TEACHING WRITING TO YLLS

1. Stages in learning to write in L1

 drawing, scribbling;
 tracing and writing letters;
 using invented spelling to write words;
 using more conventional writing and spelling.

Thoughout this process they are creating their own meaning.

Even very young children have ideas about how texts are written and they attempt to create
texts based in those ideas.

2. Approaches to teaching writing

 A product-based approach - one that focuses on the final product
 A process-based approach – one that focuses on the process of writing.

3. A product-based approach

A product-based approach focuses on accuracy, providing controlled or guided activities to help

children learn the basics of writing, working on spelling, grammar, and mechanics, in a bottom-up
fashion. It focuses on the final product: as accurate a text as possible.

Students are given activities that serve as small steps to complete before they move to construct an
entire text.

4. Controlled writing activities

The goal of controlled activities is to have students practise writing the language with careful control.
Most of the text is provided for the student.

Examples:

 Copying words or sentences;

 Completing word puzzles with the words provided;
 Unscrambling words or sentences.

5. Guided writing activities

The goal of guided writing is to help learners experience success while they also learn the
relationship between their ideas, words, and writing. More independence is given to the writer.
Support is provided (for example, in the form of questions to consider, or a graphic organizer with
some of the information provided).

Examples:

 Describing a picture with some vocabulary provided;

 Completing language bubbles in cartoons;
 Writing a new ending to a familiar story.

Controlled and guided writing activities are good beginning writing activities, but children also need
an opportunity to engage in creative writing and to write authentic texts for authentic purposes.
Writing for children should be seen primarily as a means of self-expression, with a focus on meaning,
or as a means of reinforcing oral development.
6. A process-based approach

In a process-based approach to writing, the primary goal is for children to express their ideas, to
construct meaning, and to explore their linguistic and other resources. Writing is a thinking process,
and in that process, children will be learning.

All process-based approaches take children through a series of steps to help them construct and
communicate their ideas, focusing on expression in the early stages, and only being concerned with
accurate grammar or mechanics in the final stages. (in a top-down fashion)

7. Free-writing activities

Every writing assignment should have a specific:

 Form (the type of writing text or genre – a letter, an e-mail, a journal, a list, a story, or a
poem);
 Audience (someone who will read the writing – other students, parents, or oneself, in a diary
or journal);
 Topic (something to communicate);
 Purpose (a reason to write – to inform, entertain, remember, express feelings).

8. Example: Writing Workshop

 Brainstorming and discussing;
 Drafting;
 Peer reviewing and conferencing;
 Revising;
 Reviewing and conferencing;
 Editing (checklist);
 Publishing.

9. To conclude
 Reading and writing are active and complementary activities;
 Reading and writing activities should be meaningful, but also provide controlled and guided
practice to support learners in their reading and writing development;
 A range of reading and writing activities and texts should be integrated into unit and lesson
plans.

TEACHING VOCABULARY TO YOUNG LEARNERS

1. Introduction

 Building up a useful vocabulary is central to the learning of a foreign language at primary

level.
 While opinions differ as to how much grammar of the foreign language can be taught,
children are clearly capable of learning foreign language words through participating in the
discourse of classroom activities.
 Vocabulary has moved to centre stage in foreign language teaching in recent years, backed
by substantial and increasing research.
2. Vocabulary and grammar

 The more we find out about how words work in language and how vocabulary is learnt,
stored and used, the more difficult it becomes to uphold the traditional split between
vocabulary and grammar.
 Much important grammatical information is tied into words, and learning words can take
students a long way into grammar.

3. Vocabulary development

 Vocabulary development is about learning words but it is much more than that. It is also
about learning more about those words, and about learning formulaic phrases or chunks,
finding words inside them, and learning even more about those words.
 Although children may use the same words as adults, they may not hold the same meanings
for those words.
 The acquisition of word meanings takes much longer than the acquisition of the spoken form
of the words, and children use words in their speech long before they have full
understanding of them.
 All through childhood, words are used with only a partial understanding of the full meaning
system that underlies them.
 Vocabulary development is a continuous process, not just of adding new words but of
building up knowledge about words we already know partially.

