Computer Aided Assessment in Spanish Grammar

Computer Aided Assessment in Spanish Grammar for AS and A-Levels.

Introduction

 “The ability to use language grammatically correctly is a key component and an integral part of effective communication in the target language (TL)”  Pachler and Field (2001).

 As part of my studies into using online resources for teaching Spanish, I investigated the potential for using Computer Aided Assessment in helping AS and A-level students to learn grammar.  In this article, I discuss some of the merits of this type of assessment and some of its limitations and provide students with some websites that I hope you might find useful in getting to grips with grammar!

 The teaching and learning of grammar is possibly the area which poses the greatest challenge to the teacher and student of Modern Foreign Languages.  The teacher’s perception is often that a lot of “Presentation”  and “Practice” has taken place but that students are struggling to reach the stage of “Performing”. Students can feel similarly frustrated and sometimes do not see the purpose of learning grammar. This can lead to decreased motivation for the learner as they grapple with knowing whether they are acquiring the knowledge and skills required.  The student of AS and A- level Spanish is required to study grammar to an advanced level:

“In the examination they will be required to use actively and accurately grammar and structures appropriate to the tasks set ….” AQA syllabus 2007-08 (Appendix 1)

Research supports the need for repetition and shows us that grammar is not usually acquired as a sequential process:

 “Research findings …challenged the traditional grammar-based course by suggesting that learners acquired particular structures in an order which was psychologically determined but not susceptible to explicit instruction.  Acquisition took place in stages and the notion that a learner had fully acquired a structure after a period of instruction was naive.  Learning did not occur in linear and progressive fashion but was an organic process characterised by backsliding, leaps in competence, interaction between grammatical elements etc.”   Heafford M (1990)

 The fact that online learning lends itself to being non-linear and allows for “backsliding” would seem to suggest that it has huge potential in relation to the learning of grammar.

 The typical student of AS and A-level is one who has recently left compulsory education and so is young and possesses competent ICT skills.  Experience has shown that the implementation of online learning in the development of the curriculum has been extremely successful for this group of learners which is a further reason why the use of CAA in the teaching of grammar has great potential.

Teaching Grammar

 There are many definitions of the word grammar but the one most relevant to mfl teachers would seem to be “pedagogical grammar” which focuses on language teaching, the design of schemes of work and the production of resources.  As a language teacher, it is always difficult to achieve the right balance between accuracy and meaning.  For higher level studies it is important that students study grammar and work towards using accurate language forms.  Brian Page (1990; 103-4) stresses the importance of grammar:

 “Correct grammar, like pronunciation, serves a social function.  It tells the world something about what sort of person we are in the same way as our clothes, our lifestyle, and the newspaper we read”

 It could be argued that rather than inhibit communication, the ability to recognise and understand linguistic patterns and use grammar appropriately can aid the speaker in their communication.  The use of grammar helps the student in the use of the TL and really needs to be taught explicitly.  Learners do not tend to spend sufficient time listening to the TL to just acquire grammar incidentally.  Pachler and Field (2001: 130-32) suggest four stages of grammatical awareness and learning:

1. Input
2. explanation
3. habit-forming
4. communicative application

I have found that it is most effective to teach grammar directly but within the context of a topic and to come back to that area of grammar several times during the teaching of different themes i.e. little and often.

 It is important  that when using ICT to support grammar learning that it is enjoyable and non-threatening, that it allows students to make mistakes and gradually learn from this. Students may be more likely to have a go even if they make errors “in private” than they would be in the classroom.

 Input

 There are two main approaches here.  The inductive approach is where linguistic structures are introduced through examples from which to develop rules and the deductive approach where the learner is given a grammatical rule or pattern followed by examples before putting it to use.

Input relates to selecting the right materials for student so that from early on, students are learning grammatical concepts and rules that are transferable and so can be used again.  Some students find grammar very difficult to understand and it is therefore important to select material that is quite simple and easily understood by all.  This is an important consideration when selecting e-learning resources.

 Explanation

 Formal grammar teaching and explanations must be selected carefully so that they do not compromise exposure to the TL i.e. the teacher must ensure that too much time is taken up with complicated explanations in English so that students don’t have opportunity to hear Spanish.  Pachler (1999: 102) when writing about teaching mfl in schools suggests that we can teach grammar through:

• focussing pupils’ attention on noticing new structure;
• providing activities to use new and old structures to formulate personal meaning and
• assisting learners to reflect on learning and their own use of language

Habit –forming

 Students need to continue to practise grammatical structures so that they become automatic and the student has a sense of whether something sounds or feels correct.  This stage is important to reach for AS level students where accuracy is required.  Examples of this in Spanish might be the differentiation of the use or Por and Para, the use of Ser and Estar or the use of the subjunctive tense.

