By Christine LAU Chai Wan Kok Catholic Primary

By Christine LAU Chai Wan Kok Catholic Primary School (AM) Tel: 2490 -3490

Why? Improvement Curriculum planning + material design Implementation INSIDE the classroom (peer lesson observation -> reflection -> further adaptation) Assessment for learning through observation an/or analyzing students’ work + follow-up

When? Every day? Once a term? Once a year? Too late? Too frequent? How to strike a balance?

How? Quantitative analysis? All parts? Selected parts only? Qualitative analysis? Both? NO prescribed mode Primary concern: Looking for patterns in students’ work and understanding why the students make mistakes (Misconception? Laziness? Carelessness? Not taught before? Lack of input? Infrequent practice / recycling? …)

What NEXT? C C Re-teaching / re-cycling in the next module Careful scaffolding Change in teaching strategies Designing worksheets etc. Be specific, explicit and clear What is the attainment target? Is it handy? What should be the focus? Is it manageable? What is the priority? What can be the effect on new learning?

Answering yes/no questions

Some students fail to give their short answers using the correct auxiliary verbs

Four steps in giving short answers to yes/no questions 1. Determine whether the answer should be “Yes” or “No”. 2. Write down the subject pronoun. 3. Copy the auxiliary verb directly from the question. 4. If the answer is “No”, add “not” (i. e. negation) right after the auxiliary verb (and produce an abbreviated form). e. g. Do Ann and Sam like reading poems? 1. Yes, … 2. Yes, they… 3. Yes, they do. 4. No, they do not. (=> No, they don’t. )

Answering open-ended questions

st 1 Term Test 1 (October 03)

Open-ended question

The question “What do you think of …? ” has been introduced in the lessons before and is used 3 times in this test. About half of the students can describe people’s character appropriately though the rest show very little understanding of the questions. Less than half of the students can give appropriate answer to the last question which is openended. Most of them like “Tom” most.

An activity sheet is designed so that students can practise using different adjectives to describe people’s character. An openended question is also included in the worksheet.

st 1 Term Test 2 (November 03)

Open-ended questions

Teachers continue to add in 2 open-ended questions, Q 6 & Q 7, in Part I (Reading Comprehension) of the Test Paper. This time, more than half of the students can provide appropriate answers. There is slight improvement compared to Test 1.

st 1 Term Exam (January 04)

Open-ended question

Most students can give appropriate answers for the last question which is not direct lifting

nd 2 Term Test 3 (March 04)

Open-ended question

nd 2 Term Test 4 (May 04)

There are three open-ended questions out of six.

Q 4: Which child do you like best? Why? þ I like Sue best because she is nice. þ I like Tom best because he is hardworking and good boy. þ I like Sue best because she is helpful. þ I like Charlie best because I like play football too. I like David best because happy boy. þ I like Tom best because good bay. þ I like Tom best because she is hard work. þ I like Ann best because she likes read a book. She is a good girl. ý I like May best because she read a book. (describing the fact only) þ I like Ann best because she on Monday, Tuesday and Friday read a book. (trying to emphasize but failing to infer) ý I like David best because he is happy. I like Sue best because she is clever. (not relevant) ý I like David best because he is starg (i. e. strong). (not relevant)

Q 5: When do you watch TV? þ I watch TV at five o’clock in the afternoon. þ I watch TV at half past three in the afternoon. þ I watch TV on Sunday afternoon. þ I watch TV everyday. ý She watch TV on Monday. ý Yes, I am. ý May.

nd 2 Term Exam (June 04)

Open-ended questions

For Q 5, nearly all students attempt to give their own answer, and most answers are sensible. Only a few are irrelevant.

Comparing students’ performance in these 6 tests and exams Test 1 Test 2 Exam 1 Test 3 Test 4 Exam 2 Mean score Full marks % score 7. 8 8. 8 7. 8 8. 5 6. 3 9. 2 14. 0 12. 0 55. 4% 62. 9% 65. 4% 70. 6% 52. 6% 76. 8% No. of open-ended Qs Total no. of Qs Ratio of open-ended Qs 1 2 1 1 3 2 7 7 6 6 14. 3% 28. 6% 16. 7% 50. 0% 33. 3%

What are students’ problems in learning? How can students learn better?

Mixing up the letter sounds “b” & “d”

Not knowing that “Mr and Mrs Wong” are two persons

Misspelling the (irregular) plural form of “child”

Subject-verb agreement (esp. for irregular verbs like go/goes, do/does & have/has)

Some students make mistakes in Q 4 & Q 5 probably because the subject and the verb are not on the same line.

For Q 4, several students even add “They” to the beginning possibly because they see “Ann and Sam” on the same line.

For Q 3, some students misspell “patting” as “pating”.

Not knowing the irregular form of “have”