4. L1 and L2

 Some of the foreign language words will map on to word meanings that are already fully
formed in the first language. Many of the words, however, may link to first language words
and concepts that they are in the process of learning about and have only partial meanings
for. In addition, the first and foreign language words may not map straightforwardly one on
to another, but may have different underlying meanings because of cultural and other
differences.
 Learning words is not something that is done and finished with. Learning words is a cyclical
process of meeting new words and initial learning, followed by meeting those words again
and again, each time extending knowledge of what the words mean and how they are used
in the foreign language.
 Each time children meet familiar words again, they too have changed and will bring new first
language and conceptual knowledge to the vocabulary.

5. What it means to know a word

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - Receptive knowledge: aural/decoding

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to understand it when it is spoken/written

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - memory

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to recall it when needed

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - conceptual knowledge

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to use it with the correct meaning
 EXAMPLE - not confusing protractor and compasses
  TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - knowledge of the spoken form: phonological knowledge
 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to hear the word and to pronounce it acceptably, on its own, and in
phrases and sentences
 EXAMPLE - to hear and produce the endings of verb forms, such as the /n/ sound at the end
of undertaken

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - grammatical knowledge

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to use it in a grammatically accurate way; to know grammatical
connections with other words
 EXAMPLE - she sang very well not *she sang very good; to know that is and be are parts of
the same verb

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - collocational knowledge

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to know which other words can be used with it
 EXAMPLE - a beautiful view not *a good-looking view

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - orthographic knowledge

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to spell it correctly
 EXAMPLE - protractor not *protracter

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - pragmatic knowledge, knowledge of style and register

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to use it in the right situation
 EXAMPLE - would you like a drink? is more appropriate in a formal or semi-formal situation
than what can I get you?

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - connotational knowledge

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to know its positive and negative associations, to know its associations
with related words
 EXAMPLE to know that slim has positive connotations, when used about a person, whereas
skinny is negative

 TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE - metalinguistic knowledge

 WHAT IS INVOLVED - to know explicitly about the word, e.g. its grammatical properties
 EXAMPLE- to know that protractor is a noun; to know that pro is a prefix

Knowing a word involves knowing about its FORM (how it sounds, how it is spelt, the grammatical
changes that can be made to it), its MEANING (its conceptual content and how it relates to other
concepts and words), and its USE (its patterns of occurrence with other words, and its particular
types of language use).

5. Developing meanings in childhood

 Learning a word takes a long time and many exposures to the word used in different
situations.
 Conceptual knowledge grows as children experience more and more of the world in their
daily lives. There are also maturational factors that seem to affect the nature of conceptual
knowledge about first language vocabulary at different ages, and that can have a knock-on
effect for foreign language learning.
  One of these factors is the ‘syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift’ that occurs between five and ten
years of age. This shift refers to the types of associations children make between words and
ideas. Younger children tend to make syntagmatic associations (e.g., dog-bark, table-eat),
choosing a linking idea in a word from a different part of speech, or word class. Older
children are more likely to make paradigmatic associations (e.g., dog-animal, table-chair),
choosing words from the same word class.

6. Cultural content in word meanings

Words and their meanings are connected in syntagmatic and paradigmatic patterns which create
networks of connections in the mind that have been variously called ‘schemas’ (or schemata),
‘scripts’ and ‘frames’. When a word is encountered, the schema that they are part of will be
activated, and the network of activated meanings becomes available to help make sense of the
discourse and the words at a holistic level.

These schemas are usually being constructed throughout childhood (and onwards) within the first
language culture. When foreign language words are learnt, they are likely to be mapped on to first
language words and to thereby enter schemas that have already been built up. This may lead to
problems, because different cultures organise aspects of the world differently (cf. I’ll go and fetch
milk used in Britain and other cultural contexts).

7. The development of children’s vocabulary: Summary

The types of words that children find possible to learn will shift. Five year olds learning a foreign
language need very concrete vocabulary that connects with objects they can handle and see,
whereas older learners can cope with words and topics that are more abstract and remote from their
immediate experience.

Vocabulary development is not just learning more words but is also importantly about expanding and
deepening word knowledge.

