11. Assessment or marking?
Certain questions arise:
- Is the assessment of pupils’ contributions incorporated in their learning process?
- Does this work, which calls for a substantial effort, go unassessed?
- Should it be “marked” in the same way as other class activities?
There are several ways of approaching these questions:
- Every effort must be recognised as worthwhile, whatever the learner’s level of linguistic or cultural competence
- The teacher could use pupils’ contributions to show what standard they have reached as compared with expectations at a given point in their language studies
- the weakest pupils could rework their contributions, with or without help from their fellows, errors having been pointed out by the teacher first
- Incorporating the forum in the learning process, and the weighting of this activity, are also important aspects.
Participants point out the importance of valuing the pupils’ work. They emphasise that the chance to see their own contributions on the forum is a real reward for every learner, and that pupils were delighted at receiving a reply to their contribution.
In this sense it was appropriate that each pupil received a certificate from the headmaster, signed by the Director of the ECML.