Grading Structure

Here's an idea... tell students at the beginning of the semester,

"This is what they will need to be able to do to pass the course:

1) Comprehend something they listen to.
2) Comprehend something they read
3) Speak for X-number of seconds.
4) Write X-number words in X amount of time.
5) Participate and keep an organized notebook. 

Each of these is worth 20% of your grade."

Now, for how to grade these.

1. Comprehend something they listen to.
• This could look like a matching activity - At a basic level, students hear a single word and match the item.  Slightly more advanced, students match the picture that goes with the sentence they hear.  At an even more advanced level, students listen to an entire story and select the sequence of pictures (or put a series of pictures in a sequence) that represents the story.  Easy to grade, and demonstrates comprehension of something they hear.
• This could also be a translation activity, graded out of 25.
2. Comprehend something they read.
• Again, this could be a matching activity, starting with single words, words in a sentence, and words in a paragraph/story.
• It could also be a translation activity, graded out of 25.
3. Speak for X number of seconds.
• The student tells a story (can use picture aids) for 30 seconds, graded out of 25 based on complexity, originality, and continuation of speaking.
4. Write X number of words in X amount of time.
• An example would be writing 100 words in 10 minutes (Spanish 1, Semester 1).  Students are assigned the percentage based on number of words up to max (100 in this case), assuming that they actually attempted to say something original (not repeating the same thing over and over), you got the point of what they were saying, and no English was used.
• Though I don't mind if students prepare what they're going to write, I think I will limit them to writing about a picture presented to them.  I don't want them to get savvy to the system and memorize one thing to write again and again.  If I give them a select number of words, select pictures that could be described using only those words, and allow for flexibility in interpretation and adding details, I think students should be sufficiently prepared to write about whatever is presented to them.  Moreover, I would give them time immediately beforehand to preview the picture(s) and plan what they're going to write so that planning doesn't take up much of their time.  Any time I could give them wouldn't be sufficient to memorize a complete response in this case.  The same could apply for speaking.
5. Participate and keep and organized notebook.
• I intend to use interactive notebooks.  All activities, notes, hand outs, etc. will be included in this notebook.  Therefore, if the student is participating, I should be able to find evidence of their participation in their notebook.  Discipline and attendance will be dealt with separately, though students struggling with either will likely see a result in their notebook and its grade due to incomplete and/or missing pages. 
• At the end of the grading period (typically the semester), I collect notebooks and assign a grade for these based upon a rubric.

So how would I evaluate these?  Essentially, I wouldn't take anything for a grade except at specific times.  We would "test" each one for progress, and I will let students know which test will be recorded in the grade book.  Ultimately, only the most recent score will be recorded in the grade book, as that is the best indicator of the student's mastery of the language.  This is an example of a potential evaluation schedule over the course of a Spanish 1 first semester:

• Frequently throughout Q1: Formative testing of listening and reading comprehension, and do not collect for a grade.  (Since and incredible amount of comprehensible input is required, this will always be evaluated frequently) Students track progress in their Interactive Notebooks.
• End of Q1: Formative testing of listening and reading comprehension, and grades are recorded.  However, these can and will be replaced later in the semester.  Record a grade for notebooks (after a brief check), worth 5% of the 20% reserved for notebooks.  This is just to keep kids accountable.
• Q2: Continue frequent listening and reading comprehension checks.  Begin doing weekly 5-minute timed writes in interactive notebooks, but do not collect for a grade (though you may want to collect a few just to give feedback on things like comprehensibility and strategies for writing more!).  Students record their progress.
• 2-3 weeks before the end of Q2: Summative evaluations, including listening, reading, writing and speaking.  Grades are recorded.  If students are unhappy with their grade, they may arrange for a re-take before the semester ends and grades are finalized (you could also choose between whether to let them re-take for the full amount or retake up to a certain score).  Collect and return Interactive Notebooks from students throughout this time, spacing it out so you don't have to grade them all at once!  This IN grade makes up the remaining 15% reserved for IN's.

After this point, you could do frequent/weekly listening and reading comprehension checks as well as frequent timed writes.  Due to the nature of testing speaking, this would best be done once per semester with time for re-takes if needed.  However, in the TPRS model, students should be practicing speaking every day, though that mainly relies on participation and classroom management.  These should be used as formative evaluations on the go.

At the beginning of the semester, students would be informed of these expectations and given a "master vocab list" that included all of the words that could be used in the listening and reading sections.  With these, they can do as they please (of course, they have to be at least put in their Interactive Notebooks!) - in reality, since I will plan my lessons around using these words, students should hear them enough times that they would be able to recognize them just from their in-class participation.  However, for the student who needs a little more help, needs a little more security for "what" they're supposed to be learning, or just has parents that require studying, students may study using these words (we will probably study them sometime in class, as well, since their evaluations will be based upon these words).  Studying can occur through various methods, whether it's simply making flash cards, playing vocabulary games in person or online, or even reading and listening recorded stories using the vocabulary. Sometimes, students just need a list and/or a piece of paper that says "know this."  However, this frees their minds so that they can focus their energy on simply comprehending and becoming engaged in class rather than being stressed that they're "not getting it" and giving up.  They have all the tools and expectations in their hands, so now that we've gotten the "school" part of it out of the way, let's focus on learning language.

I plan to structure my grades with the expectation that a student should be able to earn the appropriate percentage based on their ability to be proficient in the various categories.  I believe these are balanced out so that a student who earns an A or a B can reasonable feel comfortable with having passed the class and being ready to move on to the next level.  If a student earns a C, I could look at which category brought them down, how low they were in that category, and decide whether they should be approved to progress onto the next level, though a C would be considered basic and normally would not be ready for the next level.  A D or an F would not be moved to the next level under any circumstances, obviously.  In looking at the individual categories for proficiency, I would think that a student who has a C (or lower!) in any category, especially if they have that in more than one category, would require special consideration for whether they should be passed on to the next level.  I almost want to tell students they will not be able to pass on to the next level of Spanish unless they receive a B or higher in each of the proficiency categories.

Anyway the point is that we're teaching language, not specific bits and pieces of language.  These types of evaluations get at the "big picture" of language and, again, allow students to focus their energy on comprehending and participating in class rather than determining what exactly they're supposed to know for the test and whether or not they're getting a "good" grade.  Let's learn language for crying out loud.