Children need to meet words again and again, in new contexts that help increase what they know
about words. Teaching needs to include the recycling of words.

Words and word knowledge can be seen as being linked in networks of meaning. Meeting a word will
activate the network and thus provide support for understanding and for learning.

Basic level words are likely to be more appropriate for younger children, or when learning vocabulary
for new concepts. Older learners can benefit from building up superordinate and subordinate
vocabulary linked to basic level words they already know.

Children change in how they learn words. Whereas very young learners will learn words as
collections, older children are much more able to make connections between the words they learn
and to use the paradigmatic organisation of words and concepts as a help in vocabulary learning.
TEACHING READING TO YLLs

1. Reading and writing

 Literacy skills
 Interactive processes involving the reader, the text, and the writer.
 Reading can be thought of as preparation for writing, and writing as producing something to
read.

2. Listening and reading

 Receptive skills (actively processing what others have said or written);

 Background knowledge (about the world, about oral and written texts or discourse, about
language) essential for understanding.

3. Speaking and writing

 Productive skills;
 Background knowledge (about the world, about texts, about language) used to express an
idea or opinion, to make an observation, to provide information, etc.

4. First and second language reading and writing

L1 literacy skills that children can access when learning English:

 Visual knowledge (about print and text direction);

 Phonological knowledge (about sounds represented by symbols);
 Lexical knowledge (about words and collocations);
 Syntactic knowledge (about meaning construction and making sense of words);
 Semantic knowledge (about social use of language as discourse).

(Brewster, Ellis, & Girard, 2004)

5. Challenge

 English represents sounds in different ways.

 The same sound can be represented by different letters: /i:/ : be, bee, sea, ski, skied, receive.
 The same set of letters can be pronounced in different ways: read, bread, break.

6. Why include reading and writing in YL classes?

 Reading and writing can reinforce what is being learned orally;

 Reading expands the sources of input, and writing helps in remembering that input;
 Writing provides a way to consolidate learning from the other skills, and reading helps
students to see the conventions of writing;
 Children enjoy reading and writing if texts are meaningful and related to their experiences.
 Reading and writing help link the EYL class with home, as children bring home writing they
have done to share with their families or do homework requiring reading and writing.
 Reading and writing can also link the EYL class with other classes in school, where written
language plays an important part.
 Writing provides another means of self-expression and, when read by others, a sense of
confidence and pride.
7. What is reading?

 Reading is a process of relating written symbols to oral language, of constructing meaning

from written text (Goodman, 2005).
 This meaning construction is facilitated by schemata (background knowledge, previous
experiences).

8. To be able to read, a child has to:

 Understand the alphabet

 Decode
 Develop sight vocabulary to read fluently (with automaticity)
 Develop strategies to help with comprehension and fluency
 Read texts that match her/his reading level and interests
 Engage in extensive reading (independent reading of a variety of texts)

(Adapted from Lenters, 2004/2005, p.331)

9. Bottom-up/Top down processing

 Bottom-up processing: what we know about language.

Should we focus first on helping children see the relationship between sounds and letters, beginning
with decoding letters and words, and then move to larger units to focus on meaning?

 Top-down processing: what we know about making meaning:

Should we begin with context and meaning, and then move to analysing and interpreting smaller
segments of language?

Ideally, in any unit, students will have opportunities to practise using both bottom-up and top-down
processing skills, in a balanced approach to reading

(Brewster, Ellis, & Girard, 2002).

TEACHING GRAMMAR TO YOUNG LEARNERS

1. Different meanings of grammar (p.99-100)

 the grammar of a language (finding patterns in how words are put together, ‘rules’ which
describe what people usually do);
 theoretical and pedagogic grammars (explicit descriptions of patterns);
 internal grammars (interlanguage, linguistic competence).

