In this section, I will develop a brief chronological description of the assessment procedures carried out during my teaching experience.
The first class was rather short, which is why it was planned to provide a brief introduction to the theme of the unit of work, which was "Relationships". Then, the vocabulary of the unit was introduced through texts and flashcards. The first type of feedback was given during the vocabulary repetition drill. By having the students repeat the sounds in rows, some of the sounds that are commonly mispronounced were corrected. Finally, the students were separated into work groups to work on a Final Task that consisted of recording a documentary-type video.
For the second class, it was planned to introduce the linguistic exponents. To ensure that the students were understanding the structures of the present perfect, the five-finger technique was introduced. A technique in which students are asked to express from 1 to 5 how much they understood about a topic. Showing only one finger would represent not understanding the topic, and 5 would represent understanding it thoroughly. The idea is to be able to determine with precision not only which student is not understanding a subject, but also with what difficulty. The result of the experience was positive. Being able to see how students held up two fingers or three fingers showed that a topic needed to be reviewed again.
In this lesson, the present perfect was explained, and a video editing workshop was carried out for the Final Task. Practice was done as in all classes, and group correction was done to see if students were making progress. Some topics needed more feedback than others. Finally, we introduced something that would become a regular feature of the classes, the "exit ticket". In order to check the daily progress of the students, the last few minutes of the classes were set aside to ask the students a few important questions about what they had learned.
During the fourth class, we continued working with the negative form of the present perfect and the vocabulary of relationships. In this class, we worked for the first time on listening. Just as it was done with the reading activities, the "Task-feedback Circle" was used to work on listening. This technique helped the students to understand the context of the language, and also to check for understanding. The students were successful in performing the activity; they only needed to listen to the audio twice.
In this class, a special activity took place, a make-up exam of the previous unit. Through a series of guidelines, I was asked to design the test (tool) to measure learning. Reading comprehension, use of English, self-production, everything was included. Contextual activities and true/false "enabling activities" were designed. Meanwhile, the rest of the students continued practising present perfect and vocabulary. Finally, feedback was given on the scripts of the Final Task documentaries.
For the sixth class, it was decided that the class would work with authentic material. To relate the material to the theme of the unit of work, news about famous couples who broke up were chosen. The class began with a reading of the news using the task-feedback circle. The choice was a success, the students were eager to participate in a topic they enjoyed and knew a lot about. The interest was such that the students used the language not only for the activity, but also to satisfy their curiosity. Later, for some of the students who had difficulty with the writing activity, they were invited to come to the front of the classroom and help them in a personalized way. With a little guidance, the students were encouraged to figure out on their own how to solve the activities.
The seventh class was dedicated to practice, to individual production and group feedback. Enabling activities were designed according to the students' needs. Students with difficulties in performing the activities were monitored, and their own classmates were encouraged to help them understand. Some students came to the front of the board and received feedback from both the teacher and the rest of the class. Finally, some summative requirements for the Final task were stipulated. The minimum number of sentences that should be in the documentaries, the linguistic content and the required vocabulary. Although it is a task more focused on communication than on grammatical accuracy, the final task should meet specific requirements to be considered passed.
In this class, a mock presentation of the Final Task was made. The students were given worksheets with exercises to answer, taking into account the videos of their classmates. In addition, they were given a model of an assessment sheet. In these worksheets, the students had to grade their own work and that of their classmates. It was confirmed with these tools that the students understood the activities of the final class.
In this last lesson, the students had to present their final work. A mockumentary (or reality show) about a group of people who had affairs and fought. The students were to explain the causes of the fights in the group of people. During the projection of the video, the other students were to point out the linguistic exponents and vocabulary in a final worksheet. In addition, they were to grade their own work and that of the other students. https://youtu.be/7jW0ucC0TZc