Vocabulary for World Language Assessment


3 Modes of Communication
Interpersonal Mode: Two-way oral or written communication which is spontaneous and unrehearsed, and characterized by active negotiation of meaning among individuals involved.

Interpretive Mode: Comprehension of written, oral, and/or visual communication, including embedded cultural perspectives, without the ability to negotiate meaning with the creator of the message.

Presentational Mode: Spoken or written communication prepared for an audience and rehearsed, revised or edited before presentation.

The Five C's of World Language Education
Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities: Interconnected goal areas for world language content standards. Provides organizational framework of the national "Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century” and “Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards for Foreign Languages.”

Glossary
Assessment: Gathering data to inform teaching and learning. This answers the question of how students will show achievement of the performance standards and captures how well students achieve these goals.

Backward Design: Planning a unit of instruction starting with learning targets in mind and working backward to specific assessments and classroom activities.

ESL (English as a Second Language): Both a specific instructional philosophy, and more generically, any English language course of study and/or programming for limited-English-proficient learners.

FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary School): Program focused on language learning and involving three to five instructional sessions per week. These sessions may be:
Content-based: An integrated approach in which content from other disciplines (i.e. social studies, mathematics, or science) is taught through the target language.

Content-related: Reinforcing/enriching other areas of the curriculum as they are integrated into the language instruction.
Formative Assessment: Data collection occurring after each segment of learning, embedded in classroom interaction to show students' progress in learning-specific content or skills. Formative assessment is used during instruction to provide feedback to adjust instruction. Essential elements include: identifying learning goals, embedding in instruction, providing specific feedback, supporting teacher-student collaboration, involving student self- and peer-assessment. It answers the question, “What learning comes next for this student?”

Integrated Performance Assessment: A unit level summative assessment that includes all three modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretive and presentational.

Interim Assessment: Data collection throughout instruction to verify acquisition of and application of skills for student learning. Beyond a learning check, interim assessments provide data to answer how students are progressing during the unit of instruction or how well a program is working during a semester or program year.

Language Functions: Categories of actions that identify purpose of communication and communicative tasks.

Language Proficiency Levels: Used in the performance standards and guidelines to describe students' development of language skills without referring to grade level or age, since world language acquisition may begin at different grades/ages, and progresses at different rates.
Beginning: Language learning primarily of a receptive and imitative nature. (Production is quite accurate since it consists of memorized material.)

Developing: Ability to use target language, moving from imitative to reflective use. (Students begin to create with the language recombining memorized or learned material; movement from more imitative to more reflective, which brings about a decrease in accuracy.)

Transitioning: More creative application of the language, from reflective to an interactive character. (Language becomes less reflective and more interactive as students move toward greater independence; creating with the language to express their own thoughts.)

Refining: Language usage moving from interactive to showing initiative, where the speaker can take full responsibility for beginning, maintaining, and furthering the conversation.
Learning Targets: What students should know, understand, or be able to do at the end of a unit of study.

LinguaFolio: A self-assessment tool for learners to set goals, develop effective learning strategies, and document their progress over a lifetime of language learning.

Performance Standards: Describe how students will show achievement of the content standards and how the focus for learning will progress through Proficiency Levels.

Performance Assessment/Task: Describes actions and/or activities for assessment of a particular communication mode.

Portfolio: Collection of student work over time that showcases their language development.

Productive Language: Target language that the learner produces via writing or speech. Assessment needs to be independent of learner's listening or reading comprehension.

Receptive Language: Target language that is understood through listening or reading. Assessment needs to be independent of learner's speaking or writing ability.

Rubric: Evaluation tool with specific criteria providing feedback designed to guide and improve student performance.

Spiraling: Using previously learned language in new topics or themes.

Summative Assessment: Data collection at the end of a unit of instruction, a semester or a program year to determine how and how well learners have achieved the performance goals linked to the larger content standards and program benchmarks.

TPR (Total Physical Response): A teaching technique or methodology that focuses on comprehension before production. Students use physical actions to demonstrate understanding.

TPRS: Initially known as Total Physical Response Storytelling, now known as Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling: vocabulary and structures to be learned are embedded in a story.

Thematic Planning: Planning the unit of instruction focused on a substantive topic, in which vocabulary and grammar play a supporting role.

Resources:
Planning Curriculum for Learning World Languages: Official title of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's curriculum guide, c2002, written by members of the World Languages Writing Task Force, Paul Sandrock, DPI Consultant.

Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards for Foreign Languages: Content and proficiency level descriptions of "what is possible to achieve in a K-12 program of foreign language instruction" (1997, rev. 2002), based on the national Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century (ACTFL, c1995).

Understanding by Design: Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. 2005. Understanding by Design. (Expanded 2nd Edition). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.