Unit 8 Blog Post

Going through the unit, I realized that daily assessment and feedback is essential in language learning.  Immediately giving learners feedback is essential to their learning process and it helps me look at the content to see what I can improve to help them efficiently move forward through topics.  Assessments should be done before, during and after the topics, and somehow I only do so before and after the topic.  Continuous assessment is important when it comes to learning, because the learners start to understand what they are doing well and what they need to improve on.

When it comes to providing feedback, one thing that I did realize going through this unit is that I am somewhat ineffective when it comes to providing specific feedback because I do use the sandwich method.  However, the feedback that I give are not specific.  For example, I would say, "I really think you have a good attitude and I like your effort.  However, you need to improve your listening skills and really listen to the information I give you.  I do think you are working really hard, and this is something that you can improve so that you can become better."  Now, I realize that this is not quite helpful when it comes to actually encouraging learners to improve their skills, because I don't give them specifics of what exactly they are doing well, what they should continue to do, and what they need to do more.

I thought the action-oriented feedback was a really helpful topic, and I love the fact that there were exemplars and a table to simplify the process for instructors.  I copied the table below (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDbkhsNfmK4)

Continue... Comment on aspects of performance that were effective.  Be specific and describe the impact.  Highlight things that you would like to see done in the future	Start or do more... Identify behaviour that the student knows how to do and should do, or do more frequently.
Consider... Highlight a point of growth for the student, a "do-able" challenge for future interactions.	Stop or do less...  Point out actions that were not helpful or could be harmful.  Be specific and indicate potential impact.

Going back to my original feedback, I would change it to the following:

"I think you should continue to use keywords and use them in your response when speaking to another person.  I would like to see that you continue to use related words (similar words) in place of keywords in the future, since this will help you gain more vocabulary.  Consider listening to the radio for discussions or questions, and give meaningful responses to the questions by the use of keywords and related words.  One thing that i would like you to do less is responding before the other person is finished speaking.  This is not good because you don't know all the information that they are trying to give you and it may come across as not appropriate in the conversation.  You may respond with something that is not really related to what they are talking about, or you might ask a question that they would be talking about anyway."

The other aspect of the unit is on assessment tools, and I really want to explore this a bit more in my classroom.  We currently have action plans, checklists, learning logs, quizzes, and records of observations.  However, I would like to see self-observation be included, since it would be the record of learning through the perspective of the learner.  They would be able to write down observations that they have regarding their skills and capabilities.  I would like to implement this when there is a significant challenge or exercise that we do in the class, to practice self-awareness as as skill but to also have information on what they think they are doing well and what they need to improve.