MY REFLECTIONS ON WEEK 5

MY REFLECTIONS ON WEEK 5

Hello everyone,

This week, we have tackled some other aspects of our training, that is to say Alternative Assessment and Rubrics, Project-Based Learning (PBL) and WebQuest.

To start, I would like to say that I came to understand that Alternative Assessment uses activities that reveal what students can do with language, especially the students’ strengths instead of their weaknesses. It is based on authentic tasks that demonstrate learners’ abilities to accomplish communication goals.

Another aspect I found very interesting is the Project-Based Learning (PBL) in the sense that PBL enables students to work together, to create a sense of belonging to a community. And this leads to motivation among students. Susan Gaer thinks that projects must be geared to students and students must see value in projects. I completely agree with her because students are more motivated when they see that what they are doing represents a valuable thing for them personally or for their community. PBLs proved to be integrative tasks because, in such a task, all the four skills of language learning are implemented.

The week was also enriched with the introduction to rubrics. I appreciated that introduction because when I was a school boy, I was wondering the criteria on which I was assessed. Rubrics give me today the opportunity to alleviate the anxiety of learners at this point. In fact, I had been more or less scared since the day of an assessment in class till the day I had my paper back in my hands. For the younger generations, rubrics allow them to be aware of the criteria which guide the assessment of students, which can permit learners to have a certain idea of their final marks. If he/she has a bad mark in a given task, the existence of rubrics can be a source of motivation in the performance of that particular task so that he/she can catch up.

The final point I would like to mention for this week is related to WebQuests. Frankly speaking, I found the creation of a WebQuest very challenging, but I understood later that it can be a useful tool in language learning. However, I would argue that the use of WebQuests can be a little bit difficult in schools and learning centers where access to the Internet is difficult or if the learners are not very much accustomed to computers. I’m looking forward to entering Week 6.

Best regards,

Dagnogo