a chosen section of the text. It may look like this is not the work of that level – this is because the whole text has not been provided. In all instances the work that is not shown is at the grade awarded.
Level 3 assessment resources trials
Trials of the assessment resources for the aligned level 3 standards will be taking place in 2012. If you would like more information or are interested in being involved in the trials please contact shirley.bain@nzqa.govt.nz