Roger Alejandro Chaves Cuaran

University of Antioquia
School of Languages

Assessment procedure

Context:

Level I French students (7 students) of the Multilingua program have been studying the

language for about 4 months. During this time, they learned about greetings, pronunciation

rules, how to conjugate verbs, verb tenses like the present, the past, and the future. Also,

most used vocabulary such as weekdays, months of the year, numbers, family members,

city places, professions, adjectives, prepositions, among others, and grammatical rules such

as the use of articles and the formation of male and female adjectives. The students are

already going to finish the level and as part of the evaluation of the course they must carry

out a final project called "my ideal neighborhood". This project will allow the teacher to

evaluate the students' achievement and make a diagnosis, to verify their strengths and

weaknesses.

ASSESSMENT TASK: MY IDEAL NEIGHBORHOOD

Final oral project (25 %)

As a final project you should make the representation of your ideal neighborhood. This

project has two stages and each one will be carried out in a different session.

In the first stage you must be very creative to build a model of your neighborhood (see

annex 1), including the most important places (hospitals, churches, shopping centers,

schools, etc.). For its realization, you must bring to the class the necessary materials such as

(a large piece of black card, printed templates of buildings provided by the teacher, glue,
 Roger Alejandro Chaves Cuaran
University of Antioquia
School of Languages
colored pencils, scissors, and markers). The creation of this model will be important for the

development of the second stage.

Click here to download the templates

(Annex 1)

For the second stage you must prepare good arguments to convince a French family to

settle in your neighborhood. For this you must consider the following context:

“A French family moves to Medellin and is looking for a neighborhood to live in. Fabrice

is the head of the household and is a recognized doctor, and his wife Pauline is a successful

lawyer who plans to set up her own office in the city of Medellin. This couple has three

children, Adrien, a 20-year-old young man who is currently studying medicine,

Maximilien, a 15-year-old boy who is in his third year of college (ninth year), and Camille,

a 7-year-old girl who is going to hardly enter primary school. This family is looking for a

quiet and comfortable place where they can do many things, such as shopping, playing

sports, exercising, and where they can work and study”.

Given the family description, you must convince them to settle in your neighborhood

explaining why yours is the best option for living. For this stage, the model of your
 Roger Alejandro Chaves Cuaran
University of Antioquia
School of Languages
neighborhood will be used to show the family the places it has. The audience will play the

role of the family; therefore, you must be very strategic to convince them.

Rubric

For your presentation the following criteria will be used to evaluate your speaking skill.
After each presentation I will meet with each student to talk about their strengths and the
aspects that should be improved, if any.

Student name:

Descriptor Comments Points

Visual aids
The student uses creative visual elements
(model of his neighborhood) in his
presentation.
10 points
Speaks clearly
Speaks clearly and distinctly all (100-
95%) the time and mispronounces no
words.
10 points
Vocabulary
Uses vocabulary appropriate for the
audience, that is, the one learned during
the course.
10 pints
Use of complete sentences
Always (99-100% of time) speaks in
complete sentences.
10 points

Volume
Volume is loud enough to be heard by all
audience members throughout the
presentation.
10 pints

Total score and grade

 Roger Alejandro Chaves Cuaran
University of Antioquia
School of Languages
Explanation of the 9 stages in the language assessment procedure

1. Set the purpose(s): As explained in the context, the main purpose of this assessment

procedure is to evaluate the achievement and make a diagnosis of the strengths and

weaknesses of the students.

2. Define language knowledge (construct): This assessment procedure will assess the

speaking skill, which includes four main elements. (Vocabulary, grammar,

pronunciation, and fluency).

3. Select the instruments, procedures, or tools: The way the teacher will evaluate

will be through an oral project. This project was designed to motivate students to

learn, since the teacher awakened the student’s curiosity through elements linked to

their reality. It also promotes creativity, as students must implement all possible

strategies and ideas to develop a product.

4. Design items and tasks: The oral project task is designed to implement the

productive skill (speaking). This will be an oral presentation, where each student

must present to their peers the illustration of their neighborhood and give

convincing arguments that this is a good option to live.

5. Determine ways of administration: The assessment procedure will be administered

in the classroom and will be evaluated using a rubric as an individual assessment

format.

6. Check quality of the language sample: To check the quality of the students'

speaking ability, the teacher will use a rubric to make explicit the expected results

and the performance criteria to be evaluated.

 Roger Alejandro Chaves Cuaran
University of Antioquia
School of Languages
7. Assess quality of the procedure: This assessment procedure has good quality

because it includes some evidence of Validity and Reliability:

Regarding Validity, this assessment procedure is valid because it assesses what is

intended to assess (speaking skill). Also, it includes content Validity because the use

of topics seen in the course will be evaluated. Students in their presentation should

describe their neighborhood, therefore they should make use of vocabulary of places

in town and adjectives. They should also locate their neighborhood so they should

make use of prepositions. And finally, they should give explanations, making use of

expressions such as “because, for this reason, etc.”. The vocabulary to perform the

presentation was worked during the course and students can already use it.

With respect to reliability, this assessment procedure doesn’t present drawbacks.

Although students develop the task autonomously, there is constant monitoring of

the teacher because the preparation of the presentation will be done in the class,

therefore students can ask questions to the teacher or ask suggestions. In addition,

the professor proposed a significant activity for the students to motivate them to

complete it, they will talk about their own neighborhood and not about things far

from the reality.

On the other hand, the teacher understands that the length of this assessment

procedure is too much, and it is possible that students do not spend enough time to

do the task properly because they also have other subjects and activities to do in

their academic program. For this reason, the professor proposed carrying out the
 Roger Alejandro Chaves Cuaran
University of Antioquia
School of Languages
assessment procedure in two sessions, one to make the model of the neighborhood

and the other to make the presentation. This allows students to have similar results

because they all had the same conditions, that is, they invested the class time in

creating and preparing the presentation.

8. Interpret results: The interpretation of the results will be based on the context of

the students. As the apprentices are students at the University of Antioquia, they

have other subjects to study and time to invest. This may influence the quality of the

students' production, such as the preparation of the presentation.

9. Report results: The results will be reported in the form of dialogue between the

teacher and the student, and they will talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the

student and the teacher will give you feedback for the student to improve the aspects

in which he still has difficulty.