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The demise of the Written Assignments ?

4/13/2018

2 Comments

 
Anyone who has either read the new Language Ab Initio or Language B guide, or who has already attended a Subject-Specific Seminar on the new courses, will have learned that the Written Assignment is on its way out of the courses as a discreet assessment.  A variety of reasons have been given for the decision to remove it from the course.  These reasons include issues of Academic Honesty, the apparent inconsistency in how the Written Assignment is introduced and supervised in schools, and the discrepancy between the marks in the Written Assignment and the other written assessments.  Whatever the reason(s) may be, and it is probably a combination of the above, we'd like to suggest that the essence of the Written Assignment still has a place in the Group 2 courses.  There are a number of features that definitely lend themselves to in-class or after-class research, study and follow-up.  The description of a cultural aspect in one of the target language cultures, the comparison between this target language culture and another culture of the students' choice, the research skills involved, the drafting and writing skills necessary to complete the task, the opportunity for students to pursue their personal interests or curiosity are, amongst other, sufficient reason to consider setting Written Assignment-type tasks in our classes.  Maybe, by removing the 'achievement' pressure from the task, the students will revel in the process of developing a task of a cultural nature.  We will continue to 'teach' such tasks and we will include them in our formative assessments.  After all, international mindedness requires the exploration of the target language culture(s), and few activities will do it better than the soon-to-be-defunct Written Assignment.  We'll call it something else but we'll keep all of its great features ! What are your thoughts on this type of task ?  Add your comments in the space below ...
2 Comments
Sarah
4/13/2018 04:03:26 pm

I think the written assignment is what sets the IB Ab Initio course apart from other regular language courses. It’s where TOK comes into itself and where that notion of international mindedness and intercultural awareness is really tested. It’s such a shame to lose it completely. As an examiner I have noted that marks are improving year on year for this component and that most students are producing high level work which perhaps doesn’t really reflect their true ability. It would be great to keep an element of the written assignment somewhere in the examination. Do you know what it will be replaced with?

Reply
Ronny link
4/13/2018 06:51:37 pm

Thank you Sarah for your comments. I agree that the Written Assignment check several IB boxes that are not necessarily present in other language acquisition courses. There have been considerable issues though with the format, the procedures and, in some cases, academic honesty, and it is in a sense understandable why it is being removed as an outright final assessment. The idea behind the WA though certainly has its place in our language courses and I strongly encourage everyone to include similar tasks in their teaching and in their formative assessment. Many ATLs are used in order to plan, draft and complete a task of this nature. The WA is not being replaced by anything else of a similar nature, but in terms of the overall assessment in Ab Initio and Language B, the new discreet assessment component is the Listening Comprehension exam. This introduction comes with a new set of opportunities (and possibly one or two small challenges) ... We'll see what happens in May 2020 ;-)

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    Authors

    We are practising Language Ab Initio, B and A teachers, examiners and workshop leaders for the International Baccalaureate.  We author and publish the “Language Ab Initio Student Workbook”, the various Language Portfolios (for Ab Initio, B and MYP) and the How to Ace Language Ab Initio and Language B series.  We are also a language acquisition and mother tongue consultants and tireless advocates for mother tongue entitlement in international education.  Beyond our lives as linguists, we travel the world, we publish novels, we practice photography, we play and coach football coach, we write and we read.  

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  • Home
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    • English
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    • IBDP Ab Initio Portfolio
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    • IBDP Language B Portfolio
    • IB MYP Portfolio
    • How to order our resources
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  • IBDP Language A SSST
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    • SSST tutor support >
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    • Free ! PRL Authors and Texts
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