My 5th graders this week get to do something that no other 5th grade class has done before in Lake Bluff. We are taking online computer assessments, in Spanish! (They were not pleased with me when I told them that was the surprise for class this week haha.) The test is called the STAMP4SE (for grades 3-6; grades 6-12+ take the STAMP4S) and you can find more information on this website. Basically, it is just a way to measure language proficiency in our school. Since this is the first year, there are still working out a few technicalities in the assessment so not everyone finished everything but it will be taken every spring from this year forward. This is not an assessment that needs any studying ahead of time and it doesn't count for a grade. It is just a way for the world language team to see how much Spanish our students are soaking in. There are 4 parts to this test; reading, writing, listening, and speaking, however, I am only giving the last two sections this year. In the future, 5th graders may take all 4 sections, who knows. The data we get this year from the assessments will be used to help in the redesign of the curriculum over the summer. Here are a few things that I've noticed about the test:
1. It takes almost 15-20 minutes for elementary kids to get logged in to the test after testing the headphone/microphone, downloading the directions documents from my dropbox, and entering the test codes, passwords, and usernames. And it really helps to have the tech person or just an extra pair of hands to help during this set-up.
2. The listening section is like 20 minutes. (The number of questions varies on how much Spanish you know.... the more Spanish you know, the more questions you take.) But the sound cuts in and out so the kids can't always hear the whole question. After day 2, we figured out that you can just refresh the page but sometimes that doesn't even work.
3. You can't go straight from listening to speaking. Instead, you have to log out of the test, quit safari, turn the airport off.... then turn it back on and log in again. Otherwise, the test stops working during the first speaking question. This si weird and annoying but something I can deal with now that I know it happens.
4. Kids get nervous during the speaking sections. They speak super quiet into the microphone because they're afraid of speaking in front of their peers even though we do multiple speaking activities every lesson.
5. Some kids asked me if it was okay that they spoke a little bit of English during the speaking section because they didn't know a word.... I just shook my head and sighed.
6. New pages (questions) take forever to load. Sometimes it just stops loading and you have the quit and turn the airport off to pick up where you left off.
I'd love to give this test at my new job but I have no idea how the curriculum and/or budget works at NHA. That'll be something that I have to figure out this summer or next fall. I like the idea of giving this national test because it is aligned with the ACTFL oral proficiency targets. (I'll do a post about those a little later.)
I am excited (and nervous) to see the results!
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