The purpose of my Fulbright Distinguished Teacher project is to uncover best practices of classroom instruction and teacher assessment of second language acquisition, with specific focus on the development of oral proficiency as measured by American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) standards.
My objectives are to:
My objectives are to:
- establish connections with Moroccan middle and high schools, public and private, in larger cities and small towns;
- study second language pedagogy at a teacher training institution in Morocco;
- interview educators currently teaching French in Morocco about successful methods and strategies for promoting oral fluency;
- observe students in classrooms, and engage in natural, spontaneous conversation with them in French,
- share American culture and pedagogy when invited
Why Morocco?
Set aside my fascination with the beauty, culture, geography and people of Morocco: it is a linguistically complex country. Moroccan Arabic, called Darija, has no standard written form and is the most universal native language. There are three native dialects of Berber. Spanish is used in the north. The school system, based on the French model from colonial times, has been undergoing a change in the past few decades to instruct in Standard Arabic, which must be taught as a second language beginning in first grade. Students must also learn French as a second language beginning in third grade. English or other "foreign" languages are begun in the last year of middle school. French, however, is still the language used for most university instruction, Some private schools have retained a system of complete instruction in French. The bifurcated educational system presents prestige and social implications. The motivation for students to learn a second language might be different than for US students, and there is a greater emphasis on achieving ultimate fluency. Morocco’s need to teach multiple languages at every level of education makes it an excellent place to observe what works in world language instruction.
Set aside my fascination with the beauty, culture, geography and people of Morocco: it is a linguistically complex country. Moroccan Arabic, called Darija, has no standard written form and is the most universal native language. There are three native dialects of Berber. Spanish is used in the north. The school system, based on the French model from colonial times, has been undergoing a change in the past few decades to instruct in Standard Arabic, which must be taught as a second language beginning in first grade. Students must also learn French as a second language beginning in third grade. English or other "foreign" languages are begun in the last year of middle school. French, however, is still the language used for most university instruction, Some private schools have retained a system of complete instruction in French. The bifurcated educational system presents prestige and social implications. The motivation for students to learn a second language might be different than for US students, and there is a greater emphasis on achieving ultimate fluency. Morocco’s need to teach multiple languages at every level of education makes it an excellent place to observe what works in world language instruction.
Morocco Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Project:
Guide to Establishing Oral Proficiency Benchmark Assessment Scores for Foreign Language Learners
Part I: Rationale
Today, in recognition of the fact that communicative ability in second, foreign, or learned language is more useful and more satisfying than the ability to just read a language, and that the 21st century global citizen sitting in a classroom today has different needs than the generations that preceded him or her, world language education is undergoing a paradigm change in the United States. Teachers and school systems are shifting their perspectives to focus on oral proficiency and the production of spontaneous, non-rehearsed communication, and to require more rigorous assessment of student speaking skills. This requires an overhaul of not only teachers’ lesson plans as we create new activities to practice oral skills, but in our assessment instruments and grading.
Part II: Background and Pedagogic Philosophy
In my school system, the Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools, we have found lots of support from The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Language. ACTFL has established guidelines for determining and ranking speaking skills, and our school system has created assessment benchmarks tied to ACTFL guidelines. The new focus of instruction and assessment on “oralcy” requires new strategies, and asks us to do different things in different ways. Of course, change often produces anxiety among teachers, parents, admnistrators, and students themselves.! We know what we do well, and it’s hard to change direction sometimes.
The ACTFL Guidelines describe the continuum of proficiency from that of the highly articulate, well-educated language user to a level of little or no functional ability. There are 5 levels of expertise- novice, intermediate, advanced, superior, and distinguished. The first 3 each have 3 sub-levels. In the diagram in Appendix B, you can see that the delineations between levels are a little fuzzy— a person can be functioning nearly in the Intermediate Low level but still be considered Novice High. For comparison, a university professor of a foreign language would probably fall into the advanced high or superior range.
My Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching project is intended for use with novice and intermediate level speakers, generally within the first three years of language instruction at the middle school or high school level in the US. Novice-level speakers can communicate short messages on highly predictable, everyday topics that affect them directly. According to the ACTFL descriptors, they do so primarily through the use of " isolated words and phrases that have been encountered, memorized, and recalled." Novice-level speakers may be difficult to understand even by the most sympathetic interlocutors accustomed to non-native speech.
However, our goal in high school is to help our students reach an Intermediate Mid level after four or more years of study of the language. ACTFL says these speakers are able to express personal meaning by creating with the language, and they produce responses typically consisting of sentences and strings of sentences. Their speech may contain pauses, reformulations, and self-corrections as they search for adequate vocabulary and appropriate language forms to express themselves. In spite of the limitations in their vocabulary and/or pronunciation and/or grammar and/or syntax, Intermediate Mid speakers are generally understood by sympathetic interlocutors accustomed to dealing with non-native speakers.
To address the anxiety that change engenders and in order to implement this new system based on the needs of today’s learner, there are a number of fundamental school system, administrator, teacher, parent, and student perceptions that have to be changed. Here are five highlighted changes based on ACTFL’s website, and which are key to this new paradigm.
Part III: The oral assessment format
In my school district we are in process of revising our original assessment instruments, which are based on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency interview. It is not feasible to conduct a full 20-30 minute interview with each student in our classes, so we have created our own verison of a mini-interview. Teachers interview their students individually and ask them a series of conversational questions based on a topic that has been selected at random from topics that have been covered in our classes.
Importantly, these assessment are not meant to show mastery of any particular grammatical concepts, specialized vocabulary, or cultural knowledge. The entire point of the assessment is to determine how well students can express genuine, original thought about topics of interest or importance to themselves. So while of course the students must have learned vocabulary and verbs, the goal is communication rather than perfection. Therefore, we assess for what would be understood by a sympathic native-speaking listener, and give credit for what the student CAN to say, rather than taking away credit for things that are inappropriately or imperfectly expressed.
According to the Frederick County Public Schools, the Oral Proficiency Interview
IS: IS NOT:
A friendly conversation A time to correct errors
A 3 - 4 minute summative assessment A teaching experience
A demonstration of what student can do A time for teacher to fill in pauses
A time to measure overall performance A time to prompt or give vocabulary
Interpersonal communication Presentational communication
A flexible, responsive, and unique experience Rote memorization or an interview of set and standard questions
Teachers begin the interview by asking an easy social question or two designed to put the student at ease: What’s your name? How are you? Then a launch question for the selected topic is asked: What do you like to do in your free time? Where do you live? What do you eat for dinner?
Depending on the student’s answers, various follow-up questions are asked. Teachers may have to re-word questions if a student doesn’t understand, or come up with a different follow-up question if the student is unable to answer. The student should not be able to predict exactly what questions will be asked. Again, the goal is to see what the student can do in terms of natural conversation, so the teacher should endeavor to find a question that the student can answer without giving prompts as to what he or she might say.
In addition, we allow students to have a drawing or photograph with them to suggest ideas that they might want to talk about. We have a series of suggested visuals that have rich detail but no written words. Students may look at them in order to generate ideas, if they wish. Examples of these drawings are in Appendix A below.
Part IV: Recording the interview
For my Fulbright project, I conducted and videotaped twelve interviews with 9th grade Moroccan students after their first-year of English as a foreign language, and with 9th grade students who have been studying French as a second language since third grade.
I used my camera in movie mode, held by a volunteer student, to record the interviews. In addition, a Moroccan teacher recorded on her cellphone. Nine interviews were conducted in English; three are in French. The purpose of the videos is to allow for assessment by teachers in Frederick, Maryland, according to their established rubric.
I do not have permission at present to make the videos public aside from use in the Frederick County schools, so they are not included in this project document. However, I have transcribed one example, selected for it’s overall content, and it can be found in Appendix A.
