[leannew]

We completed the ‘What did you have for Lunch?’ task with two EAL prep students. Both of these students came out somewhere in A2 of the continuum with grammatical features and text structure being their greatest needs. We then found it interesting to assess their performance against the VC. As there is no reference to grammar and structure of spoken language at Level F both of these students came out at expected level and even slightly above in some areas for one student. We therefore now have added value for the importance of the TEAL Continuum for our EAL students.

[sharonk]

Hi Leanne, it is great that we now know the specific learning needs of these students. If they were just assessed at Level F these needs may have impacted on their progress later on.

[claravina59]

I have been an EAL teacher at my school for this year only and am part time so the learning curve for me at the moment is quite steep. I am preparing to give the oral assessment task “Story Retell’ to one of my Chinese students who is in Year 3. Having read all the preamble for this task I am puzzled by the need to use a story the student has already completed a writing task for. I understand the student should definitely be familiar with the story used, but thought that only using a story that has been a writing task, would limit the material I can use.

[claravina59]

I completed the between session task -oral language task 3:story retell- with one of my Chinese students. Her retell of a level 20 text “A new classroom” was exceptional , given she spoke very little English in February. when marking the oral assessment criteria sheet, I highlighted statements in levels 2,3,and 4 so I would put her between B1 and B2 on the AusVELS EAL stages.
I found this whole activity quite problematic as the preamble statements wanted me to use a particular text which would have been inappropriate for her reading level. Also she was supposed to have completed a written task on this text prior to today’s retell: this is not always possible.
I would prefer a straight retell on a text that has been read at some stage and a general assessment criteria sheet.

[marniefitz]

We completed two oral language assessment tasks with Grade 4 students. We used the “What did you have for lunch?” and amended the weekend recount to “What did you do on the holidays?”.
We found that although the students language skills are reasonable for two students who have been in the country for 6 months to two years respectively, they actually required a lot of scaffolding in question asking, turn taking and conversational skills. One of our students also has additional needs, so this also impacted on the dynamic of the conversation and the fact that the students knew each other outside of school.
Therefore more pre-preparation work was required for them to perform well. In particular, asking open-ended questions and follow-up questions was challenging for them. In fact, both students would have performed much higher in answering the questions, if the teacher had have asked the questions rather than the students.
This highlighted for us, how our focus during sessions isn’t explicitly on conversational English. The tasks were worthwhile, but would need to be built into a unit about this topics, so that we could assess what the students had learned.
Marnie and Angela

[nmarcok]

I completed the oral language assessment tasks with two student as I’m not in a classroom and these students often work together in a group. I used the “What did you have for lunch?” oral assessment task.
Both students’ language skills are limited as they are new arrivals and needed a lot of support in how to keep the conversation going. One of the students has additional needs (ID) and the other student is in speech so her ability to communicate is further compromised. This impacted their ability to hold a conversation and the fact they were being filmed also impacted how they behaved. One student was being silly and the other student was nervous being filmed.
I assessed one student who came out at B1 which is where we have her placed on the continuum.
I think I will continue to use these oral assessments and share with PLTs at my school.

Natalie

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by nmarcok.

[bs80]

I completed the oral language task ‘My weekend’ but changed it to ‘My holidays’ given we had just commenced term 4. I think the criteria sheet was useful to help pinpoint some of the things we should look for in completing an oral language assessment task, but I do find it a little confusing as it still requires a lot of teacher judgement as to whether the student is beginning, progressing towards or at level.

[ealsupport14]

A colleague and I did an oral language task which started at What I did on the holidays, but it didn’t go as well as expected as the 2 boys knew each other and started to argue about each of their answers. We decided to change the topic to be what I have for lunch. This topic created less arguments. We felt that the fact that these 2 boys can have issues with each other socially and this impacted on the session quality.

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