feature idea:cefr self assesment checklist implementation

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Cavesa
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feature idea:cefr self assesment checklist implementation

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:37 pm

I know this idea will sound a bit crazy, coming from someone with level "somewhere on the path" in her profile. But we might want an alternative, more or less unified way to assess skills in the profiles in future.

I must admit I wasn't that wise from the old htlal assessment profile and we all know words like "intermediate" are ambiguous. Many htlalers are using the cefr scale already but most of us haven't been tested for all our languages (and that is why I totally hesitate to put a cefr label on my spanish or german). Self-assessment based just on the vague brief description on wikipedia isn't too precise, in my opinion.

The best self-assessment thing I could find so far was the official self-assessment checklist with "can do" statements for each level and each of the skills.

So, a wild idea, that you may or may not find that good. Even if you do, it won't probably be a priority anytime soon and I admit I have no clue whether it would be possible to implement to this forum:
every htlaler will have the option to go into their profile, view a table- the checklist. Tick every "can do" you can do (:-)) for each of their languages (and tick more later, based on the progress). And as a result, with enough points completed, we would get a corresponding level tag automatically, no need for us to count ourselves whether we have crossed the 80% of ticks limit or not.

Pros of the idea:
-a comprehensible way to inform each other about the level
-less ambiguous than most others
-the checklist could be motivational for some learners
-easier way to use the checklist than using the pdf, manually ticking and counting how many statements make up the 80% in each level

Cons:
-not everyone follows the cefr, the scale ignores some kinds of activities and skills as they are not important for the main purpose: info for employers, universities etc. However, it has taken quite a firm root root among htlalers, despite the shortcomings
-not everyone has the same goals, people may be interested in just reading, or oppositely in speaking without reading and so on.
-it is not of the same relevance for all the languages. some languages have their own scales and tests reflecting other priorities and other learner difficulties. Some learners may perhaps not like their Japanese with a thousand kanji learnt being judged by the criteria made for european languages.

However, the cons could be outweighted by a simple choice in the profile: Use the checklist or write my own assessment

What do you think?
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sfuqua
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Re: feature idea:cefr self assesment checklist implementation

Postby sfuqua » Fri Jul 31, 2015 5:07 am

When I worked in the refugee camps, we had some pretty good results using for people at the intermediate level using cloze tests with recorded versions of the tests. They would only work from the intermediate level up. You take a passage, remove every fifth word, and give it to learners. You read the unclozed passage to the readers while they look at their version with the missing words, and when they are done listening, let them fill in the words.
Many people did not like the method, since it did not look like any real world language activity, but we got very good statistics from it as long as the passage was long enough.

Mayb there is a way to standardize this procedure across languages.
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Cavesa
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Re: feature idea:cefr self assesment checklist implementation

Postby Cavesa » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:01 am

Yeah but it would be quite demanding to create such a test. And unlike the already made checklist, it wouldn't give us any normal kind of levels, only those made up for this forum only. And I don't think it would reflect that much of an ability. You had as well some assessment of the refugees' oral skills, didn't you? Here, it would be just a normal close deletion as many already made tests (for example Bryan put a good link to an oxford test in his log) and those are of limited value. Many learners with limited opportunity to speak and write, such as myself, are much better at tests like this than in reality.

THe "can do" checklist is quite transferable among the languages (even though it doesn't count with some criteria, such as number of kanji/hanzi learnt). There are quite useful online tests with cloze deletion or multiple choice already but, not mentioning the limited value again, they are usually one or just a few languages specific. One source and kind of test (and scale)-one language. That wouldn't be of much use to our forum, I think.
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