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Teacher assessment

Effective teachers use a range of procedures for observing and recording each individual student’s progress. Teachers can monitor students’ progress by:

• checking students’ ability to use language and to follow tikanga (with the emphasis on communicative competence rather than native-speaker expertise – see the last two paragraphs in programme planning) by observing the students as they carry out spoken, written, and visual-language tasks in authentic contexts related to the various themes, topics and text types introduced (levels 1–8).

Examples

At a pōwhiri, do students know how and when to hongi, and are they able to perform the hongi comfortably?

How well do students know their roles and responsibilities as manuhiri and as tangata whenua?

Do students know how to greet a kaumātua or friend appropriately in specific contexts, such as in the hongi line, in the classroom, and in the playground?

Can students give clear directions to a familiar place?

Can students give clear instructions on how to complete a familiar task that is appropriate to the level and topic?

Can students read a story in te reo Māori aloud to others, conveying the meaning clearly and using appropriate pronunciation and intonation?

Can students plan and write an engaging, well-formed text for a specific purpose and audience?

Can students select appropriate whakataukī and waiata to embellish formal public speeches?

• assessing students’ specific responses to the various tasks that have been set, for example, making labels for pictures, solving problems in number games, selecting words to use in greetings cards and completing substitution activities (levels 1–8)
• asking students to make and use their own checklists based on whether specified content is present or absent in a spoken or written text, and discussing their responses (levels 1–8)
• observing student responses to classroom instructions and questions and noting the words and sentences students produce while playing language-based board games (levels 1–2)
• observing student responses to instructions and directions and their successful completion of tasks based on these instructions and directions (levels 3–4)
• checking students’ answers to multichoice questions about spoken or written texts (levels 1–4)
• checking drawings based on spoken or written descriptions of people, places and things (levels 3–4)
• checking spoken or written descriptions based on various texts, such as brochures, drawings, maps and plans (levels 3–4)
• recording and checking dialogues produced by pairs of students in response to visual cues (levels 3–8)
• checking the information that students find on the Internet about, for example, the meanings of Māori words (level 3) or the location of towns and shopping centres (level 4)
• checking how well students integrate information from Māori-medium Internet sites into their spoken and written production (levels 4–8)
• asking students to modify a written passage, or the written transcript of a dialogue, in a variety of specified ways (for example, for a different audience, for a different purpose, to adjust the time reference, or to change the focus) and checking their responses (levels 4–8)
• checking students’ ability to adjust their own spoken and written language to changes in audience, purpose, or the level of formality of the context (levels 5–8)
• checking students’ spoken and written narratives about real or imagined past activities and events (levels 3–8)
• checking students’ spoken and written reports about habits and routines (levels 3–8)
• checking students’ spoken and written recounts of actual events (levels 2–8)
• checking that students can give and follow instructions (levels 5–7)
• checking students’ spoken and written accounts that compare and contrast people, places, and things, for example, comparing two different cultural activities (levels 7–8)
• checking students’ spoken and written accounts of plans, such as their conversations, emails, or text messages as they plan for a forthcoming cultural event (levels 7–8)
• checking that students can describe problems and present solutions in spoken and written forms (levels 6–8)
• observing as students give short speeches or make telephone calls based on information gathered from sources such as radio or television programmes or travel diaries (levels 6–8)
• checking students’ writing of simple film reviews and critical commentaries based on their own judgments (levels 6–8)
• checking curriculum vitae and letters of application for employment (levels 7–8)
• checking students’ ability to adjust expressions of approval, disapproval, agreement and disagreement to suit different contexts (levels 6–8)
• checking students’ participation in debates in which they are expected to provide logical arguments and appropriate reasons (levels 6–8)
• checking students’ writing of newspaper reports, editorials, or letters to the editor based on information from other sources, such as radio and television programmes or an Internet search (levels 7–8)
• checking students’ simulated or actual broadcast commentaries based on information supplied, or retrieved, from various sources (levels 6–8).