Student Reports and Parents/Teacher Evenings

[Stuart82]

I'm currently reviewing the way we report on the progress of students (YLs and teens) to their parents and am really interested in how other language schools do this.

How often do you send home reports? In what kind of format i.e. tickboxes, comments from teachers etc?

Do you still have teacher/parent meetings? How often per year?

Has anybody come up with any new non-traditional ideas that really work in terms of keeping parents informed and involved in their child's progress (that they are willing to share!)?

Thanks in advance,

Stuart

[Sally Olsen]

We used a picture dictionary with twenty words per page and a different topic per page (transportation, home, me, animals, etc.) and made a passport out of it with 20 words typed on the page. The younger children tried to match the picture of the object with the word (pictures scrambled) and the older ones could write a story on the opposite page left blank. We stamped the page when the students could say all the words and knew what they meant and then we had a box for the parents to check at the bottom when the students could say all the words to them and give them a sentence or read their story and translate it for the younger brothers and sisters or their parents or grandparents who didn't speak English. When we had stamped every page and they had all their boxes signed by the parents they could win an English book or dictionary (from the dollar store) or in Mongolia, I gave them one coloured pencil.

At another school we made a passport with different countries on each page and chose words that best illustrated that country, so they got to go around the world and got a prize when they had all their stamps and boxes signed by the parents.

We also lent out word games to the children to play with the family at home once the student knew all the words of that particular game. That really impressed some parents.

In Greenland, each class made a film, deciding on the story, story boarding it, filming scenes and editing it, of course all in English and then showing it to everyone we could think of. They made posters to advertise the films. One class chose a "Jackass" type of film which I wasn't keen on but was the most popular but many did a version of some local fairy tale. I remember one called "Eat your sister's feet". A horror movie and done with mirrors, literally. Everyone was impressed because the "coolest" students were speaking English in the film.

Otherwise we just had a slot on the regular report card to fill in (but sometimes with computer aided help (common things you might say so you didn't have to keyboard it all the time and no one would sue you) and had interviews with the parents when they came to see the other teachers. We always had a native speaking teacher with us to make sure we understood each other.

[silencedobetter]

Educators achieve academic success in a number of ways. We do this by utilizing a number of different methodologies and philosophies, but the common factor in any kind of academic progress is creating cooperation between parents, pupils and practitioners in the noble art of ESL instruction.
The Anatomy of a Parent- Teacher Meeting - Part 1
The Anatomy of a Parent- Teacher Meeting - Part 2