Name
School-leaving mock English exam
Topic
Tablet as the examiner - collaborative learning.
Learning time
3 hours
Designed time
3 hours
Size of class
15
Description
A set of 4 final English lessons in a senior high school preparing students for taking their school-leaving oral English exam with the help of web 2.0. tools and tablets. Each group contributes to their task and reflects upon the process while documenting their task for others to see, hear, read and watch. Students' and the teacher's assessment/reflection should change the learning/teaching practice in a language classroom.
Mode of delivery
Blended
Aims
2.0 tools and self-presentation techniques practice, building up self-confidence, exam strategies revision, learning language and preparing for the school-leaving exam in a creative way, sharing the results of group/collaborative work with others (younger students at our school). Trying collaborative learning in which everyobody in the group must take roles and contribute to the result.
Outcomes
Application, Uncategorised, Uncategorised
Editor
MirkaDyka
Edit
Activity 1 - team making/presenting the procedure of the session / exam set choosing
15 minutes)
  • Read Watch Listen
    5
    15
    1
    Using a team random generator we created 5 groups of 3 students who were going to collaborate in the session.
  • Read Watch Listen
    5
    15
    0
    The teacher explained the procedure of the whole group-work session
  • Discuss
    5
    3
    2
    Groups decided on the exam set to prepare.There were only two sets to make later assessment task easier.
Notes:
Students did not discuss the group choice-as it was done mechanically by the application.They got highly interested in the task completion, seeing its usefulness for the coming exam practice.
Resources linked: 0
Activity 2 - preparing for the mock exam
40 minutes)
  • Collaborate
    20
    3
    0
    In groups students prepared 3 exam tasks (1.conversation, 2.picture description, 3. choice from the given set of options) collaborating on the choice of vocabulary, grammar structures, arguments justyfying choices. The teacher's task was to give assistance, e.g. ideas for argumentation when the group got stuck or could not agree on the best choice.
  • Practice
    10
    3
    0
    Students practised parts of oral exam tasks, trying to make their English sound rich and correct
  • Investigate
    10
    3
    2
    Students referred back to their class collection of idioms created by them in previous months as Pearltrees vocabulary companion. They also looked up or checked the word pronounciation in the on-line Diki fast dictionary. Both applications had been installed on class tablets.
Notes:
The teacher noticed a really high quality collaboration within the groups.The better ones helped the weaker.They organised work pretty well.
Resources linked: 0
Activity 3 - playing roles/recording the mock exam
45 minutes)
  • Collaborate
    11
    2
    1
    Students worked in pairs-one of them played the role of examiner, the other-the role of examinee. They had to act out their roles as if during a real exam. The examiner's additional task was to control the timing.
  • Produce
    23
    1
    0
    The third student in each group was recording the mock exam with a tablet. The student played a silent role of the other examiner / observer of the exam and the role of the film-maker.
  • Collaborate
    11
    3
    0
    Students swaped roles-each of them had to act as the main examiner the examinee and the examiner assistant/observer/film-maker.
Notes:
Timing of the school-leaving oral exam is of great importance. And it is easy to remember-introductory questions-2 minutes/task 1-3 minutes/task 2 - 4 minutes/ task 3 - 5 minutes. The timing was practised during previous mock-exam fragments of lessons-thus-there were no problems with time contol. The teacher was taking pistures of the students working-they were so deep into the task that they did not even notice neither the teacher nor the headmaster(just accidentally popping into the classroom!)Tablets played their silent role of the second/assisstant examiners very well!After a few moments of ambarrassment due to "the tablet observation" students seemed to forget about the tablets/the presence of the other examiner(usually a teacher from another school ) during the exam.
Resources linked: 0
Activity 4 - sharing /annotating the films
10 minutes)
  • Produce
    10
    3
    1
    Each group sent their three films first to our class Google Drive, then (homework assignment) students copied the links and added them to Pearltrees collection, giving the name of the examinee to each of theirfilms.
Notes:
Not all films have reached our Google Drive as we are still little experienced tablet users. Some of the groups closed their tablets before the transfer completion and deleted the films from tablet discs-partly my fault (I always insist on saving memory and cleaning trash).
Resources linked: 0
Activity 5 - mock exam assessment
40 minutes)
  • Investigate
    5
    1
    1
    Students open criteria file uploaded by the teacher onto Pearltrees collection and revise criteria and strategies of the oral exam assessment provided by the National Exam Commission
  • Read Watch Listen
    15
    3
    1
    Groups of three watched the recorded exam of a chosen examinee from a different group.The teacher administers group choices to avoid double-assessment or self-assessment.
  • Discuss
    10
    3
    0
    Each group discussed the chosen exam and awarded points according to critera ( content-18, vocabulary and grammar structures - 4, correctness-4, pronounciation-2, fluency-2/max-30 points)
  • Produce
    5
    3
    0
    Groups prepared a final score note (the exam result in points and % - 30% is the minimum for passing the exam) and attached the notes to Pearltrees collection.
  • Discuss
    5
    15
    0
    Groups announced the final scores of individuals and the students' homework was to analyse their exam results to prepare for the final discussion in class. They were advised to look back at Pearltrees collection of exam recordings and score notes.
Notes:
The teacher observed that students tried to assess their peer work as honestly as possible-it might have been because no real school marks had been planned to be granted.
Resources linked: 0
Activity 6 - reflection on the results/task evaluation
30 minutes)
  • Discuss
    10
    15
    0
    The class discussed the mock exam results. We reflected on the exam strategies again.All examinees had a chance to ask for explanation as far as their exam results were concerned. We also put some attention to common problems with self-presentation techniques usage.
  • Discuss
    10
    15
    0
    The class gave feedback on the task they had done trying to point out the advantages. Although there were some drawbacks (strict timing, hard work) all agreed that the lessons were very useful. Students were able to revise the key points of the exam strategies and self-presentation techniques.Their self-confidence went up,as they slowly had got used to be "observed" by a tablet (assisstant examiner from another school during a real exam).
  • Read Watch Listen
    10
    15
    1
    We also looked at our Pearltrees collection of our mock exam materials and decided to make the link to the collection available not only for us - the producers-but also for younger classes to analyse while discussing the strategies in the following school years.
Notes:
All students agrred on the usefulness of such a task. The teacher was extremely glad of the fact that the groups decided to make the link to the collection available for "next generations of the teacher's students". It might show that they got proud of the results we managed to collect!
Resources linked: 0

Learning Experience

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