Formative Assessments: Vocabulary
Learning past tense endings has typically caused a great deal of frustration for students. This year I decided to try a different approach by providing an increased focus on meanings of the endings. I also decided to chunk the endings based on singular and plural instead of by verb type.
Singular
|
|
|
I noticed the same errors between both classes. The first confusion was the meaning of -ió: I or s/he. Second was the spelling change for "I ate lunch": -cé or -zé. Next was the confusion of -í: Present or past. I noted that the second class did not score nearly as well. Could this have had anything to do with the timing of the assessment? When students have assessments on the first day of the cycle, they tend to not do as well. I realized that both classes needed additional practice.
Plural
|
|
|
There was a marked improvement from the first to the second assessment. Of the students who still struggled, two had frequent absences. Two students came to me for reassurance, study tips and retake opportunities.
Do the students know the endings any better than before? Overall I have observed students being more "automatic", i.e. They have a better idea of what "sounds right". When we were changing the point of view of various texts and I would ask a tougher question, I would ask how they knew the answer. Most times I would get responses such as: "It sounds right" or "They always ends in an -n". It seems that breaking up the endings by singular and plural was helpful for students. In hindsight, I should have had an additional formative assessment when putting together the singulars and the plurals.