Job Discussion Forums

[maj0915]

Hey everyone, was just wondering if anyone had any ideas regarding how to evaluate/grade large classes of students? I meet with twenty different classes of roughly sixty students each week, and I'm finding it pretty difficult to keep track of them. Originally I wanted to do something related to the quality of their speaking (choose a few each week and grade them), but class sizes are so large that I don't know if it's fair to judge someone for an entire semester based on a few short comments they make.

I also considered grading them based on the number of times they participate, which may be easier to count. One thing I'd like to avoid if possible is giving them written assignments and grading them based on that, because it would require grading literally thousands of papers. So I'm leaning toward the "number of times they participate" metric so far (make a list of numbers for each class and use a basic counter script in Python to determine the number of times each student participates), but I'm open to suggestions.

[Non Sequitur]

Wow!!
A post on an actual classroom issue. Well done!
Give a range of general topics and ask the students to form pairs or trios.
They deliver a conversation on that topic but they can take it in any direction they want. 3 mins max.
Example topics:
'How are you settling in to university life'
'Help me buy a new winter coat'
'Let's play basketball after class today'
Sure 60 students are a grind but the actual 'assessment events' are now between 20 and 30.
I find students (boys espec) will try to extract max humour from the situation so it goes down well with the rest of the class.

[donkeydonkey]

My grading depends heavily on requirements by my department. Check out the thread titled: Oral English resource checklist for a conversation about it. the TLDR is that my exams are too heavily weighted and that dialogues, like Non sequitur suggests, are a better way to go if you have a choice. a couple in-class exercises that might be helpful for you are
1 Listening practice where they must write down key info about a story, something that I read, a short video or a song etc,
2 vocab quizes
3 short presentations.

[Non Sequitur]

Clearly I've been in a 'sweet spot' as my classes are Oral English only.
The only requirement is a 60:40 split on assessment of class:final.
The other bugbear is the requirement for percentage marks rather than A, B, C etc.
I mean how do you determine that one student is an 81% and another an 82%, especially if you hear the presentations a week apart?

[adventious]

[Non Sequitur]

Why a week apart? If that is your university's scheduling, it is unfortunate and misguided and I don't envy you the challenge of it.

I see each class once per week.
Assuming my 50 students pair up that's 25 assessments each 5 mins max. Allow time for changeover and the last 5 or so are heard the following week.
There is so much cr*p for the students in the system and for this reason I take extra care to show that my assessments are fair.
As to the A, B v % I feel I can tell say the top 2 or 3 students who merit A+ but dividing them beyond that into 97, 98 and 99 is near impossible.
I also take care to make sure my grades are reasonable and defendable across my say 8 classes. Accordingly I review the top say 7 or 8 students from each class against each other with the question: 'If I had all these 50 students in one class would the mark spread pan out?'
Of course the final mark includes 2 x assessments plus maybe 5 or 6 dialogue performances from the book.
I have developed a marking system that allows this comparison and I also record a general impression on attentiveness.
Apart from the marks reported to Teaching Affairs I also award informal prizes.

As to rubrics at my last school the Canadian partner school was training my Chinese colleagues in such approaches. I left before full implementation.

[adventious]

[Non Sequitur]

Among my top students in a single class, some of my percentiles were the same. Only one could have 100, but two might have 98, one 97, three 95.

True for me too but I also used my informal prizes to really reward excellent effort.
I entered ESL with an associate degree in business and a foundation certificate - part class but mainly on line learning. So no rubrics for me.
I could tell there was a need for what our Canadian partners were delivering as the Chinese teachers seemed v attentive to the presentations from them.
In my final year I was DTA and had to sit in on other FT classes.
The lack of self-awareness of what they were doing was alarming.
One dude read the book dialogues to the class taking each of the 3 parts himself!
The students could hear better English on a DVD. The purpose of the class was student speaking. This seemed totally opaque that guy.

[donkeydonkey]

Good discussion. I'm happy to see it occurring.

I use a rubric that I tweak from time to time. The tweaks revolve around better articulating learning goals in unambiguous language that not only do my students clearly understand, but that I clearly understand. I will create a ranking also, but only use it as a means of double checking my rubric. If my ranking differs greatly from the differentiation that my rubric generates then I re-evaluate both my ranking and my rubric. I usually find this helps me to improve my rubric, although i am careful not rely exclusively on an "ear test" or general impression ranking. This would cause me to fall into the very subjectivity that the rubric is suppose to help avoid. It's a balancing act that takes continuous work. One issue that I have is that Oral English is graded on the spot. For my exams, the students come to my desk, talk, and answer questions. If the Rubric is too elaborate or complex, then I am mentally grading and not listening to the students. I try not to rely on remembering their speech, for obvious reasons, for my grading. This leads me to keeping my rubric short, simple, and fairly quick to use. Greater complexity can be more specific for grades, but has to be balanced against practicality and functionality as well as my own limitations.

