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Assessment

Welcome to the April electronic newsletter of the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center!

The theme of this issue is assessment: self-assessment for you, the assessment of students, creating assessments, and assessment as a national focus in education today. The federal legislation, No Child Left Behind, ensures that assessment will continue to be a focus in this nation's schools.

May the spring season greet you with renewed enthusiasm for teaching, learning, and growing professionally

Cindy Kendall, Newsletter Editor
Marcia Rosenbusch, Director, National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center

Next issue: The Special-Needs Student in the Foreign Language Classroom

Focus on Our Alumni and Assessment at the Teacher Level
Ankeny (IA) elementary French and Spanish teacher Jeanette Borich shares how her participation in the Assessment institute has impacted her classroom. From journals and rubric to home assessment tasks, Jeanette is incorporating authentic and alternative assessments in the elementary classroom and keeping parents aware of what is happening in the second language classroom. In March 2003 Jeanette presented a session with colleague Staci Mayer at the Central States Conference (CSC) in Minneapolis, MN: Curriculum Mapping: Improving Curriculum Communication. Read more about Jeanette and view her CSC Powerpoint presentation.

Focus on K-12 Foreign Language Assessment at the Classroom and District Level
Performance-based assessments encourage students to demonstrate their command of the target language through the three modes of communication: interpretative, interpersonal, and presentational. New Jersey has their World Languages Framework online and included online is an Assessments Appendix in PDF format that you may find useful in creating your own performance-based assessments. Additional assessments from New Jersey teachers are also available, along with many other resources for foreign language educators.

Focus on K-12 System Assessment
No Child Left Behind has increased demands on schools and school districts to use data as a form of assessment on a variety of topics. Data-driven decision making is the process of collecting, analyzing, and reporting data to demonstrate that classroom, school, and district practices are resulting in increased student learning. This month we send you to 3D2Know, a site developed by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). With publications, tools, case studies, and presentations, this site can help you and your district understand and implement data-driven decision making in your school. CoSN has partnered with Educational Testing Service (ETS), International Business Machines (IBM) and SAS to develop this resource, so return to this site for future developments. As foreign language educators, it is in our profession's best interests to become aware of the educational policies that will impact foreign language programs directly or indirectly.

Focus on K-12 Foreign Language Assessment at the National Level
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) now contains a Foreign Language Assessment. The NAEP is the test that provides the data for the report commonly referred to as the "nation's report card." The foreign language assessment will be field tested in fall of 2003 and administered in fall of 2004 on the national level.

Elementary Foreign Language Assessment Workshop April, 2003
With support from the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center, researchers at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), in collaboration with elementary school foreign language educators, have developed two valid assessment instruments for assessing the listening comprehension and oral language proficiency skills of young learners. The Early Language Listening and Oral Proficiency Assessment (ELLOPA) is used with students in Grades preK-2 and the Student Oral Proficiency Assessment (SOPA), with students in Grades 2-6. Student performance on the developmentally appropriate and enjoyable tasks and interactions in an interview format are rated using rubrics based on the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. A two-day workshop on the ELLOPA and SOPA was held at the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in Washington DC on April 13-14, 2003. This workshop offered hands-on training in the administration and rating of both instruments. Click here for more information on the performance assessment initiative.

Technology Tip
Students often use word processing technology now. One tool for teachers in Microsoft Word is the "Track Changes" feature. When reading an electronic version of a Word document, by activating the Track Changes tool the teacher can insert comments and text directly into the document. This feature can be found under the "Tools" file menu, and activated by clicking on "Track Changes". A second tool is the "Insert Comments" feature. Located under the "Insert" file command, and activated by clicking on "Insert Comment", the reader can add his thoughts to a document without interrupting the original text. (NOTE: Do you have great tip that makes your work easier? Send it to Cindy Kendall, Editor.)

Featured Websites of the Month
The websites featured this month have tools that will enable you or your students to easily create custom rubrics. Rubistar has wizards to help you create and customize rubrics in multiple languages, save and analyze rubrics and data online, and access specific curriculum and skill rubrics. Rubistar is free, and is written and supported by the High Plains Regional Technology in Education Consortium (HPT*TEC), the same organization that provides TrackStar, Web Worksheet Wizard, Project Based Learning Checklists and other web-based tools. Teach-nology has multiple rubric generators that allow you to customize rubrics by entering text into an online form. The generators are free, but membership levels are also available that provide access to additional services. Teach-nology is a for-profit educational website.

Memories of Iowa
This month we bring you a different view of Iowa, one from the perspective of a great American artist. Iowan Grant Wood is recognized as one of America’s outstanding regional painters. His American Gothic (owned by the Art Institute of Chicago), painted in Cedar Rapids in 1931, is one of the most recognizable images in Western art. This brief biography reveals that Grant Wood was also a public school teacher, an Army camouflage painter, and founder of The Stone City Art Colony near Anamosa, Iowa. The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art has many of Wood's works online. Enjoy the unique and truly Iowan perspective of Grant Wood.

Subscription Information

You received this electronic newsletter because you are an alumni of an activity associated with the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, email us at nflrc@iastate.edu with the subject line "remove alumni connection."

This Newsletter was prepared with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education under Title VI grant #P229A020023. The publication of products and website URLs in this newsletter is provided for informational purposes only and does not imply an endorsement by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center, Iowa State University, or the positions or policies of the U. S. Department of Education.