Sunday, March 3, 2019

Assessment Successes and Challenges, Eh?

Claudie Graner brought our attention to this address by Anne Senior of the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. If you don't have time for the entire thing, Claudie thinks the following points are especially interesting for those of us questioning the validity of our PBLA artifacts as a means of deciding progression, among other reasons:

32:00
43:38
46:00
59:00

Enjoy!

22 comments:

  1. This is not directly related to your post, Kelly, but I’m peeved by a question that’s been put to the CCLB. Apparently teachers feel they need to ask whether their students can leave their binders in their classroom instead of lugging it back and forth on transit along with their kids’ daycare stuff, lunches, strollers, etc. in the middle of winter. How far will the MICRO-MANAGING go? Should I ask what colour top I need to wear on Monday? Students and teachers are being infantilized. It’s ironic because we can’t be trusted to decide with our students where they can keep their binders, but developing all course content, including the complex task of developing high stakes assessments—well, that we must do on our own!

    Sheesh.

    - Norma

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    1. Norma - International Women's Day - Making a connection between this and the belief expressed on this blog many times that if this were an employment sector that had more men in it none of the "micromanaging" and infantalising" and "No NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ALLOWED" would be accepted.

      I'm enjoying exploring the history of feminism with my class (discussion questions at www.eslDicussions.com) and played this short "history" of the three waves of feminism today https://binged.it/2Uu2rM8 Students loving Rosie the Riveter - lots of rolling rrrrrs...There are other good short videos, e.g. https://binged.it/2IRD1XC This is more "factual" and has intersect with BHM First Wave - Sojourner Truth. Second Wave: "The Personal is Political". Third wave: Rebecca Walker - the voices that historically have not been expressed...Challenging the traditional view of women.

      You can imagine the students are very interested - and the conversations brought a huge amount of sharing..I had thought of trying to "anecdotally" assess the speaking...("heard x say this", "Sarah and Sara took turns" - but I got so fascinated by the input from these amazing women - and a VERY openminded Vietnamese man - that I forgot about the Operational Command of the Hour: "Thou Shalt Collect Artefacts". My bad.
      Claudieg

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    2. Your bad? More like your good, Claudie. Very important topic facilitated in a very engaging way. What’s not to love? Bravo!
      —Norma (as in Norma Rae, in case you’re wondering! LOVE that movie.)

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    3. I responded to you two days ago, Claudie, but I don’t see it. It might not have made it I guess!
      —Norma

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    4. Norma,
      You should be able to see all your comments. I haven't had to stop any yet except for true spam by some bot that doesn't even know what this blog is about. --KM

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    5. Norma, The winds are changing. Some of the micromanaging is being addressed. Wait and see. Ask questions of cclb. Everyone needs to go to the language.ca page and send in their questions. The questions are wanted. They are answered. The answers influence policy. IF your SPO is a bad one, the CCLB needs to know. They will help. They have helped others. They will help you.

      Write, call, email. ANY way you can. And they do read this blog. Everyone does. It is a legend.

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    6. Anonymous 6:01,
      I hope things are changing. It’s not my SPO that’s the issue. They’re honestly FANTASTIC. They try to support teachers and minimize the harm to both students and teenagers as much as they possibly can. It’s the CCLB that’s been micro-managing to the extent that teachers feel they have to ask about the most minute things. It’s so disrespectful and sad to see. The whole thing is so incredibly prescriptive and unrealistic. I hope the CCLB is reading, because they need someone (Us! The teachers on the front lines!) to be honest with them. The surveys that require names attached can’t result in honest input. They need to be anonymous so people can speak freely, without risking their jobs or contracts. The CCLB are not dumb people. Why don’t they see this??
      —Norma

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  2. Kelly, the site is responding that comments will be visible after approval. Respectfully, I wonder if this feature isn’t breaking up the flow of discussion? I understood that this was applied to old posts only. Has there been a change made?

    -Norma

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    1. Norma,
      Yes, I'm sorry to say that for now I've moved to comment moderation for all comments, but I can usually approve them within hours if not minutes. I've begun getting spam even on new posts, which really sucks. I will try to move back to approval only for comments on older posts soon. There are pros and cons to every decision. --KM

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  3. Norma,
    Not to worry. We go off topic all the time around here. I agree re the infantilization (excuse my American spelling). "Sheesh" doesn't begin to express it! --KM

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  4. I hear you about the spam. I wish there was a fix for that. No worries. Approve them when you get to them!