I don't see a benefit to a ranking being the sole basis of a grade in Oral English. Multiple 100% grades occur in my classes each semester. My explanation is that I don't "award" 100%, I lay out what must occur for 100% at the beginning of the semester and the students achieve it or they don't. Hypothetically, all of the students could achieve 100% even though this is highly unlikely. I understand the concerns about grade inflation as well as the usefulness of rankings in highly competitive areas such as law schools. I just don't see how these things translate to oral English, but maybe someone can change my mind. I would be interested to hear more about rankings based grading and oral English. Specifically, how and why it is preferable to using a rubric. I will give an example as to why I allow multiple 100% grades. My two most advanced speakers are accounting students in the same Oral English class. One grew up watching Hannah Montana, How I met your mother, and American movies. She also, to my horror, loves Justin Bieber, One Direction, and Taylor Swift. She has a very clear, fluid, and natural speaking style and is highly conversational. She could pass as a high schooler in the U.S. in terms of language. Her diction however tends to be somewhat simple and she will have some problems with complex vocabulary that is area specific. The other accounting student can discuss complex topics in business and economics quite well. I have had discussions with her about 1970's U.S Stagflation, monetary policy, and the hyper-inflationary period in post WWI Germany. Her speaking can be dry and robotic, and she sometimes has an unnatural speech style though her accent is pretty good. I could value fluid, natural speaking and rank the former over the latter or I could give greater weight to the complex academic speech of the latter and so come by a ranking. However, both of these students far exceed any reasonable expectations that I could place on them in what is the beginning of their second year of university. I believe some of what I observe in their language abilities is not L2 related, but instead due to personality, sociability, and personal interests which further complicates creating a hierarchy. Both, I'm sure not coincidentally, show up to class, participate, and are bright, enthusiastic learners. I'm sure both will get 100's in my class, again.

[adventious]

[Non Sequitur]

The finer points have gotten way beyond my input. But given my 60:40 class:final requirement, the main factor contributing to the end-of-semester mark is the dialogues read from the book. Use of the book is a requirement of the school.
Any student would get maybe 6 opportunities during the 18-week semester to be graded on this activity.
Another class activity is the dialogue (mid semester) on a topic chosen from maybe 3 options. I don't proscribe notes for this one, as my tactic is slow weaning off the notes to the goal of extempore speech.
The better students will attempt the mid-semester dialogue without notes and their mark reflects that desire to test themselves.
I wish there was an alternative to the book dialogues, as they are invariably boring and unimaginative.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, I can only put up with the dialogues for the first 50 mins. After the break, we do something else.
As important as the grading is planning to get everything done with a week to spare.

[wangdaning]

With the amount of students mentioned, most assessments become impractical. Not being practical means the assessment will become arbitrary and subjective. It seems the best method in such situations would be measuring motivation on a simple scale. Not motivated, shows interest, very interested. I get no point of nailing down percents other than the employer wants them. A shows interest could be a 76/77/78, what is the difference? Really, what is different between those marks?

A 100 percent is insane, that means perfect. I was there in my freshmen year of high school biology, but my teacher gave me a 99.8 percent. When I added up the marks I was 105 percent, oops, those extra credit works were not for students like me.

To the point of the OP, you need a system in place from the first class so students know what they need to get a certain grade. I would also check with the relevant department how the assessment scheme works at their school. How will the mark you give reflect on the students overall academic path? Is there differences between a percent or two? Try to make it as simple as possible. Performing is great for practice, but if that is not what you are teaching I think it is a bit harsh to mark them on it.

I have never dealt with class sizes that large, so it is hard for me to think of ways to assess them. What about spending the final two weeks of classes having them come in pairs, with a schedule, for a speaking exam. Couple that with attendance.

[Non Sequitur]

I've already mentioned that class work makes up 60 percent of final.
The test in the final 2 weeks doesn't address that.
Given the horrors of the Gao Kao my freshers need to be led through a series of confidence-building steps to arrive at some fluency.
Assessing on enthusiasm would be letting the students down imho. The kids would soon tumble to it.

[adventious]

[Non Sequitur]

By the way, NS, the GaoKao has no oral English component.

I've made that point for years on this site.
Students coming into tertiaries may have pretty good vocab and silent reading skills but lack confidence speaking.
The Gao Kao hiatus can be two years for some students.
Add in the fact they have moved from their old high school class group and puberty has kicked it's understandable if they lack confidence orally.
'Horrors' is perhaps too extreme but a former student once told me about her Gao Kao experience. Her words: ' Felt like a pig in a sty. Stay in my room and study, unless I was sleeping bathing or eating'.
She sat GK twice to get into a higher status university.