Can-Do-Statements Self-Rating for Students

Posted by @ginlindzey on Twitter

Over the summer, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could incorporate the ACTFL Can-Do Statements in my teaching.  Our county has been really good about creating and providing us with rubrics to use this year, but I was really wanting a way to get students involved with the process before throwing the rubrics at them.

For my German 3/4 combo class this year, I decided we'd start looking at them during the first week.  Yesterday as a homework assignment, I gave students access to this Power Point.  In it are the various "I can..." statements found directly in the ACTFL guide.  If you'd like a copy of the Power Point I used, it's available here.

For each mode of communication, I explained what it meant (for example, I described interpersonal communication as conversations with other people, whether it be face-to-face or via text messages).  Students were then asked to pick the statement that best fit their ability level.  I qualified it as what they could do spontaneously, without notes or preparation, and without knowing what the topic was ahead of time. Using the blank form, they copied and pasted the phrase that best described them:

This is the blank form students needed to fill out

This is an example of what students read through for each level

I made of point of not including the proficiency levels (novice, intermediate, etc.).  I didn't want students to get bogged down by that and have pre-conceived notions like "Oh, I think I'm advanced so I'll automatically just pick from the orange blocks."

I asked students to only print out and bring in the slide where they copied and pasted in their levels.  I also made some paper copies of the Power Point for students who didn't have access to a computer, the internet or a printer.  The other students were able to get it directly from the class website.

When students brought them in today, we then talked about what the different colors and proficiency levels meant.  Note: Since some students don't have color printers, you should first give them a chance to identify the colors for each of the phrases they chose!  I described each level for them based on the slide below (which was not in the Power Point given to students).

These descriptions are in part based on the tweet above as well as the World Language Academy I attended this summer

Students had to identify which of these levels best describes them based on their choices.  Maybe they had some blues but most of what they had was green, putting them at the Intermediate Level.  They then identified the level on their "Ich kann..." sheet (in the blank box).  Be sure to tell students that since this is a self-rating, they may have rated themselves a little bit higher or lower than they actually are!

We also talked about where we should be by the end of each level of German (based on our county's goals):

The final part of this was goal-setting.  I gave each student two post-its and asked them to write a goals for the year.  I specified that one of the goals had to be related to the proficiency levels ("I want to move all areas into Intermediate" or "I want to move my writing abilities into Advanced").  The other one could be anything ("I want to get at least a B on all my quizzes," "I want to score at least a 4 on the AP test," or "I want to be able to speak better").  I hope this last activity will get the kids motivated for the year :)

- Frau Leonard

Speaking Rubrics

During the summer, I was fortunate enough to attend a World Language Academy run by ACTFL.  There was a lot of great stuff that I can't wait to start implementing and trying out this year (you can go through the Power Point presentation - it's available on their Wikispace).  One of those things would be some of the speaking rubrics they include (slides 157 and 158).

TALK Rubric (Shrum & Glisan)

The first rubric is a TALK rubric.  It's a really short rubric that makes it easy for you to quickly give students some feedback on their TL usage in class.  The letters stand for...

T = Target Language: During the activity, is the student speaking in the TL? 
A = Accuracy: Is Target Language use correct (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar)?  (I love that TL use and accuracy are separated!!)

L = Listens: Does the student listen to what his/her partner says and respond appropriately?  Is he/she actually trying to have a conversation or just saying random things?

K = Kind: If his/her partner needs help, does he/she help?  This could be by prompting with questions, modeling sentences, or helping with vocabulary.

As students are doing a communicative activity, you walk around and monitor a few students and complete the TALK rubric for them.  You can use symbols to make it clear how students did.  A check mark means they did amazing, a + means they did well but could improve, and a - means they need work (or whatever other symbols you might want to use instead).

Depending on class size, it's doubtful you'd get to all of them in one lesson.  Honestly, I think trying to hit every student in each activity would be too stressful for you as the teacher any way.  Pick a few students and give them feedback, then during the next day/activity pick some other students.  

