When teachers complain about their certain practices that create more work for themselves and take time away from students acquiring the target language, my response is usually “well then, don’t use them.” Follow the logic below to arrive at why you need to wrap your head around changing Assessment & Grading practices so that you can use your prep/planning time, and personal life, for more useful and enjoyable endeavors…
proficiency-based assessments
Sample CI Schedule: The Year
**Use this schedule with the Universal Language Curriculum (ULC) Updated 2.4.18**
**Read a post on the Week & Day Updated 12.9.17**
A major reason to ditch what you’ve been doing (or what others expect language learning to look like), and teach with CI is for the flexibility in planning. In fact, the longer I teach with CI, the less I plan, and the better the results. This is probably the least intuitive concept as an educator, especially for anyone still green from their teacher training that included an obsession over Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design, the push for posted objectives, a need for required lesson plans tied to Bloom’s, etc.
I’ve written 13 blog posts and a summary about what should be considered and/or put in place in your classroom in order to continue teaching with CI. Here’s a perspective on a full year of teaching that might help you see the big picture of how simple it is to actually make this happen:
The Day **Added 12.9.17**
– Routines
– Reading
– Students
– Stories
The Week
– Telling/Asking stories, then reading them
– Learning details about students
– 1-3 unannounced “open-book” Quick Quizzes
The Month
– 1-2 unannounced, no notes, 5-10min Fluency Writes
The Grading Term
– Students self-assess Rubric (but check these to see if they’re being too hard on themselves)
The bulk of “planning” then becomes varying how you tell/ask stories (e.g. One Word Image, TPRS, MovieTalk, Magic Tricks, etc.), what you do with them (e.g. Choral Translation, Airplane Translation, Read and Discuss, Running Dictation, Draw-Write-Pass, OWATS, etc.), and how you’ll learn more about each other (e.g. ask students for a new batch of questions to use during La Persona Especial/Discipulus Illustris, etc.).
Proficiency Grading FAQs, and New Rubric Option
**Updated Expectations Rubric**
I’ve had many questions when it comes to implementing my complete grading system, or proficiency rubrics independently from DEA. As a result, you’ll find minor adjustments in their appearance, as well as a few changes that highlight the FAQs.
Proficiency Goal Rubrics
Independent Rubrics (when NOT used in complete grading system along with DEA)
Simplified Rubrics (for exploratory, middle school, or less-prescribed high school programs)