This presentation aims to: 1) explain assessment and testing in language learning; 2) list and describe course activities that are assessed / tested; 3) describe scoring guides and explain why and how they are used; 4) explain how scores pegged to 6 levels are then converted to A-F grades.

You can find related information in the basic course description. Full "professional" versions of the national language proficiency standards are available on the website of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Our course materials (on your disk, in the "media" folder, and via this link) include short versions of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Information about assessment in the Oregon University System (OUS) is available at [link to come - in the meantime, here is a document from our course site]. Information about curriculum and assessment in Portland Public Schools is available at [link to come - in the meantime, here is a document from our course site]. Information about curriculum and assessment at PSU is available from the PSU Center for Academic Excellence [link to come]. You can also tour a more advanced presentation that Dr. Fischer gives to graduate students and teaching assistants. He also teaches an entire graduate course about language assessment.

Basic principles:

1) Students are smart. If it's not on the test, they won't waste time and effort learning it. (That's a slight distortion; some of you truly love learning language, almost all of you love learning something.) So if we preach it, we teach it. If we teach it, we test it. If we test it, we grade it. (And vice versa all the way back through that chain: we don't grade what we don't teach.)

2) But students sometimes don't understand what they are being asked to learn, and how it is being taught and assessed. Often they come to us with inaccurate or even totally wrong expectations and preconceptions about learning, teaching, and assessing.

3) Assessing ≠ Testing. Examples: a) Teacher gives no test, but assesses language improvement by frequent objective observation. This is valid, but troubles some learners. b) On the other hand, a test that does not measure what should be measured is not a valid assessment, even though some students may "like" it.

4) It can be useful to assess other features than improvement in language skills, for example how you learn and study, and whether that is compatible with efficient language learning.

5) Precision is not necessarily the same as accuracy. "Today the temperature is -241.873 degrees." That is precise, but almost certainly not accurate. "You're in fairly good health." That may be accurate, but it is not precise. That level of accuracy, however, may be all that is necessary.

Course goals in relation to assessment, testing, etc.

The fundamental goal is the acquisition of "proficiency" or "communicative competence" (see Fischer Cameo #1). So we test and grade for proficiency; most of the emphasis is on speaking and writing, but we also assess reading and listening skills and (not yet for a grade) acquisition of "cultural competence".

1) You'll have as many as three individual oral tests each quarter, and possibly a non-counting practice oral test. Oral tests, all together, will count for about 25% of your grade. Here is an example of an oral test from a previous year.

The "gold standard" of assessing speaking skills is the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). Your oral tests are miniature versions of the OPI. (Here is an advanced presentation about the OPI.)

2) You'll have as many as three writing tests each quarter, and possibly a non-counting practice writing test. Writing tests, all together, will count for about 25% of your grade. The writing tests do NOT focus on trvial details of the kind that are described in this sound clip. Here is an example of a writing test from a previous year. Note the term: WRITING test; we test your skill in writing German. A WRITTEN test can be about just anything, for example the names of the places shown in the Wie, bitte? photo collection. But we won't have such a test.

IMPORTANT: Study for the kind of test you will be taking, not the kind of test you thought you would be taking, or the kind of tests people you know have taken in their language courses. You can do very well on the oral tests by mastering the dialogs - NOT just by memorizing them, but by being able to use their language in similar situations. The language of the dialogs is also quite sufficient for doing well on writing tests, although of course you have to be able to write the words capably, not just say them.

3) You will do as many as three personal projects each quarter. Projects, all together, will count for about 25% of your grade. Here is an example of a project, from near the end of GER 102. You can even look at an actual work sample (0049) for that project; it received the grade of C+.

IMPORTANT: Your language proficiency and its improvement are measured by comparison to an objective standard and performance profile, NOT by the number of mistakes you make.

4) Kontext assignments of various kinds count for about 20% of your grade. They will be introduced a few weeks into the course. The purpose of these assignments is not only to increase your language learning, but also to monitor your activity - to see that you are steadily "on task" - and to see where we need to add more support to the learning. Therefore the assessment of them will emphasize compliance - are you trying?! - as well as learning outcomes.

5) The first few "intake" assignments (email instructor, take placement test, etc.) count for no more than 5% of your grade.

6) Instructors may choose to raise or lower a grade SLIGHTLY to reflect attendance (or absence) and participation (or lack of it). But the tests themselves reward or penalize attendance and participation; we teach what we test, and we test what we teach. If you're not there when we teach it, when we do test it you may wish you had been there when we taught it.

Common question: "Will we have grammar tests?" Short (precise!) answer: No. More accurate answer: Our tests assess your competence in German grammar, but you probably won't notice how it happens. Furthermore: You will NOT have tests that involve filling in blanks with verb endings, etc. But we will be able to measure such things, and our scoring guides show how we do it. A later "cameo" presentation will talk about what grammar is and how to learn it. Here is a poor fellow who was forced to memorize the patterns of German grammar, and probably was tested on his ability to recite them; he has no real proficiency in German.

