Year 9
Languages Support Materials
Overview
The central purpose of assessment is to understand where students are in their learning. Assessment refers to the broad range of strategies teachers employ to obtain information about their students’ skills and understandings, and ranges from asking students questions during a lesson to giving students a formal standardised assessment.
The assessments need to provide information about the depth of students’ conceptual understandings as well as their accumulation of knowledge. They should support teachers in identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses, and provide detailed diagnostic information about how students are thinking, so that the teacher is well placed to know what students have mastered and what they need to learn next.
Year 9 Languages
Assessment Principle Number 1 Assessment should be an integral part of Teaching and Learning
German: Second Language Pläne fürs Wochenende (Plans for the weekend)
Languages/German: Second Language/Communicating/Socialising/Informing/Understanding/Systems of language/Language variation and change
Content Description |
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Initiate and participate in sustained interactions, using informative and descriptive language to share, compare and justify personal opinions about aspects of childhood, teenage life and relationships, for example, Es ist kompliziert, ein Teenager zu sein, weil ... Engage in shared activities such as planning and managing activities, events or experiences, exchanging resources and information Analyse ideas and information from a range of texts related to aspects of their personal and social worlds and identifying context, purpose and intended audience Recognise the ways in which written language is different from spoken language such as being more crafted, elaborated and complex, with use of interrelated clauses and support details Increase control of context-related vocabulary and extend grammatical knowledge of grammatical elements, including:
Examine the interrelationship between different text types, language choices, audience, context and purpose Analyse how and why language is used differently in different contexts and relationships. |
Nature of the assessment
Responses in English to a written text.
Written response to a written text in the form of a script of a role play.
Purposes of the assessment
To establish information on the students’ skills in comprehending and conveying information in written texts. Also to establish information on the students’ skills in writing informative and descriptive text in German.
Stage in the Teaching sequence
At the end of the learning sequence as a summative assessment.
Background learning
Students have been:
- provided with opportunities to listen to, view and read a variety of texts related to relationships
- taught context-related vocabulary, including Freundschaft, Familie, typische Konflikte zwischen Jugendlichen und ihren Eltern
- taught grammatical items including: understanding modal verbs, linguistic devices to contrast and compare ideas (comparison of adjectives, erweiterter Infinitiv, relative clauses), introducing a range of cohesive devices, including adverbs (danach, zuerst, dann, danach, außerdem)
- taught the textual conventions of a role play, and provided with some examples to review.
Assessment task
The teacher provided the students with the task and explained that it was in two parts. Firstly, students were to demonstrate their comprehension of information in a written text; a script involving two characters, a teenager daughter and mother discussing the daughter’s plans for the weekend. Then students were to demonstrate their ability to write in the German language by developing the script of a role play in which the characters exchange comments on the challenges in the relationship with the teenager and her mother and make plans for the weekend that would be acceptable to all involved. The students were advised to write approximately 100–120 words in German.
Assessment process
Students had previously engaged with texts and classroom discussion based on relationships. The teacher explained that the purpose of the assessment task was to show their understanding of the information in a written text and then to use the text as a stimulus to write the script of a role play where plans for the weekend were discussed and alternative plans were made. The teacher observed the students as they completed the task. On completion of the task, the teacher collected the task and used the marking key to assess both parts and provide detailed feedback to students.
Using the information
The teacher used the information to determine the students’ ability to comprehend information in a German text and to write in the German language. The teacher’s observations were used to guide further lesson planning and to inform end-of-semester reporting.
Overview
The central purpose of assessment is to understand where students are in their learning. Assessment refers to the broad range of strategies teachers employ to obtain information about their students’ skills and understandings, and ranges from asking students questions during a lesson to giving students a formal standardised assessment.
The assessments need to provide information about the depth of students’ conceptual understandings as well as their accumulation of knowledge. They should support teachers in identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses, and provide detailed diagnostic information about how students are thinking, so that the teacher is well placed to know what students have mastered and what they need to learn next.
Year 9 Languages
Assessment Principle 5 Assessment should lead to informative reporting
Chinese: Second Language比较中澳学校生活 Bǐjiào zhōng ào xuéxiào shēnghuó (School life in China and Australia)
Languages/Chinese: Second Language/Communicating/Socialising/Informing/Understanding/Systems of language
Content Description |
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Initiate and participate in spoken interactions, using informative and descriptive language to share and compare personal opinions about aspects of childhood, teenage life and relationships, for example, 中国学生的作业比澳大利亚学生的多; 他们喜欢在周末看电影; 澳大利亚学生喜欢在周末运动; 我喜欢上网交朋友,你呢? Engage in extended written interaction and activities about events or experiences such as aspects of childhood, teenage life and relationships, referring to information stated, or requesting or providing further details Collate and present in written form different perspectives related to aspects of their personal and social worlds and identify context, purpose and intended audience Use knowledge of character form and function to infer information about the sound and meaning of unfamiliar characters Increase control of context-related vocabulary and extend grammatical knowledge, including:
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Nature of the assessment
Written responses in English to information provided in a written text.
Written text in Chinese to the stimulus text in the form of an email.
Purposes of the assessment
To evaluate students’ ability to comprehend written text and collate and convey that information. It also establishes information on their ability to write descriptive and expressive text to share and compare personal opinions on a given topic.
Stage in the Teaching sequence
At the end of the learning sequence as a summative assessment.
Background learning
Students have been:
- taught context-related vocabulary
- exposed to a variety of texts related to topics of personal interest such as school life
- taught grammatical structures, including: experimenting with 的 as a subject modifier to express ideas that would contain relative clauses in English, for example, 我妈妈做的饭很好吃
- taught the textual conventions of an email, and provided with opportunities to practise them.
Assessment task
The teacher provided the students with the task and explained that it was in two parts. Firstly, students were to read the stimulus text provided before attempting to respond in English to questions. The students were able to demonstrate their comprehension of information in a written text.
Then students were to demonstrate their ability to write in Chinese by providing a written response to the information in the text they had read. In their email response, they were to explain what school life was like for them; their most and least favourite subjects; teachers they got on with and what they did during the school day. Students were asked to write approximately 80 characters.
Assessment process
Students had previously engaged with texts and classroom discussion based on school life experiences. The teacher explained that the purpose of the assessment task was to show their understanding of the information in a written text and then to use the text as a stimulus to write an email to the sender and explain what school life was like for them.
Using the information
The teacher used the information to determine the students’ ability to comprehend information in a written text and to write in the Chinese language. The teacher’s observations were used to guide further lesson planning and to inform end-of-semester reporting.