BALANCED TIPS ABOUT THE ORAL DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT

If you happen to be worried about what to do with your students during the first week of your teaching, try to
prepare one, two or three coordinated lessons which are related to your students and call them ALL ABOUT
ME. Consider these lessons as THE ORAL DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT. Don’t put any pressure on yourself.
Just focus on your students speaking and listening skills. Don't ask them to write anything on paper for now.
Interact with them through simple questions about themselves and their world. Make your questions simple in
the beginning, so that all students can answer and participate.

Gradually, try to change the level of those questions to average and challenging while keeping those questions
always about the students. The more information you learn about your students, the better you can connect with
them in the long run. Let your students see how much you are interested in them and their world. Ask them about
their names and their spelling. This allow you to see where they stand with letters in English and their
pronunciation. Also, when asking students about themselves, include their age, residence, family, food, animals,
plants, means of transportation, environment, countries, capitals, flags, currency, languages, continents, seas,
oceans, rivers, clothes, future job, and friendship. It will be amazing if the teacher could bring at least one item
for them to see, smell and touch. Ask them to tell you anything interesting about themselves in connection to any
topic mentioned above. Invite them to share with the whole class one thing they did during the Summer of 2018
that they feel proud of. Pair them to learn one thing about their partner in few minutes and then let them come
back and share it with the whole classroom.

Moreover, make your classroom a welcoming place and let them feel at ease when coming to the board. Let
them take control of the board when they are up. Don’t stand next to them. Just fade away by taking the student
seat who is at the board. Sit among your students and let them feel that you are one them. Ask the student to
write the word used in the questions and answers. Invite the rest of the class to help in spelling the words. Praise
them with a variety of expressions and appreciate their answers no matter what it is. Show your joy when a
student get it right. Refresh their memory about the basics in language just to make sure that they are up to date.
Be curious about them and see what they like and dislike.

Additionally, use a poster (if available)and let them identify and name anything displayed on that picture. Or
project a picture on the whiteboard or the wall if a projector (data-show) is available. Focus on one thing on that
picture depending on what it is and dig more about it depending on the level (Middle or High school levels).
High school teachers , you can use either a simple poster or complex poster or both. This will allow you to cover
many angles of the language in a more complex way. See how sharp your students are when it comes to
observing the details within the picture.

For instance, if the lesson is about the environment, have two pictures showing one with a clean beach where
people respect and live in harmony with the environment and another picture full of litters where people are
irresponsible and reckless. Give students an opportunity to express their feeling about the two scenes and then let
them compare between the two pictures. Encourage them to use the language of contrast and comparison. Invite
students to express the consequences. Then, connect them with the reality by using their school and their
classroom as a real example. Encourage them to keep their classroom clean and let them understand that this is
the responsibility of every student and every teacher.

When asking questions and receiving answers, take those keywords and dive yourself while dragging your
students into a language inquiry about the synonym and the opposite of those words. If those words are verbs ask
them whether they are regular or irregular verbs. Invite them to define a regular and an irregular verb. Give them
the verbs in the past and ask them to give you their present and vice versa. Encourage them to share any word in
English that represents the past or the present (adverb of time). Ask the student to mimic any action verb or
mimic yourself an action verb and ask them to guess the verb and then spell it. Play with them the game of
reading lips. Invite them to look at your lips and guess the word that you are saying without a sound. Let some
students come to the board and do the same with any word they know in English for the rest of the class to guess.
Explore with your students the classroom where you will spend most of your time when together. Identify and
name every angle and item in the classroom including chairs, desk, tables, board, door, window, ceiling , floor,
walls and school supplies if any. Try to insert any significant rules about the classroom and how you want it to
be. Pay attention to everything they say and keep eye-contact when addressing them. Try to memorize their
names as quickly as possible and use their names when addressing them. Let them trust you and feel that you
truly care about them. Talk to them with respect to earn their respect. Ask them about the kind of sports (rules,
number of players and name of the best player) they like, countries they want to visit and their favorite flags
(colors and shapes), languages they want to learn and master, food they prefer to eat and subject they want to
study.

Engage your students in the world of numbers and all about numbers moving from cardinal (1, 2 3…..,) to
ordinal (1st,2nd, 3rd,........) to odd (3, 5, 7,...) and to even (2,4,6,8…) numbers. Add the signs of calculation like
plus(+), minus(-), times(x) and into(/) to create some fun and challenges. Tease their brains with some Math
symbols like equals =. Not equals (≠) less than(<) , greater than (>), element of or belongs to (∈), not element of
or doesn’t belong to (∉) and infinity (∞). Refresh their memory about lines and shapes and let them identify and
name any line and shape they see in their classroom.

As a final thought, I must say that throughout the ORAL DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT, teachers will not only
pinpoint students strengths and weaknesses in their language speaking and listening skills in terms of
pronunciation, structure, words order, wealth of vocabulary and intonation but also will learn a lot about students
as individuals when it comes to their social skills, behavior and level of respect towards themselves and others.
Plus, such sessions can be used as a foundation to establish a strong trust and a path of communication to draft
and craft the WRITTEN DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT coming ahead.

Yazid Rabahi M.ED.