 Communicative stage

This is the stage where students are able to “use” grammatical rules to communicate i.e. they have the knowledge and confidence to communicate using correct grammatical forms and are able to correct errors they make.  It is important at this stage that they receive feedback about errors they make.

 Principles of Assessment

 In order to use CAA effectively in language teaching, it is important to consider how it is to be integrated in such a way that it enhances the existing assessment process. Mackenzie (2003) recognises the importance of CAA being seen as an additional assessment tool:

“Computer-based assessment should not be considered as a complete replacement for all other methods of assessment, …”

 It is also vital to consider the role of assessment and how it is inextricably linked to teaching and learning. As Atherton states:

“It is the use of assessment which makes teaching into teaching.  Mere presentation without assessment of what the learners have made of what you have offered them-is not teaching.  Assessment should not therefore be seen as a discrete process, but as integral to every stage of teaching, from minute to minute as much as module to module.”

 For learners, assessment enables them to see the progress they are making and areas where further study may be required.  For teachers,  it allows access to  on-going information as to  whether students are progressing according to the learning goals (formative), to identify whether students are struggling with aspects of learning (diagnostic) and to measure learning against more formally set criteria set by external bodies (summative and certification).  Assessment or the results of assessment is also used in a wider context to judge the effectiveness of institutions and the educational system as a whole (evaluative / quality control).  Assessment is designed  to have the purpose of improving learning through exerting a positive force on the curriculum.  It should provide an open channel of communication between teacher and learner.

 “Assessment opportunities need to reflect learning objectives, which in turn reflect the statutory framework and examination specifications (formally syllabuses) and not a bolt on.  The answer to the question what to assess is therefore, to be found in lesson, unit of work and scheme-of-work plans.  Planning needs to take place with assessment in mind.” Pachler and Field. (2001)

 When teaching modern foreign languages, the teacher needs to ensure that assessment relates clearly to the leaning objectives and aims to assess receptive (listening and reading) and expressive (speaking and written) language skills. It is therefore necessary to use multiple instruments rather than relying on a single measure and t ensure that they are of high quality. The following principles cited by Pachler & Field (2001) need to be applied:

Assessment should:

• Be an integral part of teaching and learning and follow from curricular objectives
• Inform future teaching and learning
• Provide useful information about the progress, achievement an attainment of pupils to relevant parties
• Involve the learner in the process
• Come at regular intervals to provide a critical mass of data to validate judgements and to motivate the learner
• Consist of a variety of methods to make data more reliable; and
• Be manageable

There are a number of concepts within assessment that also need to be considered.  Firstly, the teacher needs to ensure that assessment is valid; the extent to which assessment opportunity measures what has been taught and relating to the specified learning objectives.  The teacher needs to ensure that the assessment used can accurately measure progress and attainment i.e. that it is reliable.  From the perspective of informal assessment, it is not usually possible to make sure that assessment instruments are statistically reliable but by using tools that are objective, the teacher can ensure the greatest reliability.  It should be objective enough to allow for reliability across different assessors.  Validity and reliability are an essential part within the assessment of modern foreign languages.

 In terms of developing new CAA resources for the teaching of Spanish AS & A- levels, the focus will be on Formative assessment which are those which aid learning through giving feedback and measuring progress. Summative assessment which measures achievement at the end of the course, is devised by the exam board and teachers therefore have little input into its design.  Formative assessment is a vital component to the teaching and learning of languages as the retention of previous learning, particularly in relation to grammatical structure can be a challenge for even the most able of learners. These formative assessments could be described therefore as “informal” but it should be noted that:

 “The term informal assessment is not intended to connote anything that is unplanned, spur of the moment or casual.  It refers to assessment that is conducted by an educator for the specific purpose of facilitating learning.  It is informal in the sense that it does not involve standardised published procedures or administering, scoring and interpreting tests.  It depends for its success of educators constantly exercising professional judgements that is informed by an extensive array of principles and procedures”  Joseph Moran (1997).