2. Starting points for thinking about grammar and young learners (p.98)

 grammar is necessary to express precise meanings in discourse;

 grammar ties closely into vocabulary in learning and using the foreign language;
 grammar learning can evolve from the learning of chunks of language;
 talking about something meaningful with the child can be a useful way to introduce
grammar;
 grammar can be taught without technical labels.
3. Conclusions from empirical findings (p.102)

 rote-learned chunks of language make up a substantial part of early learning;

 learnt chunks provide a valuable resource for developing grammar, as they are broken down
and reconstituted;
 ways of teaching that help learners notice words inside chunks and how other words can be
used in the same places may help with the development of grammar.

4. Learning through hypothesis testing (p.102)

 In learning L1, children do not produce random word orderings and forms, but they
somehow work out how to use the language and then they try out their hypotheses in saying
things, amending them when they hear alternative versions.
 This process is likely to occur in L2 learning. Children build hypotheses about how the
language works from the limited data they have received. As they get more input, the
hypotheses will change. The set of hypothesised patterns at any point would form the
internal grammar.
 Errors in language use can often act as a window on the developing internal grammar of the
learner, and are signals of growth. They can also suggest what type of teacher intervention
may assist learning.

5. Approaches to teaching grammar (advantages and disadvantages)

 Teaching grammar as explicit rules: learning as building blocks;

 Communicative approaches: no grammar needed;
 Focus on form: the revival of grammar teaching.

6. Batstone 1995 Noticing-Structuring- Proceduralising

Noticing: an active process in which learners become aware of the structure, notice connections
between form and meaning, but do not themselves manipulate language.

Activities:

 support meaning and form;

 present and form in isolation and in discourse;
 contrast the form with other, already known, forms;
 require active participation of the learners.

Structuring: a process of bringing the new grammar pattern into the learner’s internal grammar and,
if necessary, reorganising the internal grammar through assimilation and accommodation.

Activities:

 learners should manipulate the language, changing form in order to express meaning;
 there will be limited impact on spontaneous use.

Proceduralising: the stage of making the new grammar ready for instant and fluent use in
communication, it requires practice in choosing and using the form to express meaning.

Activities: must require attention to grammar as well as effective communication.

7. Principles for learning-centred grammar teaching (pp.110-111)

 grammatical accuracy and precision matter for meaning;

 without attention to form, form will not be learnt accurately;
 if learners attention is directed to express meaning, they may neglect attention to accuracy
and precision;
 teaching can help learners notice and attend to features of grammar in the language they
encounter;
 noticing an aspect of form is the first stage of learning it, it then needs to become part of the
learner’s internal grammar and part of the learner’s language resources ready for use.
 the learner has to do the learning;
 grammar learning can work outwards from participation in discourse, from vocabulary and
learnt chunks;
 teaching grammar explicitly requires the learner to think in abstract ways; the younger the
learner, the less appropriate it is;
 children can master some metalanguage if it is well taught.

UNIT AND LESSON PLANNING

1. Contextualized instruction

 ‘Language is best taught when it is being used to transmit messages, not when it is explicitly
taught for conscious learning’ (Krashen & Terrel 1995: 55).
 ‘The classroom should encourage learners to use the language to express their feelings and
ideas and to have the opportunities to communicate and interact, using the language with
you and other students (Shin and Crandall 2014: 68).

2. Thematic instruction

 The importance of content

 The value of local and national culture
 The importance of themes:
a) A theme is a big idea that connects language with content and culture (Curtain & Dahlberg
2010);
b) Select a theme: theme-first or text-first;
c) Identify the language focus, content objectives and critical thinking skills;
d) Develop and sequence lessons/activities.
e) If you use a coursebook, evaluate and supplement (?) the above.

3. A unit should have activities that:

 Foster authentic language use;

 Involve the use of all four skills;
 Draw upon students’ prior knowledge;
 Lead to higher levels of understanding;
 Encourage a variety of learning styles;
 Use a variety of grouping strategies;
 Use a variety of media to make things understandable;
 Motivate learners to use English in a variety of situations and tasks;
 Engage learners in critical thinking.
4. Sequence the activities

 Engage learners in receptive tasks before productive tasks;

 Present language (vocabulary and grammar) before asking students to practise;
 Use controlled practice activities before more independent activities;
 Connect one activity to the next;
 Sequence the content to recycle language;
 Order the tasks to mirror the real-life application of tasks.