I videotaped learners of English as a foreign language so that teachers of French, German, and Spanish in our district can all use the same interviews to arrive at anchor assessments in a workshop designed with the purpose of providing practice for all teachers. Since this form of assessment is relatively new to us, we are looking for ways to ensure consistency in the assessments from teacher to teacher, school to school, and language to language. The assessment workshop has not yet been held.
Teachers or curriculum supervisors in other schools could duplicate this data by recording their own students, perhaps from their English as a Second Language population, or in Morocco with students in the Français Langue Étrangère population, and following the project outline and using the documents provided in this project.
Recording the interviews serves several purposes, but is optional: teachers can review and assess the speaking samples during their planning or work time; teachers could review the videos with students at a later date for reflectiion; colleagues could work with them together to make sure that they are evaluating consistently.
Appendix A: Supporting Documents
Included in the appendix of this project are a sample of the questions that I asked of the students in the English spontaneous assessments, a transcript of one of the conversations for illustrative purposes, and examples of drawings students might use to suggest ideas for conversation.
Appendix B: Assessment documents
Included below for this project are documents are rubrics from different public school systems in Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado by which student spontaneous speaking samples are assessed. These instruments suggest a numerical score attached to descriptors that would allow for an overall score to be given for each student’s speaking proficiency. Using such a numerical system would allow the speaking assessment to be used as a benchmark assessment score or test grade.
In addition, there is a graphic of the inverted pyramid with levels and descriptors published by the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). May more documents describing oral proficiency can be found at their website https://www.actfl.org/publications/guidelines-and-manuals/actfl-proficiency-guidelines-2012. Performance descriptors can be accessed at https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/ACTFLPerformance-Descriptors.pdf. Correspondence between the ACTFL guidelines and the Common European Framework of Reference (which is used to measure oral proficiency in Europe) can be found at http://www.languagetesting.com/cefr. Information about the ACTFL oral proficiency test can be found at https://www.actfl.org/professional-development/assessments-the-actfl-testing-office/oral-proficiency-assessments-including-opi-opic.
Guide to Establishing Oral Proficiency Benchmark Assessment Scores for Foreign Language Learners
Part I: Rationale
Today, in recognition of the fact that communicative ability in second, foreign, or learned language is more useful and more satisfying than the ability to just read a language, and that the 21st century global citizen sitting in a classroom today has different needs than the generations that preceded him or her, world language education is undergoing a paradigm change in the United States. Teachers and school systems are shifting their perspectives to focus on oral proficiency and the production of spontaneous, non-rehearsed communication, and to require more rigorous assessment of student speaking skills. This requires an overhaul of not only teachers’ lesson plans as we create new activities to practice oral skills, but in our assessment instruments and grading.
Part II: Background and Pedagogic Philosophy
In my school system, the Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools, we have found lots of support from The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Language. ACTFL has established guidelines for determining and ranking speaking skills, and our school system has created assessment benchmarks tied to ACTFL guidelines. The new focus of instruction and assessment on “oralcy” requires new strategies, and asks us to do different things in different ways. Of course, change often produces anxiety among teachers, parents, admnistrators, and students themselves.! We know what we do well, and it’s hard to change direction sometimes.
The ACTFL Guidelines describe the continuum of proficiency from that of the highly articulate, well-educated language user to a level of little or no functional ability. There are 5 levels of expertise- novice, intermediate, advanced, superior, and distinguished. The first 3 each have 3 sub-levels. In the diagram in Appendix B, you can see that the delineations between levels are a little fuzzy— a person can be functioning nearly in the Intermediate Low level but still be considered Novice High. For comparison, a university professor of a foreign language would probably fall into the advanced high or superior range.
My Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching project is intended for use with novice and intermediate level speakers, generally within the first three years of language instruction at the middle school or high school level in the US. Novice-level speakers can communicate short messages on highly predictable, everyday topics that affect them directly. According to the ACTFL descriptors, they do so primarily through the use of " isolated words and phrases that have been encountered, memorized, and recalled." Novice-level speakers may be difficult to understand even by the most sympathetic interlocutors accustomed to non-native speech.
However, our goal in high school is to help our students reach an Intermediate Mid level after four or more years of study of the language. ACTFL says these speakers are able to express personal meaning by creating with the language, and they produce responses typically consisting of sentences and strings of sentences. Their speech may contain pauses, reformulations, and self-corrections as they search for adequate vocabulary and appropriate language forms to express themselves. In spite of the limitations in their vocabulary and/or pronunciation and/or grammar and/or syntax, Intermediate Mid speakers are generally understood by sympathetic interlocutors accustomed to dealing with non-native speakers.
To address the anxiety that change engenders and in order to implement this new system based on the needs of today’s learner, there are a number of fundamental school system, administrator, teacher, parent, and student perceptions that have to be changed. Here are five highlighted changes based on ACTFL’s website, and which are key to this new paradigm.
- We used to teach students about the grammar of a language; now the emphasis is on communicative ability.
- The focus for the last 35 years has been four-fold: reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Now, the emphasis is on three communication modes: sharing, interpreting, and presenting information to others.
- In the past, we often primarily organized courses around a textbook; now textbooks are only one of a number of resources to show language in use.
- For Americans, language learning and practicing happened almost exclusively within the walls of the classroom; in the future, we need to find multiple rich opportunities to and all the things that they can do well.
- Finally, in the past, we designed tests to see what students didn't know— subtracting points for mistakes. With the new model, we are looking for all the ways that students are making progress and using assessments to reward students for the communication risks they take, and all the things they are trying to use well.
Part III: The oral assessment format
In my school district we are in process of revising our original assessment instruments, which are based on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency interview. It is not feasible to conduct a full 20-30 minute interview with each student in our classes, so we have created our own verison of a mini-interview. Teachers interview their students individually and ask them a series of conversational questions based on a topic that has been selected at random from topics that have been covered in our classes.
Importantly, these assessment are not meant to show mastery of any particular grammatical concepts, specialized vocabulary, or cultural knowledge. The entire point of the assessment is to determine how well students can express genuine, original thought about topics of interest or importance to themselves. So while of course the students must have learned vocabulary and verbs, the goal is communication rather than perfection. Therefore, we assess for what would be understood by a sympathic native-speaking listener, and give credit for what the student CAN to say, rather than taking away credit for things that are inappropriately or imperfectly expressed.
According to the Frederick County Public Schools, the Oral Proficiency Interview
IS: IS NOT:
A friendly conversation A time to correct errors
A 3 - 4 minute summative assessment A teaching experience
A demonstration of what student can do A time for teacher to fill in pauses
A time to measure overall performance A time to prompt or give vocabulary
Interpersonal communication Presentational communication
A flexible, responsive, and unique experience Rote memorization or an interview of set and standard questions
Teachers begin the interview by asking an easy social question or two designed to put the student at ease: What’s your name? How are you? Then a launch question for the selected topic is asked: What do you like to do in your free time? Where do you live? What do you eat for dinner?
Depending on the student’s answers, various follow-up questions are asked. Teachers may have to re-word questions if a student doesn’t understand, or come up with a different follow-up question if the student is unable to answer. The student should not be able to predict exactly what questions will be asked. Again, the goal is to see what the student can do in terms of natural conversation, so the teacher should endeavor to find a question that the student can answer without giving prompts as to what he or she might say.
In addition, we allow students to have a drawing or photograph with them to suggest ideas that they might want to talk about. We have a series of suggested visuals that have rich detail but no written words. Students may look at them in order to generate ideas, if they wish. Examples of these drawings are in Appendix A below.
