Formative Assessments: Class Stories (observation)
Providing compelling, comprehensible language in context is ALWAYS my goal. When I taught this unit in previous years, I used students as my characters or have simulated the steps of air travel; nonetheless I felt that those lessons were flat. This year I decided to use a compelling character: Donald Trump. The students were extremely motivated to find funny Donald Trump memes online to add to our stories. Who knew that Donald Trump would be my "hook"?
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I took Donald Trump through the air travel process - everything from arriving at the airport, checking in, checking bags, going through security, going to the gate and boarding the plane. At first, I provided the stories using the target past tense structures. After I observed that their level of understanding was 80% or better (determined by a combination of their responses and self-monitoring), I would teach the vocabulary, and the class would help me to construct a story. This process became a model for their final assessment. In addition I used the novelty of Hello Kitty/ Eva Air Airlines to "hook" them. For later class-created stories, the students chose to research the airline, the ticket costs, possible destinations and created interview questions for their characters.
I have mixed reactions about how I assess formatively. Since I know my students so well, I prefer to use observation of their reactions as my assessment. As a result, I wonder if I unintentionally miss some students. I struggle with not wanting to interrupt the organic flow of a story to assess more formally and that it depends on the group of students at that given point in time.