Out with the old and in with the new: Changes to the assessment system in

New Zealand high schools –consolidation still a long way off

18TH BIENNIAL NATIONAL LANGUAGES CONFERENCE OFTHE AFMLTA

Darwin July 6-9, 2011

Enrich, Consolidate, Aspire.

Martin EastThe University of Auckland

Aucklandm.east@auckland.ac.nz

Adèle ScottMassey University College of

Education Palmerston Northa.j.scott@massey.ac.nz

Tēnā Koutou

Hello! Faka’alofa lahi atu

Bonjour! Taloha ni

Guten Morgen! Kia orana

こんにちは！ Malo e lelei

Nimen hao Talofa lava

¡Buenos dias! Salvete

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

• The New Zealand Curriculum Framework or NZCF was published in 1993.

• This document was the first attempt since the 1940s to provide a government-endorsed national “foundation policy” and “coherent framework” for school-based teaching, learning and assessment.

• The document outlined the required ‘essential learning areas’ that students were to have access to.

• Learning an additional language was catered for in the learning area Language and Languages.

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

There were essentially two benefits for students of L2 learning: • It would help students to appreciate the “practical and tangible

benefits of being able to communicate in a language.”

• It would also help students to appreciate the “broader and intangible benefits of expanding one’s intellectual experience” (Sakuragi, 2006, p. 20).

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

Communicative language teaching is teaching that encourages learners to engage in meaningful communication in the target language – communication that has a function over and above that of language learning itself. Any approach that encourages

learners to communicate real information for authentic reasons is, therefore, a communicative approach

(Ministry of Education, 2002, p. 16)

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

• School Certificate (known as ‘School C’) was taken at the end of Year 11 (15+ years of age).

• The University Entrance, Bursaries and Scholarships examination (known as ‘Bursary’) was taken at the end of Year 13 (17+ years of age).

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

• Questions in the written paper included items such as translation from the L2.

• The problem with translation was that it “tends to be associated with an attitude towards language teaching that stresses form rather than content. It is especially associated with the grammar-translation method of language teaching” (Buck, 1992, p. 140).

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

• If the goal (and educational benefit to students) was communicative competence (which was what the curriculum guidelines were suggesting), assessments of students’ language proficiency were required which could be seen to be valid and reliable measures of communicative language proficiency constructs.

• School C and Bursary were problematic in this respect, and the washback implications were serious.

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

Teachers who may have preferred the ‘traditional’ or more grammar-oriented approach to language teaching would have found an ally in the assessment system then in play. Teachers who wanted to adopt a more communicative approach would

have been hampered by it as they attempted to meet the ‘examination’ needs of their students. There would inevitably

have been a pressure, in the senior school at least, for examination preparation to take precedence over the

promotion of meaningful communication of real information for authentic reasons. (Scott and East, 2009, p. 29)

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

• NCEA level 1 was introduced in 2002. It replaced School C and was targeted at students in Year 11

• NCEA level 2 (taken by Year 12 students) came in 2003

• NCEA level 3 was introduced in 2004. It replaced Bursary and was taken by Year 13 students.

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

The most significant changes from School C and Bursary were:1. Equal weight placed on the four skills of listening, reading,

writing and speaking2. A greater emphasis on ‘internal’ components, with over a third

of the assessment being classroom-based (assessments included a prepared speech in the L2, a conversation in the L2 and L2 writing in response to a stimulus with the help of support resources such as dictionaries)

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

3. An emphasis on assessing candidates’ ability to both understand and use meaningful language in authentic communicative contexts. For example, in the ‘external’ writing assessment (that is, the examination set and marked by examiners outside schools) students might progress from writing a simple postcard or letter (level 1) to writing an essay presenting different points of view on a topic (level 3).

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

The published lists essentially became a ‘prescribed syllabus’ and fostered a ‘weak’ form of CLT where the potentially beneficial impact of a communicative approach was “reduced to paying somewhat more attention to the last ‘production’ stage in what remained an otherwise essentially form-focused learning cycle” (Van den Branden et al., 2009, p. 5).

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

Ellis (2005) drew attention to task-based language teaching, or TBLT, as a viable development of CLT which “aims … to engage learners in authentic acts of communication in the classroom” (p. 6) and “gives primacy to ‘fluency’ over ‘accuracy’” whilst also helping learners to “achieve grammatical competence as a result of learning to communicate” (p. 6).

A history of L2 assessment in NZ

• The core communication strand “puts students’ ability to communicate at the centre”, with the requirement that “students learn to use the language to make meaning” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 24)

• The supporting language knowledge strand “helps students to develop explicit knowledge of the language, which will, over time, contribute to greater accuracy of use” (p. 24).

The SCALES project

The New Zealand Association of Language Teachers (NZALT) entered into a contractual arrangement with the Ministry of Education to address the alignment of the existing NCEA standards for languages with the 2007 curriculum.

NZALT named the project the Standards-Curriculum Alignment Languages Experts or SCALEs project.

The main purpose of the project was to take the existing 2008 matrix of standards for languages and improve it to ensure that the standards met the following principles…

Key Principles

The standards within the matrix must• be derived from the New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007)• have a clear purpose: each title clearly indicating that only one criterion will be assessed • reflect a notional 10 hours of learning, practice and assessment for an average candidate• indicate the possibility for three levels of grades to be awarded (Achieve/Merit/Excellence)

Decisions made

• The multimodal nature of language use was made more apparent. This was reflected in the titles for standards (for example, listening was reframed as listen and respond).

