Speaking Fluency Group

Assessing my Learning through my Speaking Fluency Group
The following lessons were done with grades 2-7 and are as I remember it but maybe not exactly how it went.

Purpose:
-to increase student's oral English Fluency
-to increase the probability of retaining information presented in a lesson.

lesson 1
One of those ways was through a partner pair-share activity that I designed like this...
1) Present students with an activity like reading a short paragraph and then summarizing it.
2) With an assigned partner, students share what they have written and then together decide on a "hybrid" (the best combination) version to be presented.
3) One student of the pair is assigned the job of coach while the other is the speaker. Together they prepare to present to the class. The coach must use the skills of an active listener (PLO A4) by questioning, clarifying, understanding and paraphrasing while at the same time helping the speaker to (PLO A10) reflect and assess their speaking.
4)Finally the speaker presents.
Results
I observed/noted student behavior as coach and as speaker. Noted who was participating in a positive way(socially responsible) and their speaking fluency. Students were as expected making typical ESL grammar errors and ranged in ability from silent to helpful, to do the job as coach.
Self Assessment I noticed that I had not clearly defined the skills the coach could employ nor what I wanted in terms of a quality end product (volume, clarity, grammar)

Lesson 2
Same design for pair-share activity with 1)an additional teacher led lesson on what to do as a coach 2)an teacher generated evaluation component based on the speakers performance (volume, clarity, grammar).
Results
As I moved around observing, students as coaches were now all offering more positive and helpful comments. At the presentation, speakers spoke more loudly, with less errors. I was able to comment on what they did well and what they could improve on.
Self Assessment
Maybe I need to score this activity and maybe they should too.

Lesson 3
Same design as lesson 2 with the addition of a formal/summative peer evaluation component that would be applied to the speech only.
Result
Student were more actively engaged (whether out of experience or because the evaluation component had been added-not sure)as coach and as presenter. They sought to perfect grammar and to make their presentation more engaging.

OK so now I see some connection between the engagement of my students in their own assessment and their learning. I also can see some flow (real or selectively recalled)in my assessment of their learning that made changes in my practice.

With this group my plan is to return to Lesson 3 above with some changes.
-criteria for assessment will be entirely class generated
-peer/adult assessment will be anecdotal vs scored
-goals will be incorporated into a self assessment bases on the assessment by others.


Fall 09 - If you needed to know why I even tried this lesson in the first place
I have been playing with students speaking and listening skill development, with more focus, since the fall, inspired by a "Smart Learning" workshop given by Susan Close. Although she said many things, the idea that I took with me was I needed to engage more of the student's brain in activities we were doing. The other thing that I suspect from what I have heard and read about fluency (reading and therefore speaking) is that time to practice and perfect a specific passage will increase as students ability to speak fluently overall.