Slide One Sentence Completion Activities as ProcessBased Assessments

Slide One Sentence Completion Activities as Process-Based Assessments and Learning Tools for English language Competency and Critical Thinking The violence of the storm’s assault on the town was displayed by ___________ To appease Frank’s anger____________ All materials and more information for this presentation can be accessed at http: //transitional-literacy. org/? page_id=10707 password ESBB John Unger, Ph. D. Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, GA USA Transitional-Literacy. Org, Las Vegas, NV USA

Slide Two Today’s Presentation: An emphasis on process rather than outcome; A possible avenue to a multi-modal process based assessment model We’ll never finish; I always plan too much I’m sorry 1. Work through a demonstration of the basic activity 2. Identify points of reference and units of analyses accessible for all stakeholders 3. Several foundational terms and concepts from Vygotsky, social semiotics, and a more semiotic approach to the reading and writing process with Speech, a Visual, and Acts of Pointing as major areas of reference. 4. Connect to the expansion of Tomasello’s Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition as Shared Attentional Scenes; this is an opposing perspective to UG 5. Provide Resources and Show Video Data, depending on Time and Technology

Slide Three Some Background, Select or Supply Language Adapted from Cheng, Rogers, and Wang (2008), who used the terms Selection Methods and Supply Methods (specifically see tables pages 16, 19, and 20) • Selection Activities: True and False, Multiple Choice, Matching, Standardized Reading and Listening Tests • Supply Activities: Sentence Completions, Summaries, Portfolios, Oral Presentations

Slide Four: Four Common Types of Context Clues (Langan, 2013, pp 13 -16) 1. Examples; 2. General Sense of Meaning; 3. Synonyms. 4. Antoynms The word in italics is the vocabulary word supported by the context clue Examples: ______ Jean is a difficult roommate because her moods are so violatile. One day she’s on top of the world; the next day she’s in the depths of despair. A. insensitive B. indirect C. changeable General Sense of Meaning: _____ 1. The students asked if they could use their notes during the test. They were pleased when the teacher acquiesced. A. consented B. refused C. was puzzled Synonyms: ____Children may believe they are the only ones who are happy to see summer vacation arrive, but their teachers feel exuberant also. A. fearful B. bored C. overjoyed Antonyms: _______ Who says that dogs cats are enemies? Our dog and two cats live together in the most amicable way. A. hostile B. friendly C. cute

Slide Five Major Considerations for introducing Sentence Completion Activities to Students for Learning Rather than Assessment 1. Careful when introducing content (meaning and grammar) and a strategy (explaining the reasons why the completed part of the sentence supports the meaning) 2. Always remember that two different learning objectives are combined (learning vocabulary meaning; learning grammar) 3. Try to give students access to dictionaries or digital resources to learn the meaning of words when the sentence completions are first introduced 4. Plenty of practice before implementing this as a regular teaching tool; encourage internet explorations. See the Web Resources Slide following the References Slide 5. Still more work to be done on how to position sentence completions as an assessment. Please see the webpage for a Screen Capture Recording, Rubric, and variations, which we will cover here as time permits

Slide. Six Also note the variations with Verbals that we will not have time to get to today. Pair up with the person next to you and complete these three steps: 1. You will need to complete an incomplete sentence. This incomplete sentence has a bolded vocabulary word. You need to try to complete the sentence in a way that supports and/or explains the meaning of the bolded word (see the two examples below). *2. THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Explain to the audience (your partner) why you chose to complete the sentence the way you did to support the meaning of the vocabulary word. 3. Finally, as an assessment of your grammatical knowledge, please TALK ABOUT one or two pieces of grammatical information about the sentence you wrote such as naming the subject of the sentence, the object or complement. Voice, was the voice first, second, or third person; was the sentence active or passive voice. Say anything you can think of that is related to some grammatical feature of your sentence (though please don’t say too much; just one or two examples is sufficient).

Slide Seven Two examples 1. To appease Frank’s anger the teacher allowed him to text and use Facebook for ten minutes 2. The violence of the storm’s assault on the town was displayed by the broken windows and downed tree limbs.

Slide Eight Here are two examples: Here is the incomplete sentence: 1. To appease Frank’s anger, the teacher allowed him to text and use Facebook for ten minutes. Here is another incomplete sentence 2. The violence of the storm’s assault on the town was displayed by the broken windows and downed tree limbs. 1. A typical student’s budget is consumed by 2. The internet is a great medium for 3. The company increased revenue by 4. A polite euphemism for a bathroom is 5. The lake was tainted when

Slide Nine Several Main Processes as Reference Areas to Make Judgments about Academic English Language Competency Signification: Assigning meaning to objects, oneself, and the world. Mediation: Tying a knot in a rope to remember something; writing a note on a sticky pad mediates organization and memory in the same manner. Language mediates meaning Semiotic Resources: Humans transform objects and ideas that they use to mediate interaction, as in the videos. Three Major Units of Reference 1. Speech, specifically *chunks; that is clusters that are grouped together to perform a specific function. 2. The Visual, which in this example is the Word Document on the Screen (the Visual), which is becoming a Screen Capture Recording, on which the student is completing one sentence and writing a second sentence; then completing the other tasks. 3. Acts of Pointing (any kinds of words, phrases, or moves with the cursor that can be judged to explicitly point the author to a specific meaning or interpretation, intentional or not. Note that “Chunks” of text (3 to 9 word clusters that are grouped together) are a productive area under the Unit of Reference Speech, and this might be a productive unit of analyses, using Bakhtin’s idea of utterance as a starting point.

Slide 10 The Model of a Shared Attentional Frame that has evolved from several studies is a synthesis of Tomasellos’s graphic representation of the “Structure of a linguistic symbol” (Tomasello, ibid, p. 29) and Tomasello’s original graphic representation of a Joint Attentional Frame (Tomasello, ibid p. 26).

Slide Eleven For an Assessment Activity: see the video and direction at http: //transitional-literacy. org/? page_id=10707 password: ESBB. The webpage is labeled as ESBB Symposium Izmir, Turkey, December 3 -4, 2015: Sentence Completion Activities and Shared Attentional Scenes password ESBB If time permits we will switch over to the Webpage where documents and examples are present

Slide Twelve References: Cheng, L. , Roger, T. , & Wang, X. (2008). Assessment purposes and procedures in ESL/EFL classrooms. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 33 (1), 9 -32. Langan, J. (2013). Ten steps to advanced reading (2 nd ed. ). West Berlin, NJ: Townsend Press. Luria, A. R. (1976) Cognitive development: Its cultural and social foundations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Luria, A. R. (1979). The making of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nist, S (2010). Improving vocabulary skills (4 th ed. ). West Berlin, NJ: Townsend Press Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harbard University Press. Unger, J, Liu R, Scullion V. (2015). Language Competency as Semiotic Design: Attempting to Cross Academic Borders with Digital Video Cameras. English Scholarship Beyond Borders, 1(1), 1 -51. Retrived from http: //www. englishscholarsbeyondborders. org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Language-Competency-as-Semiotic-Design. pdf van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. NY: Routeledge van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy, and authenticity. New York: Longman. van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (2012). The problem and the approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Slide Thirteen Academic Word List: http: //www. uefap. com/vocab/select/awl. htm Academic Word List from Vocabulary. com: http: //www. vocabulary. com/lists/218701#view=notes New Academic Word List: http: //www. newacademicwordlist. org/ Vocabulary Coach: http: //www. vocabularycoach. com/default. aspx Corpus of American English: http: //corpus. byu. edu/coca/