Dictation- Reflection

Submitted by Cecilia Rosales on
Duration
Abstract

5 -7 minutes

Maria Cecilia Rosales

I use what I call Dictation- Reflection to assess gramatical concepts, listening comprehension and writing skills.

I dictate ten conjugated verb forms from the active vocabulary list for the chapter in question (bailamos, trabajan, etc). Students are asked to:

1-      Write down the conjugated verb form I dictate (bailamos)

2-      Identify the infinitive form of that verb (bailar)

3-      Identify the implicit subject pronoun in the inflection (nosotros/ nosotras)

This is helpful for true beginners and for heritage speakers who know how to conjugate verbs, but don't know the grammatical rules. (metacognition)

 80% + accuracy means we have met the learning objective. If the group scores 79% or lower, we STOP, retool and practice some more.  

Students like this activity because of the immediate feedback: peer review or group—each group reports 1 or 2 answers to the class.  

Division/Department
Completed Full Cycle
Yes
Course Number
SPA101
Assessment of the Month
Rating
Average: 4 (6 votes)

Comments

Peter Turner Tue, 09/17/2013 - 11:43am

Cecilia, I really like this activity, not only because of the metacognition and the collaborative structure, but because you use the group scores to determine whether to move on or reteach. It's like a continuous and ongoing action research cycle!

Erik Huntsinger Tue, 09/17/2013 - 4:31pm

Cecilia, great job on creating a self-recurring process where you get immediate feedback on what students need to learn and when they can move on.  This is a model that should be massively scaled up to other classes and instructors!

Cheryl Gipson Thurman Tue, 01/07/2014 - 11:28am

I like this method of instruction and I've seen you in action with one of my students from Fall 2013, and he commented that he liked your method of teaching your classes.  This is definitely thinking outside the box to help your students improve and learn the language properly.  Keep up the good work and I wish that I would have had you as my instructor and maybe I would have stuck with learning it. This definitely also helps with instant feedback before the student is allowed to move on. 

Laraine Bosse Sat, 09/12/2015 - 11:06am

I love this idea.  It provides one more vantage point for analyzing grammar in an elegant way.  This lends itself well to providing students tools for exploring the language on their own.