curriculum and assessment

assessing students' work

assessing students' work (1)

Assessing students’ work provides teachers with an opportunity to gauge not only how well their students have learnt, but also how effectively they have been teaching them. Sometimes, as in the case of Maree Helm’s story (previous screen), this can mean radically revising teaching strategies and approaching the task in an entirely different manner. When any teacher is teaching he/she needs to consider his/her starting point and to revise the chosen approach if necessary. Have I begun at the right place? Or did I assume that my students possessed knowledge and skills that they actually lack?

It is not to make a ‘mistake’ if you initially misjudge where to begin your dialogue with students – even very experienced teachers occasionally struggle to find the right place to begin. With experience you certainly get better at choosing a starting point and estimating what students know. Your aim should be to develop a sense of the knowledge and experiences your students bring with them into class in order to use this as a basis to enhance their language and learning.

If you don’t try to establish such a basis for classroom dialogue, you run the risk of treating your students as blank slates, dismissing the value of the knowledge and skills they already possess and ignoring the socio-cultural contexts that shape their language and learning.

assessing students’ work (2)

… brings teachers face to face with their students’ sense of self-worth as users of English, as in the case of NarelleWood’s narrative. Assessment involves more than simply a summative judgement of a student’s performance. Much of an English teacher’s work consists of providing your students with formative assessment that will help them to develop as readers, writers, speakers and listeners.

assessing students’ work (3)

… can make English teachers conscious of the limitations of mandated assessment that they are required to implement. As professionals, English teachers have little choice but to help their students pass state-wide examinations and other forms of mandated assessment, but this should not stop them from reflecting on whether such examinations and the curriculum they underpin actually meet the needs of the students in their class, as is the case with Caitlin Darcy’s narrative.

assessing students’ work (4)

… allows you to get to know your students. Most English teachers start the year by setting their students a range of tasks in order to gauge their abilities as readers, writers, speakers and listeners, thus establishing a basis on which to extend their language and learning. Continuous assessment not only allows teachers to chart the learning of their students, but to gain insight into their students’ values and aspirations, thus facilitating productive classroom communication throughout the year.



	"It’s funny how a little thing like negative public humiliation in school can affect you. By the time I was in Year 10, giving an oral presentation was a surreal experience fuelled by imagined exploding heads (mine) and uncontrollable hysterical laughter (everyone watching). I experienced nervousness beyond articulation which involved profuse sweating, my head turning into a beetroot, and trembling reminiscent of a long time Parkinson’s sufferer. Monash pre-service teacher (2005)