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  5. Have you reviewed the 2019 updated PBLA Practice Guidelines, available online?
    This caught my attention... "Some teachers have said that they feel like they are on a teaching and testing treadmill. If you only include formal assessment tasks (AofL) for portfolio entries, then this is likely true." It sort of sounds like blaming the victim. Silly you, thinking you had to have 8 tasks a term (min) per language skill. It doesn't matter, I've done the math again and again... trying to come up with a solid yet compliant routine... fitting it into one term. It's still crazy... I can spend time trying to think of connected SU's and spend time trying to somehow review these SU's (it can't be 100% student or peer review to be truly useful can it? ... plus the effort needs to be more than just popping a page in the PBLA binder)... but it's still a LOT of time just to attempt to have a sufficient number of artefacts. And there are still the tasks needed. Let's get REAL real... the focus becomes administrative, a numbers game... And do you know how tempting it is to teach topics that have ready-made tasks, preferably integrated into a prepared module? What happens to learner-identified needs. It's just a variation on teaching to the test... admin-heavy, lower quality teaching and, therefore learning. The longer you try to do PBLA, the harder you try... and, ultimately, the more you see how this is just SO misguided... and I am the goodie two shoes type. I see all around me colleagues who are not nearly as close to PBLA compliance as I am. But, yes, please do "tell Jordan that we are overworked and..." (from 46:00 on the video). I think the last part that's important in the video is 54:00... when an audience member/assessor gets a microphone.

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    1. Thank you Anonymous. It is nice to hear from someone else using common sense in all of this.

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  6. Anon 8.12 - Yes I also noticed the cutting snide (imo) remark "Some teachers feel like they are on a treadmill"...and I too felt CCLB people were again blaming the teachers for PBLA failure...instead of themselves for the failed project. Have they not heard of Design Thinking Methods? They still wonder why teachers are having problems? No one acknowledges that what was INVENTED is one of the most amateur, unprofessional, nonesensical, illogical, impractical, ineffective ways to teach and test Second Language Acquisition ever (and there have been some doozies out there,,,)

    I do not understand why some people are hailing the "New Guidelines" as a sign that things will get better. Wishful thinking?
    Read them carefully. Just about everything is still there. (Autobiography is out. ) But the "Learner Conference Summary" is "Optional". "Optional" is code to allow Managers/Administrators/ Our Darling Champions - the Lead Trainers, the Trainers - now turned into "LINC TEAM LEADERS"/"Binder Experts" to continue to "control" the rest of us and to pointificate whether an activity was skill building or skill using (as though!) etc.
    They will not let go of the power they were given.

    And those email and tel numbers? Did I miss something? Was CCLB asking for feedback (or was that old information for use for admin and IRCC staff when they were doing the PBLA Practice Review Framework ? The “Practice Review” is an embarrassment to any ESL professional. IMO. Hardly independent. Hardly objective.

    Sure the Guidelines are shorter. And the writing is slicker. But the contents are basically the same unsubstantiated claims and superficial theories tas in the "MUST Be CLB Aligned” Training Material" - without the typos and misalignments and tedious "round robin readings" and stupid "matching" definitions activities...

    The Guidelines. Sadly. Intellectual dishonesty in every line. IMO.

    Clearly the "Guidelines" will serve as an attempt to ENTRENCH the invented Canadian Language Benchmark model (not a frame of reference). The more I try to use the Canadian Language Benchmarks 2012 Document to "create "real World Task Assessments" - the more problems and issues I see.

    The CCLB "Portfolio"Based Language Assessment" New teaching and assessment methodology" is a misnomer. What we end up with is a mishmash of teacher created "stuff" - not checked for inter-rater reliaibility - which must be filed and inventoried (those poor students!) PBLA is really a LGSTBA - "Ledger of Graded Summative Tests Based Assessment protocol."

    The binder "My Portfolio" section does not resemble an accepted version of "portfolios" in education. (and CCLB admitted that the portfolios are not traditional portfolios that students control - because students were putting the wrong things into them...)

    Canadian "PBLA" is UNIQUE in the world so ALL the reference lists of research studies on OTHER frameworks cannot be relevant to THIS iteration...but they sure look impressive to the outsider, don't they?

