1. My weekend

Please click on the toggles below to navigate through information on this assessment task and reveal the links for downloading task materials.

Task details

Task details
Name of oral assessment task	My weekend
EAL curriculum level range	A1, A2, BL, B1, B2, CL, C1, C2
Text orientation	Informative
Task type	Listening and responding/interaction and negotiation

Task specification

Task specification
Purpose	To assess students’ ability to discuss the things they did on the weekend
Description	Students take part in a discussion with the teacher about what they did the previous weekend. They are encouraged to ask the teacher about what he/she did on the weekend, and to plan what they would like to do on the next weekend. Students can also be asked what they will be doing on the following weekend.
Assumed knowledge and description	Content knowledge: familiarity with group discussion and writing of simple formulaic recounts of their weekend activities Text type, genre: informal discussion, recount of activities Linguistic structures and features: use of simple past tense to talk about past activities subject-verb-object sentences simple future: I will, I want to use of action verbs to describe everyday activities use of time phrases: in the morning, afternoon, evening, on Saturday, on Sunday; time conjunctions: next, after that Vocabulary: Common out-of-school activities and places visited; days of the week, morning, afternoon, evening; pronouns: I, we, they, she, he; names of family members: my dad, my mother; names of friends.

Learning/teaching context

Learning/teaching context
Language centre/mainstream class	EAL support
Learning area	English
Topic/teaching unit	Everyday activities
Assessment conditions	Individual or pair discussion, or discussion with the teacher Formal/informal: informal, spontaneous speech Time limit: around 5 minutes Teacher intervention: The teacher can repeat, or rephrase questions, prompt students to confirm what they are trying to say, or to provide sentence starters, but should make sure students have ample thinking time to frame their responses by themselves as much as possible. Access to resources: access to visual resources to assist students in the early stages Scaffolding (modelled/guided/independent support): modelled Accommodations: Some students may only be able to confirm or disagree with teacher suggestions of what they did, or can be shown pictures of activities as a prompt to the discussion.
Notes	Pre-assessment activities can be extended or reduced as appropriate for the learners.

Task implementation

Task implementation
STAGE	ACTION STEPS
Pre-assessment activity	Short, routine group discussion on what students did at the weekend The oral discussion can precede the Writing assessment task on this topic.
Assessment activity	Conduct a discussion with the students, using routine questions about their activities. Teachers may begin the discussion by telling the students what he/she did on the weekend, then encouraging students to ask questions Students then tell the teacher what they did on the weekend Students can also be asked about the coming weekend The teacher should encourage an interactive discussion, rather than just asking students questions, so the teacher should comment often on what students are saying to encourage them to add to what they are saying, and to ask the teacher questions too. Suggested prompt questions to encourage students to expand on their oral texts: What did you do on Saturday morning? That sounds like fun. What else did you do? I read books on Saturday afternoon. Did you read any books over the weekend? What did you read? Did you enjoy it? Why? Why not? Would you like to do that again next weekend? I watched TV, did you? When? What did you watch? Did you play with your friends? What did you play? Click to view the task sheet for this assessment task: My Weekend: Oral assessment task sheet [PDF] My Weekend: Oral assessment task sheet [Word].
Post-assessment activity	Students could complete writing Task 1 after the discussion Students could plan their activities for the following weekend, talk or write about what they would like to do.

Assessment criteria

TEAL Oral Task 1 – Unmarked criteria sheet [PDF]

TEAL Oral Task 1- Unmarked criteria sheet [Word]

An explanation of the purpose, nature and use of criteria sheets is available at 4. Using the assessment criteria.

Samples of student work

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Sample 4

Sample 5

Sample 6

Annotations and commentary

Purpose and value of task

This task assesses students’ abilities to talk about the activities they do in out of school contexts. Diary/journal writing and talking about what students do on the weekend or after school is a common way of encouraging students at early Stages of English language learning to communicate. This kind of recount also assists them to learn useful vocabulary sets such as the days of the week, times of the day and night, and the names of activities and pastimes. It also gives them experience in hearing and using the simple past and future tenses. At the earliest stages students often are given simple templates to structure their diary/journal writing, and they then use these formulaic sentences and phrases when talking about what they did. This task is related to TEAL Writing Task 1 My weekend.

Contextual information

The students in the samples had all had many experiences with talking and writing simply about their weekend and after school activities.

Commentary

The students are all at were able to communicate basic information about their weekend or after school activities, and were eager to tell the teacher what they had done. All students, except for Sample 6, are at early stages of English language development. They are mostly confident in being able to recount their activities, and to use formulaic language to talk about their weekends and to ask each other questions. Although the students vary a lot in age, their language skills are quite similar, with their reliance on formulas, and a range of well-known activities. The younger students also generally interact with greater engagement and spontaneity than the older students. They are all able to understand more than they can say, perhaps due to the fact that conversations around weekend activities commonly take place with students at these early levels. Sample 6 is included to show the contrast between the very earliest proficiency and later stages. Because a conversation about weekend activities does not really stretch students’ language skills beyond simple recounting, use of basic time markers, use of basic grammatical structures and well-known vocabulary, it is not really suitable as an activity for the later stages of English language acquisition.

Because a conversation about weekend activities does not really stretch students’ language skills beyond simple recounting, use of common time markers, use of basic grammatical structures and well-known vocabulary, it is not really suitable as an activity for the later stages of English language acquisition. Sample 6 is included to show the contrast between the very earliest proficiency and later stages, where students may competently take part in a discussion, but are not really given scope to display higher proficiency.