Nor will your tests require you to parrot phrases that you have memorized but do not understand.

Nor will your tests ask you to translate English into German, or German into English.

Most people adapt readily to the writing tests. Some people can worry a lot about the oral tests. We will practice for them in class, and the instructors will not put unnecessary pressure on you. More important here are some cautions about how you take your oral tests. On these tests, as on other tests, we are NOT simply counting errors. We are NOT simply checking your pronunciation, without caring what you are trying to communicate. So there is no advantage in saying as little as possible, and perhaps falling back on simple answers like "Ja" or "Ich weiß nicht" to anything - as the one fellow does in this movie clip.

About Scoring Guides

All tests, projects, and Kontext assignments, and most other activities, are evaluated with scoring guides (or "rubrics"). We do not arbitrarily assign point values to questions and then plot total scores on a bell curve. The is no quota on A, B, C, D, or F grades.

Most of the time you will be able to see the scoring guide ahead of time. Your activity will be returned to you with the scoring guide for it marked by your instructor. Most of the time you can revise your work, including tests, for rescoring and adjustment of your grade.

Scoring guides have two main features: 1) They rate performance according to one or, most often, more key features, which are compared to performance descriptions of various quality levels. 2) They are keyed to a level of adequate performance so that teacher and learner can know when they can go on to new learning with reasonable comfort.

Behind this idea is the fundamental notion that the educational system tries to bring along as many people as possible, adding more learning where it is needed, rather than serving mainly as a filter to select the elite after all learners have been given the same amount of seat-time instruction. This does not mean "dumbing down" the learning; the instructor sets a standard, and the teaching attempts to help everyone meet it, sooner or later. Think about how the system of driving tests works: If you don't pass the test the first time, you take it over until you do, and most people eventually do pass it. (Of course there are other standards and other tests to become a winning driver at the Indy 500.)

Optional activity: generating a scoring guide for a birthday cake (the frosting, the placement of the candles, …); for the song that is sung when the cake is presented (tempo, harmony, customized verses). Of course, scoring guides should be keyed to the group of learners / performers (a child helps bake a cake; an expensive chef bakes a cake).

Scoring guides often use a 6-level system; that is very common in K-12 and is now being used more often in post-secondary.

6 = exemplary (teacher runs down the hall and brags about the work; saves it forever)

5 = outstanding (teacher knows that this learner needs very little help and could likely do 6 work)

4 = SUFFICIENT (learner will likely succeed with new learning but is not setting the world on fire)

3 = almost sufficient (learner can become 4 with some serious effort and a little help from teacher)

2 = clearly deficient (learner can become 4 with a whole lot of effort and serious help from teacher)

1 = unacceptable, or "starting" (for whatever reason, this activity shows almost no new learning)

NOTE: 5 is not halfway between 6 and 4, but instead ALMOST 6; similarly with 3 (almost 4)

Let's look at the scoring guide for Assignment 1, Email your instructor in German.

Focus questions:

1) Why is the "on-time" factor so strict at the 6 level, and yet trails off lower down, with a week separating the scores of 2 and 1?

2) Why can you get a 4 (sufficient) on factor 4 even if you don't successfully send the German special characters?

Here's a Scoring Guide for reading aloud a Wie, bitte? dialog. It will probably be used on some oral tests.

Now a SG for a larger activity later in the course: your "Dream Trip" project.

Focus questions:

1) Why is "on-time" less important in these activities than on Assignment 1?

2) Why do we have the factor "appeal for support", and why is it worth 15%, but only 15%?

Calculating total score on SG: multiply each column by its assigned percentage; add the results.

Conversion of 6 levels of Scoring Guides to 5 levels of A-F letter grades

First: Consider the "extra-program" or "extra-institutional" incomprehensibility of A-F grades on transcripts: Who knows how does a B in Biology 101 at PCC compares to a B in Biology 101 at University of Oregon? Scoring guides, by contrast, give an absolute picture that can be understood elsewhere. And our SGs are linked to the fundamental standards, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. (example: Last project of GER 103, "German and My Occupation / Major"

Thought question #1: If you were an employer doing staff evaluations, and were using the 6-level SG (exemplary, outstanding, etc.), what would you do about your people in the various levels? Where give the raise? Where fire? If the economy is flush? If your company needs to streamline? How would that convert to ABCDF in your real-world business?

Thought questions #2: What grade did your high school class in X give to someone who was, say, "sufficient" (=could take the next course in the sequence without great pain)? What about the other SG levels? (Hint: look at the "almost" or "nearer" feature.)

Now let's look at the actual conversion for GER 10X at PSU.

So if your A1 gets a "3" on on-time, perfect elsewise - what are your score and grade?

Final thought question: In your other courses, whether in high school, at PSU, or elsewhere, have you been given a similar explanation about course goals, teaching and learning, assessment, tests, scoring, and grading?

Questions and comments? Email Dr. Fischer