    On a personal note. Although I am a total sceptic I too am a “supercomplier” (Well to really comply I would need another head. Or a full time assistant). The more I create, “assess”, collect...work with the students, trying, like that other teacher said, to make this a valid experience - the more flaws and issues I see. (And the students are smart as I can hear from their unsolicited remarks and comments...)
    Interesting, to say the least.
    I try very hard to stick to facts and not to give way to emotion. I have few emotions now as far as PBLA is concerned. My time for fury and disgust has passed. I am now simply curious as to how this sorry state of affairs could come to be. Very very curious.

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  7. I don't think this is a salvageable 'experiment'. Unless the whole thing is scrapped, ESL 'language learning' is going to be a thing of the past in this country. Lacking a curriculum in the past, most of us could do marvellous things in the classroom, creating an individualized program on the fly, needs analyses as new students entered the classroom. Now we hand them a binder (mixed reactions in my class - some are excited about the free stuff, most look at it like - what? you still use binders in Canada?) then tell them they are imprisoned until they fill it with 'passes' and the race to the finish line begins. It's so ridiculous I can't even laugh about it anymore. I did when they started the PBLA training and said to many of my colleagues, "Don't worry! This is so unmanageable and silly. It won't be around for long!" But the powers that be have persisted against all odds. Anyone can see that the tasks have absolutely no consistency and even in programs where teachers are micromanaged, many, it's impossible to create any kind of consistency because we have been left to our own devices to create 'tasks' - can we please call them tests? - so the result is a mess. One teacher thinks a reading task is a story. Another teacher thinks a listening task is a cloze exercise and a song. One teacher decides to do financial literacy and banking (really? in level 6 or 7 students need even more banking??) Real world tasks when done from the lower levels are redundant and pretty much a waste of time. A lot of my students have worked in factories and want to learn proper English and grammar, not how to do banking, housing etc. They've already lived in Canada for 15 years and don't need to know how to talk to a landlord or deposit money in a bank or go to the doctor or make a dentist's appointment. They perk up when they hear grammar being taught - not because they're foolish and think that grammar is real learning, but because grammar IS a hugely important component of language learning!!! How do you string words together to make a sentence? How do you write a paragraph? How do you speak properly so that people can understand you? They can go to working centres and multicultural centres for job training. They've always done so. But they can't make people there understand them if they don't understand how language works. PBLA needs to go away. I'm too close to retiring to care enough to fight much anymore but I feel sad for new teachers.

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    1. used to love my job, great points about the need for grammar. I have students in clb6 who cannot make a proper question and some who have never been taught anything about many of the verb tenses. Our lead administrator has yelled at us many times for teaching grammar, despite the fact that in every 'needs assessment' almost all of the students request more grammar! One time, she met my students and when they told her they did quite a lot of grammar in class (which they were very happy about) she freaked out on them and me. How can students ever improve if we are not allowed to teach grammar, except the grammar that fits a particular situation? How can these students hope to eventually go to university/college if they have never been taught verb tenses besides the basic ones?

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Dear drychlo@gmail.com,

      Do you know that Kelly shares a tonne of resources on this blog for FREE? I know you must be under a lot of stress to have missed this fact. Please, send your resources to Kelly, and I am sure that she would share them for free.

      Hugs. I hope you are ok. We are over worked, under paid and over taxed by PBLA. So sorry. So sorry about all of this. But I really believe that the tide is turning. Contact https://www.eslresources.com/ and see if you can do some work for THANE. And take a look at the list of tasks that your employer has listed on the REPOSITORY in the GETTING READY thingy that was posted in September by "THE BORG". Work with THANE to build some resources (he pays) and then he can sell them to school boards.

      Truly, I don't think this is the venue to sell your resources.

      Cheers,and hugs, and so sorry for where you must work. The details you share show clearly where you work. It is a hard place to work. So hard, but getting better soon as I have heard.

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  9. I'm confused. Are we talking about lesson plans for PBLA for sale here? I feel like I must be reading this wrong somehow.

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    1. Ha, ha, ha. I wondered how long it would be before regulars readers started to comment on that. Nope, you read it right. Does that not take the cake? --KM

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  10. Hi, everyone.
    Drychlo asked me to delete the original comment in which s/he offered a module pack for sale. I told him/her that we were just laughing at the absurdity of it all. Out of courtesy, I have deleted the comment. Carry on. --KM

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  11. https://medium.com/@devonprice/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01
    I think this should be required reading for anyone who thinks that PBLA is a good idea. The punitive nature of the pass / fail system for ESL is one of the worst aspects of it. It's really bringing out the worst in some teachers.

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