 It is therefore essential that any of the assessment instruments devised, are carefully planned and used in such a way that they enable both students and teacher to gain a greater understanding of their learning. This will obviously be a time consuming task in the initial design stage: “developing high quality tests needs substantial time and resource” Gipps (2003) .Black and Wiliam (1998) advocate the use of short tests that are regularly used:

“Frequent short tests are better then infrequent long ones” Black and Wiliam

It would seem sensible therefore to aim to design a larger number of short tests both in terms of the initial investment of time & also to produce the best learning outcome.

 Feedback

One of the key ingredients in formative assessment is the feedback that the learner receives as without this element, they would learn very little:

Weedan, Winter and Broadfoot (2002) state:

 “..marking and feedback that informs and feeds forward into future work must be vital elements of teaching if we want to improve learning and raise standards for all pupils”.

 It is important that feedback be carefully structured and delivered in order to enhance learning.  Black and Wiliam (1998)state:

 “feedback to any pupil should be about the particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparisons with other pupils.”(Inside the Back Box: Raising standards through Classroom Assessment 1998)

 When designing CAA, the role and type of feedback needs to be carefully considered.  There would seem to be some clear advantages of the type of feedback offered by CAA:

 “the feedback can be immediate and equally detailed for students” MacKenzie (2003)

It is able to be entirely objective and therefore avoids prejudice.  However, in providing feedback which tends to be relaying the message correct / incorrect, it may lack the encouragement that a teacher could give or feedback about how to improve.  This point clearly demonstrates why CAA is one of a number of tools that a teacher uses.

 Computer Aided Assessment

 Examples of “input stage” activities

 a) For this task, learners are to use multiple choice and select the correct answer:

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/genoun1.htm

 listening to pronunciation http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/genoun1_l.htm

 For the tasks below, learners do the Quizzes in free activities and they find different ways to apply their grammatical knowledge about GENDER also they consolidate an understanding of the written word and get instant feedback.

Also, I have been working with adjectives and present Regular tenses (AR_ER_IR)

 Adjectives:

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/adj1.htm

 http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/adj2.htm

listening to pronunciation:

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/adj2_s.htm

 Present tenses–endings

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/regverb1.htm

listening to pronunciation: http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/regverb1_s.htm

 http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/regverb2.htm

listening to pronunciation: http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/regverb2_l.htm

 http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/regverb3.htm

listening to pronunciation: http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/regverb3_s.htm

 The use of ICT here is providing good models for learners, and ensuring that they are enjoying and using the right application.

 With the following activities I am providing opportunities for students to improve their grammar skills and receive feedback.  They are aiming to help learners to interpret or explain new verbs. One main objective is for students to apply previous knowledge to reinforce the future tense and preterite as follows:

 future;

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/future.htm

preterite(regular endings):

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/pret1.htm

listening to pronunciation:

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pret1_s.htm

 ser,ir,dar,hacer (irregular forms)

http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/pret2.htm

listening to pronunciation:

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pret2_s.htm

 I want to establish appropriate models for them using their Target Language. Learners concentrate on thinking such as analysing and looking for rules or patterns, asking for help or questions

 Examples of “habit-forming” tasks are as follows:

Ser and Estar

http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/rgshiwyc/school/curric/Spanish/SerEstar/index.htm

 Por and Para

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/exercises/por_para.html

 Present Subjunctive

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/exercises/subj_pres.html

 Video-clip with exercises using preterit and imperfect

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/exercises/recepcionista/index.html

 Communicative stage

This is the stage where students are able to “use” grammatical rules to communicate i.e. they have the knowledge and confidence to communicate using correct grammatical forms and are able to correct errors they make.  It is important at this stage that they receive feedback about errors they make.

 Some examples of tasks are as follows:

 Comparing the different uses between preterite and imperfect;

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/pretimp1.htm

with pronunciation exercises.

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pretimp1_s.htm

part2:

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/pretimp2.htm

pronunciation; http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pretimp2_l.htm

 part3:

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/pretimp3.htm

pronunciation:

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pretimp3_l.htm

review with Latin American and Spanish pronunciation:

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/pretimp4.htm

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pretimp4_s.htm

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/exercises/pretimp4_l2.htm

 also the present perfect:

http://www.studyspanish.com/practice/presperfect.htm

 students here make the best use of the web-based internet activities which enables rapid and dynamic feedback ,  Another website we use and was very successful was :

 http://www.espanol-extra.co.uk/

on the left hand side (top corner) there are several grammar activities were students enjoy playing flash games . Students apply their knowledge and have to be accurate in order to gain access to the next activity.