I don't even plan on using these as a grade.  It's really more of a means for me to get an idea of how students are doing and to give them immediate feedback.  You just give each student back their strip and that's it!  They can see how well they're doing in the areas we're focusing on and where they need to work on. 

It's a great rubric for beginning learners and earlier in the unit.  I hope this will train students to keep an eye on how much German they're actually using in class.  If you're interested in a typed version, click here.


Scored Discussion Rubric

The other rubric they provided as a "Scored Discussion" rubric.  It's a little more detailed than the TALK rubric and could be used for an actual grade in addition to being a means of feedback.  On the left hand side it describes the lower end of what students might be doing.  On the right hand side is the upper end.  Basically, it moves from basic skills to where we want students to be.  In the middle is room to give students a grade in each category on a 1-5 scale.

What's great about it is it's so succinct.  Students get descriptions of both ends of the spectrum, but you don't need to put specific examples in for each point value.  Students see what a 1 and a 5 look like, and they understand that a 3 is between those two extremes.  I hope that it will give students something to strive for and help them focus on the areas they struggle most in.  If you'd like a typed version, click here.

I'm hopeful that these rubrics will make it easier for me to give students feedback on a regular basis.  It'd be great if they could use these to improve their confidence in speaking.

- Frau Leonard

Can-Do Statements

Today we had county-wide professional development workshops for World Language teachers.  Among the variety of things discussed, we looked at proficiency levels.  Our county is striving towards a huge shift in how we approach our classes - the goal is to no longer divide students into levels such as "German 1" and "German 2" and "German 2 Honors" but to instead divide students by their proficiency level.  While I like the idea of proficiency levels, I'm skeptical as to how effective this change will be (or how they would even begin to implement it).  But that's not really besides the point at the moment.

What they gave out to each of us was a copy of the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements.  Everything is divided first by the different skill (Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Speaking, Presentational Writing, etc.) and then by the proficiency level (Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, etc.).  What's great for teachers is that they list the benchmarks for everything.

My favorite part, however, are the "Can-Do" Statements.  For each skill and each proficiency level, they have a list of "I can" statements in the form of a checklist.

This is a great resource for students to better understand where they are in terms of proficiency levels, and I think something that will be a lot of help next year as we transition more and more into this system.  It helps both teachers and students find out where students rate with specific benchmarks.  There's an obvious difference between the levels, and it helps students see how they can improve.

I plan on using these statements with my level one and level two students this year as they do their end of the year portfolios.  I want to make copies of the appropriate levels for each class and have them try to determine where they are (I think it'll be really interesting to see if they rate themselves higher or lower than I would rate them).  Then I'm planning on have them find samples of their work from this year that show that they are at that level.  I haven't totally worked out the kinks yet, but that's what I have in mind so far.

At the beginning of next year I think it'll be a good starting activity for each level.  Students should analyze where they think they currently are in their language capabilities, then periodically throughout the year (most likely at the end of each quarter or around midterms and before finals) students could take another look at where they fall.  I hope this will be a way to encourage students, giving them a tangible way to measure their improvement.

If you're interested in a digital copy of the booklet, click here.

We also talked about "expected" proficiency levels - that is, where students should be at the end of each level as things are currently designed.  Here's how it breaks down:

When we actually looked at the benchmarks and can-do statements, though, several of my colleagues and I found that these expectations seem to be a little low.  I, for example, see my current German 1 students ranging from Novice Low to Novice High and my current German 2 students ranging from Novice High to Intermediate Mid.  AP teachers also felt that being Advanced Low by the end of an AP course is too low to be successful on the AP exam.

It's also a frustration of mine how these systems tend to reflect Spanish and French (in our county, they run French 1-4 and then take level 5 as an AP course) and not German, Latin or the other "minority" languages (in our county, there's German 1-3 and then German 4 is the AP course).  So for German or Latin, only getting to Intermediate Low by the end of level 3 and then expecting them to be Advanced Low by the end of their AP course the next year is much more of a jump than for students taking French or Spanish.

But when all is said and done, I'm looking forward to using proficiency levels with my students.

- Frau Leonard