How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

61 Chapter 5: Identify & define your evaluation criteria

you to add a bit of pointed feedback One of the drawbacks of the analytic approach is the amount of time and effort it takes to assess each construct; this rubric style takes a more holistic approach by doing away with some of the inherent complexity of analytic scales On the other hand, there are a few things to be aware of if you go this route with your marking scheme As with holistic scales, consistency of marking can be an issue if you are not completely clear on what constitutes a score for each level What is it about the performance of each construct that influences your assessment of it? For example, how many pauses will it take before a student gets marked down for Fluency ? How many grammar mistakes will they have to make for an Approaching score? Will a lot of little mistakes count less that a couple of big ones, or what? Keep these issues in mind when working out the wording of your performance state ments Simple and direct is often the best way to go In addition, there is not a lot of room to grow within this sort of rubric Likely most of your students will (hopefully) be either at Meets or Exceeds , so they will not get a lot of feedback on what they need to do to get better As a result, make sure to provide alternative avenues where students can get the feedback they need The Com ments field can help, but you’ll want to do more This simplified combo rubric is ideally designed to quickly check in with students on how they are doing at any point in time It’s not really meant as a comprehensive, detailed progress report It would probably best be used when you have a lot of students to as sess, or if you want to do quick evaluations more frequently, such as quick speaking quizzes at the end of a class to see how well students picked up that lesson’s material Finally, if you would like to convert the marking categories in this rubric into a point scale, there are different ways to go about it