5. Long-term planning

 Evaluate the textbook (if you decided to use one);

 Look at the calendar; see how the textbook material and other things you’d like to do fit into
it;
 Consider changes (quantitative: too much/too little; qualitative: what and how; local events;
content covered in other subjects, etc.);
 Evaluate what you’ve done; consider changes in the future.

6. Daily lesson planning: Why?

 It builds confidence.
 It helps you prepare for the class.
 It provides you with a guide during the class.
 It requires you to have (and meet) specific objectives.
 It helps you to see if you prepared a variety of activities.
 It gives you something to reflect on for future planning.

7. Daily lesson planning: How?

 Student profile;
 Skills;
 Language: new/review vocabulary; new/review grammar; teacher talk and other
comprehensible input;
 Objectives: general and specific;
 Materials;
 Activities: type, sequencing (lesson model? your idea?), timing;
 Assessment;
 Follow-up.

8. Evaluating the lesson

 Did the children enjoy it?

 Did they have any problems with it?
 How might you change the lesson/activity to reduce the problems?
 Was the time allotted appropriate?
 Was the activity in the right place in the lesson?
9. To conclude

 The importance of contextualizing instruction;

 Thematic instruction;
 Planning thematic units;
 Long-term and daily lesson planning;
 Reflective teaching

CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING IN TEYL

1. CLIL

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a dualfocused educational approach in which an
additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language. That is, in the
teaching and learning process, there is a focus not only on content, and not only on language. Each is
interwoven, even if the emphasis is greater on one or the other at a given time (Coyle, Hood & Marsh
2010:1).

2. The 4 Cs Framework of CLIL (Coyle)

 Content
 Communication
 Cognition
 Culture (Community, Citizenship)

Note the Four Cs of 21st century learning: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity

3. Planning a CLIL lesson, think about:

 Content-area skills and concepts that can interrelate most effectively with language goals;
 The language competences that are needed for studying the content;
 The cognitive skills necessary to perform the tasks related both to the content and the
foreign language;
 The potential for integration of the content with language goals and cultural concepts and
goals.

(Curtain & Dahlberg 2010)

4. Consider:

 Language across the curriculum (the language demands of curriculum subjects so that
learners can participate, take into listening, speaking, reading and writing);
 Communication skills across the curriculum (e.g., agreeing or disagreeing, asking questions,
explaining a point of view, expressing ideas, giving examples, presenting work, etc.)
 Cognitive skills across the curriculum (e.g., remembering, ordering, defining, comparing,
contrasting, classifying, predicting, reasoning, etc.);
 Learning skills across the curriculum (e.g., locating, organising and interpreting information
note taking, editing, transferring information, recording results, summarising, etc.)

5. Plan a CLIL lesson

 Choose a subject area;

 Choose a theme/topic;
 Consider teaching objectives (content, cognition) What is planned to be taught;
 Consider learning outcomes (content, cognition) Students will be able to...;
 Consider language OF learning (language necessary for learning the content);
 Consider language FOR learning (language learners are going to hear, e.g. instructions);
 Plan activities (recycle language, communicate, e.g., information gap);
 Choose resources.

6. Advantages of CLIL:

 offers a holistic way of teaching and learning;

 leads to improvement of both language skills and subject knowledge;
 stimulates curiosity and creativity;
 provides meaningful context for language use;
 enhances motivation by providing authenticity of purpose;
 encourages language use for interesting and engaging purposes;
 integrates the four skills;
 exposes learners to a variety of text types;
 facilitates development of lower-order and higher-order thinking skills;
 provides opportunities for using the target language in new and complex ways;
 promotes intercultural knowledge and understanding;
 responds to different learning styles;
 expands the learner’s repertoire of learning strategies;
 promotes learner autonomy;
 promotes the application of innovative teaching methods and techniques.

7. Challenges for the teacher (Savić 2012)

 teacher competences required to teach both the content and English and to apply
appropriate pedagogical practices;
 the lack of appropriate CLIL materials and resources; time-consuming process of selecting
and adapting materials;
 problems with comprehension and inability to express complex ideas in English (possibly
resulting in discouragement and code-switching).
ASSESMENT

1. What is assessment?

ASSESSMENT in education is the process of gathering, interpreting, recording and using information
about pupils’ responses to an educational task.

