Encouraging self-evaluation is possible with all learners. Age, ability and confidence play a role in how we do this. With primary learners, it is important to keep self-evaluation simple but encourage all learners to reflect on their learning. Often our less confident learners are the ones that self-evaluate better, they simply need the tools to do this and communicate with us.
Self-assessment helps learners build understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. For primary learners it can lead to personal growth and awareness of their learning. It can help learners to realise when they are doing well and provide opportunities for them to ask for help. In a recent webinar, Jane Ritter took a look at 5 FUN ways to help learners evaluate their learning and boost their confidence in the classroom. Keep reading to discover what what was covered.
Idea #1 – Setting up tasks
How we introduce a task is important for learners’ motivation and for classroom management. Encouraging them to self-evaluate their ability to do a task can help them do it with confidence. I use the 1-2-3 (then me) strategy with my students.
- Read the task. What do you have to do? Write? Tick? Speak? (I give students 1 minute for this.) Here I encourage them to be self-reliant.
- Check with your partner/group (I give them a few more minutes for this). They then become peer-reliant and plan together.
- Call me (the teacher). If a student is still struggling with the task at this point, they should ask the teacher for help.
I find that by doing this, I have time for the learners that really need my attention, as after 3 minutes many have read carefully and checked their ideas with a peer.
We can also use recordings to set up tasks. We looked at this QR code in the webinar. Try it for yourself. Take your phone and turn your camera on. What do you see? A link? Open it and watch.
Recording instructions is great for students whose reading and writing skills are still developing. Recordings build independence in task completion. If you watched the above video, you saw that Sage the squirrel guides learners through the tasks so they can do them independently.
We do not have to limit this to professionally recorded material. We can record instructions on our phones and send them (safely) to students. They can also record their responses and send them to us (with permission).
Idea #2 – When we do tasks
After we have done a task or an activity, ask our students about it:
Was it fun? 👍 / 👎
How did it go? 🙂 / 😐 / ☹️
We could also include a checklist activity to encourage them to reflect on what they have just done. They then tick the things they can do and how well they did it.
Most good course books include checklists that are easy to use in class. You could also make your own or download these progress charts from Cambridge Assessment.
Idea #3 – When we begin a unit
Starting a new unit can be a great way to check what students already know and prepare them to learn more. Imagine you are starting a new unit. We want to engage with the topic and think about what we know. A quick brainstorming activity can get learners thinking about what they remember. For a unit at the beach, I would slowly reveal the brainstorming points below and give learners 1-2 minutes to write words they remember:
Course materials usually review language at the start of a new lesson. For example, in Fun Skills, animations at the beginning of each unit often encourage learners to think about what they learnt in previous lessons.
Idea #4 – When we finish a unit
Finishing a unit is a great point to reflect on and evaluate learning. It is also a good moment to get learners thinking about the activities they did.
Ask them to complete the following sentences:
What we can do well
I like . . .
I can . . .
I’m happy when . . .
This gets them thinking about the activities they did, what they liked and what they can do. This reminds learners that learning is not just about remembering all the words/grammar. It is also about having fun and being happy. These stem sentences aren’t limited to the end of the unit. You could use them daily or weekly to see how learners feel about your classes and how they enjoy learning.
Idea #5 – When we do a test
It is important that our learners practise tasks for Cambridge YLE tests. It is equally important they understand why we practise. In the webinar we looked at the Movers Speaking test part 2. Materials are freely downloadable here. During the story, we reflected on language used and found we had produced a lot of continuous forms. An activity for the whole class is to identify the statement that refers to what they did and tick it. By the time they are ready to take the test they know what they can do.
You can download all the statements here.
Self-assessment helps learners build understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. For primary learners it can lead to personal growth and awareness of their learning. It can help learners to realise when they are doing well and provide opportunities for them to ask for help.
Watch the full webinar
Catch up on Jane´s webinar and others in our Catch Up FUN series.
If you enjoyed this article, make sure to check out Anne Robinson’s recent blog post with 5 fun ways to personalise grammar with young learners.