A Goals Oriented Approach

Rudee Atlas
Harborside Community Center
East Boston, MA

Dan Wilson
North End Union
Boston, MA

During the 1993-4 academic year I had the opportunity to explore self-assessment techniques as part of the Partnership Project in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Education. My partner in this project was Dan Wilson, an ESL instructor at the North End Union in Boston, MA. Although we worked on modifying/developing our own assessment pieces we learned through working together that we were facing similar obstacles in assessing the beginning learner in a non-threatening meaningful way.

I grew up in Thailand and attended university there. Every time I took an exam, a question was raised in my mind: why must the test format be multiple choice? I preferred exams that asked questions and allowed me to express my opinions freely. I felt that I could present myself better that way, whether or not I learned something.

Now I am an ESL teacher in the United States at the East Boston Harborside Community Center. What I could not control as a student I can provide as a teacher. My students have very limited English communication skills. The level in class is varied and some students have no schooling at all, while others have finished university in their countries. The unschooled students tend to come from rural farming backgrounds and experience a number of obstacles. First is the obvious problem of beginning the educational process as an adult in a foreign country. But even more difficult is the element of fear: Can I survive in this country? Can I handle classroom learning? Will I be able to adjust to a very different culture? Will I ever understand the language and American customs?
These are just a few of the questions that can create a real fear in the minds and hearts of the ESL student.

As one can see, I was faced with a challenging task of instructing and assessing students of very diverse educational backgrounds who may also be dealing with intense fear and anxiety. How could I give them the same test?

I have been involved in Alternative Assessment for a few years. I was looking then for a tool that was less academic, related more to my student’s lives and which would be non-threatening to beginning learners. We originally used the BEST test for our program but students did not answer all the questions for a number of reasons. I wanted to create something that was more relevant to their lives outside of class, like going shopping etc. I found that I was testing a lot of tools and was very excited to be using alternative assessment in my class. I also found that students needed to participate in these alternatives. They needed to have a good attitude towards participating and to be able to see the benefits of their assessment practices.

By trying out alternative assessment I gained insight into my own teaching. I learned that I can never use the same tool twice. I always have to adapt the tools according to the needs of each group.

The Partnership
I first met Dan in the Fall. We talked at length about our students and the obstacles we both faced in assessing their progress. Dan also teaches beginning learners with limited communication skills. He described his students as having the same fears and the same variety of educational backgrounds. He also felt that current assessment techniques were not appropriate for all the students in his classes and he had been using no system of student-driven assessment in his class.

The challenge before us was to help him develop a system which would achieve the following:
1) a student driven subjective self assessment;
2) a format that could be handled by those students with very limited communication skills in English.
3) a format that could be handled by students with little or no education, i.e., some that does not require a great deal of writing but which produces a document that can be kept for review and evidence of progress
4) a format that would be appropriately mature for all students.
5) a format that the students would find non-threatening

Dan and I shared some of the tools that I had been using in my class. I had been collecting student writing and binding the assignments together in chronological order. In this way I was creating a student journal of their writings. Dan liked the idea of giving the students frequent short writing assignments and using these to gauge the student’s progress over time. Dan thought this approach was effective and also useful because it met all the requirements above. Dan implemented this in his class after the first meeting and found it successful.

At another meeting Dan and I discussed adding to the use of the journals in his class a tool for self assessment. Dan is very interested in using life skills instruction as a basis for class activity and discussion. He also expressed his belief that student learning should be goal oriented, i.e. that the student should consider his/her success in learning English to be linked to his or her success in achieving goals in life. This is critical since learning English for the sake of knowledge is not the ideal of most ESL students who need English to survive in a new country and culture.

In the early Spring I worked with Dan to develop goals-oriented techniques that met the five requirements we had set at our original meeting. We developed a monthly goals sheet for Dan’s students to complete at the beginning of each month. The monthly time frame was selected because it was felt that it was long enough to track achievement, yet frequent enough for the students to experience an ongoing feeling of accomplishments (see Figure 1).

For this first month Dan selected five life skills that he was intending to introduce in class during the month.. Each student was handed a form with a personalized title, e.g. “Maria’s Goals—May 1994.” Dan then asked the class if they wanted to learn how to “leave a message.” When all students understood what was being asked of them, they answered the question by circling “Y” or “N” on their sheet. In this way the students were actually building their own curriculum, taking charge of the content of their class. Those subjects with low interest from students might not be taught that month or would be taught through a teaching assistant to those students that were interested.

Next the students showed how well they could do the task in English. They did this by drawing a picture of themselves on a line scale. It indicated that they had no ability at all vis a vis this task. If they pictured themselves on the far right it meant that they could do this task with full competence in English. Of course any level of competency in between these extremes could be represented as well. Again the students were providing the teacher with curriculum building assistance by indicating their strengths and weaknesses.

The students continued through the six pre-selected tasks answering first whether they wanted to learn the task and then how competent they felt in their ability to do the task. The students had set and prioritized their goals and the tasks to be learned, and what would be accomplished during the next month of classes.

Finally, the students had the opportunity to list up to three other goals they had. They listed such things as “learn how to fill out job applications,” “supermarket product containers” and “talk to the teacher of my children.” From these suggestions Dan was able to compile his curriculum for the following month. These suggestions became the tasks to be included on the next students’ monthly goals sheet. Thus, from the point of introduction of these monthly goals sheets, the curriculum could potentially be 100% driven.

At the end of the first month Dan recirculated the student monthly goals sheet that had been completed previously. The students had the opportunity to reflect upon their perceived competency in the task of a month earlier. They were then invited to draw a new picture of themselves indicating their current perceived competence. All of the students who had attended the classes in which the tasks were taught drew pictures of themselves to the right of the original picture, i.e. closer to the goals of complete competence; and there in black and white was evidence for the teacher and student alike that the student was moving closer to competence. Both Dan and I believe that this periodic reflection is critical in maintaining student self esteem and encouraging the student to continue studying, to continue moving closer to their goals.

As indicated, this monthly goals technique accomplished the five requirements discussed at our first meeting. The assessment was based solely on student reflection and reporting. This form of self-assessment could be handled by students with very limited communication skills and those with little education since there was almost no writing to be done and the concept of goals and progress could be readily understood. None found the reporting to be childish; on the contrary, the students enjoyed drawing the little pictures of themselves and some drew self portraits. As a result of this technique the teacher was provided with a document that measured student progress incrementally.

It also went beyond the original five requirements in assisting in curriculum development, student involvement and control of the lessons, and student goal setting. Equally important is the fact that the technique takes very little time, roughly one half hour of class time per month and less than one hour prep time.

I learned a lot from working with Dan as part of the Partnership Project. I learned that my experiences and difficulties in teaching and assessing beginning learners are not unique. I am now more willing to try new things in my classes. I was able to share my ideas with Dan that led to the development of a new tool and I have learned from him as well. I hope that this relationship can continue and further facilitate our challenging jobs as adult educators. In this kind of relationship you are more willing to take risks and try new things and share ideas. This project helped me become aware of the tools I can use with my students and how they respond to them. Because of this awareness my students and I can connect and build a better relationship. The students can also establish a bond with one another and further improve their opportunities to learn and socialize in a school setting. I also realized the importance of working with students to change their attitudes about assessment and working with them to open up to new forms of assessment.

This article was published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 7 (December 1994), SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1994.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.