Summary of assessment

This assessment is used to measure the writing skills of students at the CLB 2 level. The subject of this assessment is the classroom and assesses students’ ability to share information by describing their class in written form. Students are required to write a few words to complete a short, guided text or answer simple questions to describe a personal situation to demonstrate this ability. This assessment involves two tasks. First, it asks students to identify items in an illustration of a classroom and write the names of the items in the blanks with their corresponding numbers. Second, it asks students to write a few sentences about their classroom.

This assessment provides a list of six criteria that measure ways that students should be able to demonstrate their writing skills and overall performance. Skill level is measured by indicating how many words students can identify and write the names of and by assigning a value to all of the criteria using a scale. The values on the scale consist of achieved (3 points), achieved with some difficulty (2 points), and not yet achieved (1 points). Success is determined by reaching a score of 16/22 or 73%.

Context

The classroom that I volunteer in has about 15 students who are newcomers to Canada. The students are of various ages and backgrounds. Students come from countries including Iraq, Syria, Burma, and Côte d’Ivoire. The L1s of these students include Kurmanji (Kurdish), Arabic, Burmese, and French. Many students have limited educational experience and some lack literacy skills in their L1s. Most students require visual references that include alphabet sheets, vocabulary cards with illustrations, and picture dictionaries to complete writing tasks. Some students require direct assistance in the classroom.

How the assessment fits this context

I would need to explain the criteria that will be used to assess the students’ writing skills If I were to use this assessment in the classroom that I volunteer in. I think that both of the tasks would be understood by the students. However, students might have trouble remembering all of the criteria in the assessment. The Canadian Centre for Language Benchmarks (2012) explains that students at this level can only follow short, simple instructions that are up to five words in length. As such, lists of instructions that are several sentences in length would be overwhelming to them and be beyond what they are required to understand at this level. I would approach this problem by first presenting and explaining the full list of criteria but I would concentrate on only a few points to avoid frustrating the students. However, I would include the other criteria in the list so that I could incorporate them in the feedback that I give to the students. I would then explain that future tests will include the other elements and suggest developing those skills as possible short-term goals.

I would also make a couple of adjustments to the assessment itself to better reflect the skill levels of my students.

In the first task, I would change the competency from sharing information to reproducing information. As such, it might be better to use each task individually as separate assessments since they would be used for different purposes. The Canadian Centre for Language Benchmarks (2013) states that students at the CLB 1 level are able to copy simple lists of words, so they are not yet at the level where they can remember lists of words and their correct spelling. I would keep the first task the same but allow students to use picture dictionaries. The students would identify the same items shown in their assessment sheets in the picture dictionaries. After finding the item, students would look for the written form under the illustration and then find the corresponding illustration and blank space on their assessment sheets where they would write the name of the item. written form and copy the spelling into the appropriate blanks on their assessment sheets. I would keep in mind that the students may be confused by the copying aspect of this task. For example, the word “book” may be identified by the number 2 in the picture dictionary while it is identified in the assessment by the number 8. As such, students might write the word “book” in blank number 2 on the assessment sheets. This would indicate a problem. A possible solution would be to have students use and refer to their vocabulary cards to minimize confusion caused by the differences in numerical labeling.

I would keep the second task the same but I would format it as a cloze activity where the students would fill in the blanks in a few sentences. These sentences would use grammatical forms that students have learned in class. The Canadian Centre for Language Benchmarks (2013) states that students at the CLB 1 level are able to complete 3-5 very short sentences that relate to immediate personal experience and needs. As such, since the classroom is a familiar place where students are building language skills that they will need to use in everyday situations, the subject of the task is personally relevant and reflects their needs as newcomers to Canada. The Canadian Centre for Language Benchmarks (2012) also specifies that this type of task should involve writing a few words to complete a short, guided text. I would provide students with a word bank that they could refer to in order to complete the sentences. The structure of the sentences would require students to enter vocabulary related to objects present in our classroom.

This assessment was created for students who are at the CLB 2 level and does not specify how it should be modified to support students who also need help with developing literacy skills. While this assessment fits the principles for assessments that are outlined in Brown and Lee (2015), the modifications required to use this assessment in my own context might change its suitability. As a result, I think it is important to look at these principles while evaluating how well this assessment fits my personal teaching context.

This assessment can be categorized as a criterion-referenced test because it is used to assess specific course objectives. It is practical because it can be administered to students and graded within a reasonable timeframe. These tasks meet the requirements for content validity because they require the students to perform the behaviours that are being measured. The sentence-writing task in the assessment fits the requirements for authenticity because asking students to write sentences about their classroom is something they could be asked to do in real life as a means of describing and sharing information. This assessment also fits the requirements for washback because it measures different features that should be present in the students’ writing. Each of these features is evaluated individually so that students receive feedback about what they do well and what they need to practice, which provides them with suggestions for creating personal learning goals.

This assessment could have issues with reliability and validity if it were used in my teaching context. It may be unreliable if the scoring criteria are unclear to the students, so I would have to explain all of the criteria that will be assessed in the rubric to make sure that students understand what they are expected to do and how they will be evaluated. This is important to ensure that all of the students can be graded in a consistent way, without needing to consider differences in understanding and their effects on performance as part of the assessment. The assessment also has issues with face validity because the students might not understand writing tasks like they are presented. Students lack familiarity with having to create sentences and lack knowledge of sentence forms and vocabulary that are needed to complete the second task in this assessment. Their understanding of writing skills and associated tasks is instead linked to writing words that are associated with illustrations and filling in the blanks to complete short sentences. As a result, the sentence writing task would lack face validity since its content does not reflect what learners are expected to achieve at this level. I would modify both the vocabulary identification and sentence writing tasks to make them reflect the types of writing exercises that the students are used to completing and fit their understanding of the types of tasks that involve writing skills. I want the students to view the test as an assessment that assesses what it claims to assess.


References

Butt, R. (2018). CLB 2 Writing Assessment: My Classroom (Publication No. 27331). Tutela. Retrieved January 31, 2019, from https://tutela.ca/Resource_27331.

Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. (2012). Canadian Language Benchmarks: English as a Second Language for Adults (Government of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada). Ottawa, ON: Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. Retrieved January 31, 2019, from https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/english/pdf/pub/language-benchmarks.pdf.

Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. (2013). Canadian Learning Benchmarks: Can Do Statements (Government of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada). Ottawa, ON: Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. Retrieved January 31, 2019, from https://www.ecala.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CLB_Can_Do_Statements_web.pdf.

Public Domain. (2018, February 23). Student Writing [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://clipart-library.com/clipart/10613.htm