Part IV: Recording the interview
For my Fulbright project, I conducted and videotaped twelve interviews with 9th grade Moroccan students after their first-year of English as a foreign language, and with 9th grade students who have been studying French as a second language since third grade.
I used my camera in movie mode, held by a volunteer student, to record the interviews. In addition, a Moroccan teacher recorded on her cellphone. Nine interviews were conducted in English; three are in French. The purpose of the videos is to allow for assessment by teachers in Frederick, Maryland, according to their established rubric.
I do not have permission at present to make the videos public aside from use in the Frederick County schools, so they are not included in this project document. However, I have transcribed one example, selected for it’s overall content, and it can be found in Appendix A.
I videotaped learners of English as a foreign language so that teachers of French, German, and Spanish in our district can all use the same interviews to arrive at anchor assessments in a workshop designed with the purpose of providing practice for all teachers. Since this form of assessment is relatively new to us, we are looking for ways to ensure consistency in the assessments from teacher to teacher, school to school, and language to language. The assessment workshop has not yet been held.
Teachers or curriculum supervisors in other schools could duplicate this data by recording their own students, perhaps from their English as a Second Language population, or in Morocco with students in the Français Langue Étrangère population, and following the project outline and using the documents provided in this project.
Recording the interviews serves several purposes, but is optional: teachers can review and assess the speaking samples during their planning or work time; teachers could review the videos with students at a later date for reflectiion; colleagues could work with them together to make sure that they are evaluating consistently.
Appendix A: Supporting Documents
Included in the appendix of this project are a sample of the questions that I asked of the students in the English spontaneous assessments, a transcript of one of the conversations for illustrative purposes, and examples of drawings students might use to suggest ideas for conversation.
Appendix B: Assessment documents
Included below for this project are documents are rubrics from different public school systems in Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado by which student spontaneous speaking samples are assessed. These instruments suggest a numerical score attached to descriptors that would allow for an overall score to be given for each student’s speaking proficiency. Using such a numerical system would allow the speaking assessment to be used as a benchmark assessment score or test grade.
In addition, there is a graphic of the inverted pyramid with levels and descriptors published by the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). May more documents describing oral proficiency can be found at their website https://www.actfl.org/publications/guidelines-and-manuals/actfl-proficiency-guidelines-2012. Performance descriptors can be accessed at https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/ACTFLPerformance-Descriptors.pdf. Correspondence between the ACTFL guidelines and the Common European Framework of Reference (which is used to measure oral proficiency in Europe) can be found at http://www.languagetesting.com/cefr. Information about the ACTFL oral proficiency test can be found at https://www.actfl.org/professional-development/assessments-the-actfl-testing-office/oral-proficiency-assessments-including-opi-opic.
Appendix A
Sample Oral Proficiency Interview Questions
How long have you studied English?
Can you tell me a little about the house you live in?
How many people live in your house?
Are you the youngest?
Can you describe your bedroom?
What kind of decorations and furniture are in it?
What are your favorite hobbies?
What do you like to do on weekends?
What’s your favorite movie?
Where do you live?
What town do you live in ?
How many people are in your family?
How old are your sisters?
Does your sister live with you?
What is your favorite game?
What will you do this weekend?
Tell me some American movies that you like.
When you watch American movies to learn English, how does it work?
What is your favorite thing to do on the weekend?
What do you cook? What is your specialty?
Do you do chores around the house? Do you do things to help your mom and dad?
If I wanted to cook a good tagine, what would I do?
Does your grandfather live far away?
What kinds of foods do you really like to eat?
What kind of things do you like to do?
What is your favorite Harry Potter movie? Which one do you think is the best?
Would you like to play Quidditch?
What do you think about English? Is it easy or hard?
How long have you studied English?
Can you tell me a little about the house you live in?
How many people live in your house?
Are you the youngest?
Can you describe your bedroom?
What kind of decorations and furniture are in it?
What are your favorite hobbies?
What do you like to do on weekends?