• Greater emphasis was placed on opportunities to ‘make meaning’ in the process of learning:i. A new standard – interact – was proposed, which would focus

specifically on genuine spoken interactions (rather than contrived ‘conversations’) and which would carry significant weight via a high credit value (six credits).

ii. Teachers and students were to be encouraged to gather, over time, evidence of students’ spoken and written interactions, whether occurring in class or out of class (such as on a visit overseas). This would allow for a greater range of ‘authentic’ interactions.

iii. Teachers would guide students with the selection of evidence for final submission.

Consultation on draft level 1

Two consultation periods1. on an early draft of a one-page matrix showing titles, modes of

assessment and credit value only, and2. on a revised matrix alongside proposed standards for NCEA

level 1. Both consultations revealed that • many teachers had not yet engaged with the intentions of the

revised curriculum• many teachers were cautious about anything that might cause

extra work or a change in practice• some expressed anxiety about exactly what might be required

for both the new interact standard and on-going collections of evidence.

Feedback from consultation

Much of the feedback received was not related to alignment issues with the New Zealand Curriculum but related to implementation issues

Common themes subsequently addressed:• Credit disagreement • Assessment Criteria• Explanatory Notes• Step-ups between A/M/EClear evidence that teachers regarded the portfolios as portfolios of

ASSESSMENT and associated management issuesClarifications therefore required around portfolios of EVIDENCE

resulting from classroom work, and the management of these

The next steps: The Wellington hui

• Early in 2010, and to complete the work that the SCALES project had begun in 2008, a new writing group was convened and invited to a one-week meeting (hui) in Wellington.

The next steps: The Wellington hui

• Early in 2010, and to complete the work that the SCALES project had begun in 2008, a new writing group was convened and invited to a one-week meeting (hui) in Wellington.

• On this occasion the languages writing group comprised two practising teachers, one of whom was also involved with trialling NCEA level 1 assessment tasks, one NCEA moderator, and one member of the advisory service.

• I was invited to be an additional member of the writing group in order to provide an academic perspective.

The next steps: The Wellington hui

• We were asked to finalise proposed standards for NCEA level 3.

• In the case of languages, and because standards up to NCEA level 3 had already been written by the first writing group (although not consulted on), we also reviewed, discussed and refined all standards across all levels.

Retention of the lists

• On the one hand, it was argued that encouraging authentic interaction required students to be free from external constraints but that, no doubt with good intentions, the vocabulary and structures lists did loom very large in classroom practice.

• On the other hand, teacher members of the writing group reported anecdotal evidence that teachers wanted some form of lists to remain in place so that they did have a framework in which to operate for assessment purposes.

The ‘interact’ standard

• I argued, from a theoretical perspective, for the central importance of interact as a key means of fulfilling and assessing the aims of the new learning area.

• Others in the group were genuinely concerned that teachers did not yet fully understand what interact meant in practice, and had real anxieties about how manageable it would be to collect evidence.

The ‘interact’ standard

As part of our discussions it was initially proposed that:• the credit value for interact should be moved back to 6 credits

at all levels• reference to ‘portfolios’ of evidence, which had caused

concern among teachers, should be rephrased as ‘selections’ of evidence

• that teachers would be given specific guidance about the types of evidence that might fulfil the interact standard.

So what else can we do?

• Addressing teacher concerns: NZALT support for the INTERACT standard

• A writing group of practising teachers was established to provide a template and process for implementation of the interact standard

• The use of Myportfolio as a tool for collecting evidence is being promoted through national workshops and NZALT-supported events

Interact using spoken TARGET LANGUAGE to communicate personal information, ideas and opinions in different situations.

5 credits Internal

So what does this mean?The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) requires that students be

able to communicate in a range of contexts. With regard to this, for each level of NCEA, respondents will be asked to consider:

• what would be a reasonable number of samples of evidence to collect per student, and

• what would be a reasonable overall length of evidence to provide.

Support for the INTERACT standard

Interactions are characterised by:• a genuine purpose • negotiating meaning• initiating and maintaining• participating and contributing • natural language• using different language for different purpose(s)• use of conventions e.g. cultural, courtesies, gestures.

Not all characteristics may be evident in one interaction.

Principles for the NZALT Interact standard support materials underpinned by

• Ten Principles for Successful Instructed Second Language Acquisition (Ellis,2005) specificallyPrinciple 1:Instruction needs to ensure that learners develop both a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence; and Principle 2: Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantlyon meaning

• Intercultural components in Learning Languages (LL)(Newton, Yates, Shearn, & Nowitzki, 2010)

• Task-based language teaching (Willis and Willis, 2007)and drawing on classroom experiences with the impetus on the teacher to use the L2 as a means of communication so that students become used to doing the same…

A final word..

Bachman and Palmer (2010) argue that those with a responsibility for developing language assessments “need to be able to

demonstrate to stakeholders that the intended uses of their assessment are justified. This is particularly critical in

situations where high-stakes decisions will be made at least in part on the basis of a language assessment” (p. 2).

ReferencesBachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (2010). Language assessment in practice: Developing

language assessments and justifying their use in the real world. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Buck, G. (1992). Translation as a language testing procedure: Does it work? Language Testing, 9(2), 123-148.

East, M., & Scott, A. (2011). Assessing the foreign language proficiency of high school students in New Zealand: From the traditional to the innovative. Language Assessment Quarterly 8(2), 179-189.

Ellis, R. (2005). Instructed second language acquisition: A literature review. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education. (1993). The New Zealand curriculum framework. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education. (2002). French in the New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media.Newton, J., Yates, E., Shearn, S., & Nowitzki, W. (2010). Intercultural communicative

language teaching: Implications for effective teaching and learning. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Scott, A., & East, M. (2009). The standards review for learning languages: How come and where to? New Zealand Language Teacher, 35, 28-33.

Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task-based language learning: Oxford University Press.

See you inROTORUA

1-4 July, 2010NZ Association of Language Teachers:

Biennial International Conference

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