Planning assessment opportunities
Individual pupils' speaking and listening 'work' and evidence of their progress can be:
- 'temporary' because it is live and ephemeral
- complicated to capture and preserve systematically (for example, by recording or videoing)
- often dependent for its assessment on written evidence and records
- observed in complex settings such as group work, free-ranging class discussion, informal conversation, or role play where features of performance may be part of the role itself
These factors are amongst the many challenges faced when considering how to support individual pupils' development in speaking and listening through systematic progress tracking based on accurate assessment and giving them helpful feedback.
A crucial element in meeting these challenges is to combine:
- clear objectives
- distinct purpose
- defined time limits
- an identified audience
- clear outcome
When designing lesson sequences for teaching speaking and listening, the outcomes should include some planned opportunities to judge how far the intended progress has been made by applying clear, specific criteria. This will help pupils know how to use and apply what has been learned in wider contexts and understand what their next steps should be to improve further.
Activity
Have a look at the following video clips which show some of the speaking and listening contributions of three pupils during different lessons. Note down the speaking and listening skills that they depict.
School B, Year 10 - Planning assessment opportunities (01:36)
You can watch the video via 56k modem or slow (100kbps) / medium (256 kbps) / fast (400kbps) / very fast (800kbps) broadband connections, or as a Flash video for which you will need to have the flash plugin.
Transcript (25 KB) School C, Year 9 - Planning assessment opportunities (01:10)
You can watch the video via 56k modem or slow (100kbps) / medium (256 kbps) / fast (400kbps) / very fast (800kbps) broadband connections, or as a Flash video for which you will need to have the flash plugin.
School A, Year 7 - Planning assessment opportunities (02:43)
You can watch the video via 56k modem or slow (100kbps) / medium (256 kbps) / fast (400kbps) / very fast (800kbps) broadband connections, or as a Flash video for which you will need to have the flash plugin.