What’s your favorite movie?
Where do you live?
What town do you live in ?
How many people are in your family?
How old are your sisters?
Does your sister live with you?
What is your favorite game?
What will you do this weekend?
Tell me some American movies that you like.
When you watch American movies to learn English, how does it work?
What is your favorite thing to do on the weekend?
What do you cook? What is your specialty?
Do you do chores around the house? Do you do things to help your mom and dad?
If I wanted to cook a good tagine, what would I do?
Does your grandfather live far away?
What kinds of foods do you really like to eat?
What kind of things do you like to do?
What is your favorite Harry Potter movie? Which one do you think is the best?
Would you like to play Quidditch?
What do you think about English? Is it easy or hard?
Transcript of OPI speaking assessment — Salé, Morocco May 21, 2017
Interview at end of first year of language instruction
Speaking sample. Recorded length 3:39
T: teacher; S- Student (?)- word (s) missing, recording not understandable
Recording begins after initial greetings
T: What's your name?
S: My name is Eman.
T: Eman.
S: Imad. With a D
T: Imad. Ok. Good. With a D. And, how old are you?
S: I ’m sixteen years old.
T: And how long have you been studying English?
S: Oh, it’s uh.. I just watch the movie. I didn’t study. This is the first time I study English.
T: This is the first, this is the first year.
S: Yeah. Yes, this is the first year.
T: And you watch movies.
S: Yes, a lot.
T: OK.
S: American movies.
T: So, tell me some American movies that you like.
S: I like, uh, I love the movies of Johnny Depp the actor, Jack Sparrow, I love uh, I love the- how do you say- I love “Caris..” I watch the movie but I don’t remember the name.
T: the names, the titles. Alright, I ‘m very curious about this. When you stud..when you watch American movies, to learn English, do you watch the same movie many, many times?
Do you use the subtitles?
S: Yeah
T: How does it work? How do you do it?
S: I just watch. I, because, it’s uh two years, two years, two years ago, I, we have just a TV, I didn’t have a, uh, tablet or a phone, I just watched TV. And the same movie, the same movie, the same movie. Then I just, oh, learned to speak English.
T: It’s amazing. So when you watch the movie, if it’s a new movie, and you’ve never seen it before, do you watch the subtitles, and read it also?
S: Yes
T: Are the subtitles in Arabic or are the subtitles in English?
S: No. In Arabic.
T: In Arabic.
S: In Arabic. And then I learn English. And I like it very much.
T: OK! You have a very good American accent.
Both: (laughing)
T: It’s very good. So can you describe, uh, tell me about where you live?
S: Uh.. I have a, I live with my mother’s family, with my grandma, and I have a big family. We have two kitchen. I live with my big sister. She have, uh, twenty-two years old, twenty- one, and my small sister, she have, uh, fourteen years old, and my mother it’s not in Morocco. It’s living in Italy now.
T: Oh!
S: I didn’t get to see her two years now. Two years ago because she, because my brother is sick, she is uh... My dad it’s always working. Now it’s (?) Now it’s more Kenitra. (another town in Morocco) No, I, uh, do the best to make my mother proud. And I just thank God because I’m left (??) my life. (?) It is so hard.
T: I’m sure your mother is very proud of you. So, what is your favorite thing to do on the weekend?
S: Watch animation. Every day. I love animation!
T: In Japanese?
S: Yes. I watch (?) and I watch the movies. Now, I went to the movie, the I think it’s the Part 4, the Jack Sparrow, and uh... what’s it’s name? Fat, and Furious.
T: Oh, Fast and Furious? What? That’s number 7 or something?
S: Yes, yes I wait. I loved, I love the American movies. I just want to say... Thank you very much! It’s a, they are very great movies!
Both: (laughing)
T: Well, I’m glad that they are entertaining! Thank you very much! I appreciate it!
S: It’s a (??)
Appendix B
Scoring Rubrics