One reason to assess children’s learning in schools is to match learning opportunities to children’s
development and needs.

2. Basic assessment

 Assessment, testing, and evaluation;

 Informal and formal assessment;
 Formative and summative assessment;
 Criterion- and norm-referenced tests;
 Integrative and discrete point tests.

3. Assessment, testing and evaluation

Assessment is a process of identifying learning goals and determining how well students are meeting
them (Linn & Gronlund, 2000). It is something that is ongoing, a process of monitoring learning and
teaching. It encompasses the multiple ways that teachers gather information about learners’
knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and motivation (Ioannu-Georgiou & Pavlou, 2003) and note the
progress or difficulties that students are having in learning English (Rea-Dickins & Gardner, 2000;
Brown & Abeywickrama, 2010).

Testing is one type of assessment that formally measures learners’ English language performance
(Brown & Abeywickrama, 2010; Cameron, 2001).

A test:

 is usually given at set times during the term;

 involves a set of clearly developed procedures for giving and scoring the learners’
performance;
 measures specific knowledge or overall language proficiency;
 yields a score, a grade, a ranking, etc.

Evaluation involves the use of test scores or assessments for some kind of decision making
(Bachman, 1990; Brown & Abeywickrama, 2010). It uses different sources of information to
determine the success of a particular program, course, or approach to instruction.

Assessment, testing and evaluation help:

 Learners to know how they are progressing;

 Teachers to know how effective the instruction is;
 Administrators to know how well the program is making progress toward program goals;
 Funders to see the results of their investment.
4. Informal and formal Assessment

Informal assessment: ongoing observation of the learner’s performance (giving feedback, writing on
students’ papers, making suggestions for improvement, praising their efforts, etc.).

Formal assessment: systematic ways to gauge student achievement (tests, portfolios, projects
formally assessed, etc.).

While formal assessments are important, informal assessments are more useful in daily teaching.

5. Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative assessment is the (usually informal) assessment that occurs during teaching and learning.
It provides an ongoing picture of students’ language growth and development.

Examples:

 observing students and noting strengths and difficulties in doing class work;
 asking for clarification to promote self-repair;
 making suggestions or modelling correct forms orally and in writing;
 etc. (see 1. p. 248-249 for examples and references)

Summative assessment ‘summarizes a student’s learning at the end of a year, a term, a course, or a
unit of study (1: 249). It is snapshot testing which establishes what a child can do at that time (2: 12).
It is formal in nature, frequently undertaken with tests that measure specific language skills or overall
proficiency in the language (e.g. chapter tests, end-of-term tests, standardized tests) (1: 249).

The trend today is toward less focus on formal, summative assessment and more attention to
informal, classroom-based, formative assessment that provides a fuller picture of a student’s
performance and also more useful information to teachers (1: 249).

6. Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Assessment

Norm-referenced assessment ranks each individual learner in comparison to all others who were
assessed. Standardized, formal, high-stakes tests are usually norm referenced, with each test taker’s
score ranked in relation to the average score (the mean), the middle score (the median), and the
percentile (rank) of the scores of all who took that test.

Criterion-referenced assessment compares a student’s performance to a set of specific criteria,

usually related to a curriculum or a course. The criteria may also be related to a set of descriptors
such as benchmarks related to a set of standards or along a scale (McKay 2006).

7. Discrete Point and Integrative Assessment

Discrete point assessment focuses on individual items, such as a particular word or grammatical
structure, in isolation rather than meaningful contexts (e.g., tests involving with multiple-choice
items or filling in blanks).

Integrative assessment is a more holistic approach to assessing learners’ knowledge and skills,
involving the four language skills through the use of interactive activities.
ASSESSMENT 2

1. Basic Assessment Guidelines

 Reliability
 Validity
 Practicality
 Authenticity
 Washback

(Bachman and Palmer 1996)

2. Reliability

For a language assessment to be reliable, the results should be accurate and consistent. According to
Bachman (1990: 25), reliability ”has to do with the consistency of measures across different times,
test forms, raters, and other characteristics of the measurement context”.

