Assessment using Asset Languages

[Jo Rhys-Jones]

Here’s a little challenge for you – look at the sentences below and see if you can match them up to the English.

1. Det här är min syster. 2. Jag är engelsk. 3. Jag har fem katter. 4. Jag tycker om äpplen.

a. I have five cats. b. I like apples. c. I am English. d. This is my sister.

How did you get on? Well done if you spotted the language is Swedish. The correct answers are 1-d, 2-c, 3-a and 4-b. What techniques did you use to work these answers out? Maybe you spotted some cognates – syster/sister, äpplen/apples? Maybe you picked out a linguistic pattern and surmised that ‘Jag’ might possibly mean ‘I’. Perhaps you tried to say the words aloud? Did you even resort to a process of elimination as you worked through the sentences? Chances are that you used the very same Language Learning Strategies referred to in the KS2 Framework, and which we encourage our classes to stop and think about regularly.

I have to thank John Connor, Independent Consultant, for the above activity, which comes from an Asset Languages ‘Breakthrough Swedish Reading Grade 1 Task C’ paper. John gave an excellent introduction to Asset Languages at a presentation last week in Lyndhurst.

Asset Languages, John explained, are able to provide formal assessment of KS2 language attainment in line with the Common European Framework (or Languages Ladder as we use it in the UK), which is part of the 2010 entitlement - ‘every child… by age 11 to have an opportunity to reach a recognised level of competence on the Common European Framework’. Now as a commercial organisation this simple testing comes at a fee, but it is pretty reasonable and might well save a classteacher or mfl coordinator a lot of trouble devising their own tests. Moreover Asset provides recognition in the form of a national qualification certificate that might be awarded at a Year 6 final assembly perhaps.

You can have a look at the Language Ladder and see what the grades equate to on the CEF and as part of National Curriculum levels here. For primary schools we are mostly concerned with ‘Breakthrough’ stage though some very able Year 6 may even approach level 4 which would be the start of the ‘Preliminary’ stage. You can download the QCA specifications for these levels, divided into separate skills (Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing) from the Asset Languages website. They are fairly vague level descriptors though – which is where Asset has done the hard work of devising tests for you.

Children could be entered formally (with candidate numbers etc.) at the end of Year 5 / beginning of Year 6 (to avoid the SATS period) in any, or all of the skill areas for the Breakthrough grade. Personally this might be a little too formal for some, so there is also the option of children taking the tests in normal classtime, with the teacher, as they reach each level in years 3, 4, 5, and 6. An ‘Accredited Teacher’ would then hold a moderation meeting to check all teachers are giving the same marks and certificates can be awarded in the same way. This would recognise year on year progress and also be cheaper; a group of primary schools are allowed to register together and share the cost – approx £80 for a pack of tests including training for one teacher to become an Accredited Teacher. The only on-going fee would be for new certificates each year which again are cheaper in bulk.

John showed the delegates some of the tests, which seem very user-friendly and ‘do-able’. Certainly they would be a great way to reassure staff who are feeling a little anxious about their own linguistic ability, or even, as John has done in Thurrock, award to teachers who are learning a language with the children.

My only reservation was the content of the tests. While all the emphasis is on skills testing, inevitably there has to be some guidance on content. You can download this again from the Asset Languages site. Most of this content is completely sensible and very useful for teachers planning their own schemes of work – time, colours, numbers, size, opinions, simple instructions etc.. and linguistic structures including gender of nouns, articles, adjectives, possessive pronouns, prepositions and a few simple verbs not only in the first person. However I do have a few reservations about the ‘vocabulary areas’. Essentially they are ‘topics’ – very Secondary in feel, despite Asset’s claim that they are relevant to Primary aged pupils:
‘personal information, home and surroundings, studying, working, health, shopping and services, eating and drinking, free time and entertainment, holidays and travelling’
- It really is very depressing when teachers across the UK have been teaching cross-curricular topics, embedding language learning into the curriculum and even the QCA units include ‘The Planets’ and Artists. Yet we are seriously considering giving children of primary school age a test asking them to ‘Look at this picture of tourists, what are they wearing?’ or read extracts about Caroline ‘en vacances avec sa famille’!

While Asset allows a certain amount of adaptation of the tests by teachers to fit the content they have used in their own schemes of work I personally was very disappointed and still don’t think they’ve quite got it right.

So do check out the Asset Languages website, download some of the samples and see what you think. They seem a very helpful and genuinely enthusiastic organisation. For some schools this will be just the ticket for assessment, transition and Ofsted, but for others you may prefer to continue devising your own assessments. Oh – and thank you John for a great presentation and being so open to questions!

[Janet]

We have just purchased Asset Languages and are in the process of looking at the content in relation to our teaching. Anyone else had any experience with asset?

[Helen]

Think the activity is great- i used all the strategies that you mentioned! Am going to use it in class- hiding the English to begin with, then revealing it, to show them they can do it too! Have listened to some of the tests- they remind me of my secondary days- good memories?
Hx