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    • LEARNER ASSESSMENT
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  • Assessing Lifeskills Objectives
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    ASSESSING LIFESKILLS OBJECTIVES

    As you work through the various lifeskills topic units, it is important to assess learners' language and lifeskills performance on an ongoing basis. The following targets will help you develop and implement effective lifeskills assessments.


    Assessing Lifeskills Performance Objectives
    Designing Effective Assessment Activities
    Lifeskills Assessment Tools and Techniques Chart
    Beyond Language and Lifeskills

     

    Assessment Standards

    The standards for assessing student performance on the lifeskills performance objectives are the REEP Level Descriptions.  Below are guidelines for which descriptors to use as the target language at the beginning of the cycle and which descriptors to use as the target language toward the end of the cycle. In most cases, there is more than one possible level that a student could move to at the end of the cycle. The levels in ( ) are less common placements from the current level. See Final Assessment for more information on promotion guidelines.
    CURRENT LEVEL:
    USE THESE DESCRIPTORS AS TARGET LANGUAGE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CYCLE
    USE THESE DESCRIPTORS AS TARGET LANGUAGE TOWARD THE END OF THE CYCLE
    100
    150 and 200
    150
    200 and 250
    200
    250 and 300
    250
    350 (300)
    300
    400 (350)
    350
    450 (400)
    450
    550

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    Assessing Lifeskill Performance Objectives

    Performance objectives provide the context within which students learn, practice, and are evaluated using language. Performance objectives:

    •  identify the task to be accomplished
    •  specify the conditions of the performance situation
    •  describe the language needed to perform the objective, and

      •  provide the criteria by which to judge success
    Students should be evaluated on their ability to use the language and structures taught while completing the tasks stated in the performance objectives. The following chart describes how language is evaluated through performance objectives. Using this methodology along with the level descriptions helps the teacher to determine whether a student is making gains in his/her language performance.

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    Performance Objectives

    COMPONENT PARTS
    DEFINITION
    EXAMPLE 
    CONDITION give context required given a diagram of a supermarket and shelves 
    PERFORMANCE name the action to be demonstrated ask and answer questions 
    CRITERIA describe the requirement for success about the location of five items 
    LANGUAGE language needed to complete the objective vocabulary: food 

    structures: simple present tense, wh-questions, preposition of location 

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    Designing Effective Assessment Activities

    Evaluation of the performance objectives should be "criterion-referenced", i.e. learners are evaluated on whether or not they can use language to perform the specified task within the conditions and criteria established by the objective.

    Students are evaluated on their ability to use the language and lifeskill to complete a task in a novel situation, without assistance from the teacher or classmates.  Good evaluation activities should:

    • simulate real life tasks
    • measure what has actually been taught and learned
    • be practical in terms of administration time and necessary resources
    • be reliable; someone else rating the learner should make the same decision as to the success/failure learner's performance, and
    • be acceptable to learners as a valid activity.
    In addition, the type of evaluation activity needs to match the language skill taught.  The reading and writing development objectives and lifeskills objectives that require written language production can be evaluated individually with paper and pencil tasks (e.g.  answering comprehension questions, writing essays, completing forms, writing checks or taking messages).

    Tasks which require oral communication (i.e. oral lifeskills objectives) must be evaluated orally. However, individual assessment may not always be feasible given time constraints.  Pair, small group and even whole group activities can sometimes be preferable in terms of usefulness as well as practicality.
     

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    Lifeskills Assessment Tools and Techniques Chart

    This tools chart provides suggested activities for evaluating individual learner achievement of oral performance objectives. All of the activities are teaching activities as well as assessment activities and should not be used for assessment until learners are familiar with the technique. Most of the activities can be adapted for use at any level and with multi-level classes. These techniques are particularly effective in large classes where evaluation of individual achievement is challenging.

    The tools are listed in the first column of the tools chart. Samples of most of these can be found in the Resources pull-down menu. The technique column describes the technique. The logistics column describes how to set up the activity as an evaluation activity. The example column provides suggestions on appropriate lifeskills contexts.
     

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    Beyond Language and Lifeskills:

    In addition to using level appropriate language skills, students need to access information, work cooperatively, plan, reflect, take responsibility for learning, and teach each other. Click here for more information on these Equipped for the Future (EFF) skills.

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    Arlington Education and Employment Program
    2801 Clarendon Blvd., Room 218, Arlington, VA 22201

    Contact REEP:reep@arlington.k12.va.us