3. Validity

For a language assessment to be valid, the decisions made by the test must be meaningful,
appropriate, and useful. It also has to assess what it purports to assess.

4. Practicality

An assessment task is practical if needed resources (including time and place) are available for the
assessment task. One also has to consider the amount of time and training needed for scoring the
assessment.

5. Authenticity

A language assessment is authentic if the language being assessed is used in ways that are
appropriate and relevant to language learners (McKay 2006). To be authentic, an assessment should
also be ”child-friendly” (Saricoban & Kuntas 2010).

6. Washback

Washback refers to the effects that tests have on teaching and learning. Its impact can be positive or
negative. Ideally, a test should promote more effective instruction: What is tested should be what is
agreed upon as the most important language knowledge and use.

7. Guidelines for Effective Assessment Young Learners

 Mirror learning (what is taught is what is assessed);

 Contribute to learning (for both learners and the teacher);
 Motivate learners and build learner confidence;
 Include a variety of techniques for learners’ different intelligences and learning styles;
 Allow all learners to experience success, while providing advanced learners opportunities to
demonstrate their proficiency;
 Be contextualized and reflect relevant tasks and language for young learners;
 Take place over time.
8. Purposes and Types of Formal Tests

 Diagnostic tests: Diagnosing student learning difficulties or areas in need of further

instruction;
 Placement tests: Initially placing students in the proper language level;
 Achievement tests: Measuring and reporting student progress in learning the curriculum;
 Proficiency tests: Providing an overall picture of a student’s language development.

(Brown & Abeywickrama 2010)

9. Purposes and Types of Alternative or Performance Assessments

 Observations
 Conferences and oral interviews
 Story or text retellings
 Writing samples
 Projects
 Portfolios
 Other performances
 Self- or peer-assessments

10. Rating Alternative Assessments

Differences in the type of assessment also result in differences in the ways in which these
assessments are scored. Some ways of scoring or rating alternative assessments include: brief
feedback, checklists, and rubrics.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

1. Major aspects of classroom management

 Managing the pace of class – Time, Activities, Transitions

 Managing behaviour with routines:
Examples:
a) starting the class with a greeting
b) designating classroom helpers
c) taking attendance
d) establishing the date and day
e) establishing objectives
f) cleaning up the room
g) giving homework
h) ending the class
 Managing behaviour with rules:
a) Be sure you know the school rules and incorporate them into your classroom.
b) Clearly communicate the rules and co-construct rules with students whenever
possible.
c) Be sure the rules incorporate consequences for both positive and negative
behaviour.
d) Enforce rules consistently and mediate conflict with and among students fairly.
e) Involve parents or family members to help manage Yls’ behaviour.
  Managing the classroom climate:
a) Physical environment
b) Emotional atmosphere (relationships, boundaries)
c) Management of student behaviour by example
d) Treating all students equally and fairly
e) Catering to YLs’ interests

 Managing the language used in class

a) teacher use of L1
b) student use of L1
c) language of instruction
d) language of classroom management

2. Key principles od the language of management and discipline

 Keep the corrective interaction ‘least intrusive’ wherever possible.

 Avoid unnecessary confrontation (embarrassment, sarcasm, hostility, etc.).
 Keep a respectful, positive tone of voice wherever possible.
 Re-establish working relationships with the student as quickly as possible.
 If we need to communicate appropriate frustration – even anger – we do so assertively
rather than aggressively:
a) keep the assertive statement brief
b) focus on the primary behaviour or issue
c) avoid over-servicing secondary behaviours
d) de-escalate any residual tension

3. A framework for management and discipline language skills

 Tactical ignoring
 Tactical pausing
 Non-verbal cueing
 Incidental language (descriptive cueing)
 Take-up time
 Behavioural direction
 Rule reminder
 Prefacing
 Distraction/diversion
 Direct questions
 Directed ‘choices’
 ‘Choice’/deferred consequences
 ‘Blocking’, partial agreement, refocusing
 Partial agreement
 Assertive comment/direction/command