By Kids, For Kids - When Students Write the Speaking Rubric
Embracing the language-learning journey through effective self-evaluation
“I hope this year I can just be more comfortable when I speak French, so it’s not always so much of a struggle.”
It was the first day of French 4, and one of my sweetest students shared this wish with the class. Her classmates nodded in agreement; all sixteen of them had chosen to continue French beyond the required two years, and they all wanted to speak better. In fact, on a beginning-of-course survey, fourteen of these kids selected “improving my speaking comfort and fluency” as their number one goal, and the other two listed it as high priority.
This gels with my experience in other classes. By level 3-4, students almost universally share the goal of improving their target language speaking ability. As these kids are intrinsically motivated, it’s worth inviting them to be more involved in setting language learning goals and more responsible for monitoring their own progress.
Developing a Class Speaking Rubric
I like to begin upper level classes by collaborating to develop a speaking rubric which we will use on all oral assignments throughout the course. On the first day of class, I ask students to work in groups to make a list of what good speaking “looks like”.
This results in deep discussion as students work to articulate specific, manageable goals for oral progress.
“I hope this year I can just be more comfortable when I speak French, so it’s not always so much of a struggle.”
Once students have had time to reflect, we work as a class to develop and refine a list. As I record our collaborative thinking, I am careful to use students’ own words and to make the language specific and meaningful to the kids. I prompt students by asking questions such as “How important is grammatical accuracy in speaking?” “Is correcting your own errors while you speak positive or negative?” These prompts often lead to a vigorous debate. Students typically settle on the idea that accuracy is a goal, but mistakes are part of learning and communicating ideas is the overarching goal of speaking. These are concepts all successful language learners must embrace!
I have done this activity for several years and students always come up with the same five criteria for good speaking. Although they word these characteristics differently, the major points are:
vocabulary
grammatical accuracy
pronunciation
register / appropriateness / awareness of audience
fluency
For example, my 2019-2020 students articulated these speaking criteria:
Fluency: I was able to get my point across comfortably, even if it wasn’t perfect.
Vocabulary: I was able to use the words I needed, and if I didn’t know a word, I could work around it.
Pronunciation: Good /r/ sound, correct accents, correct vowels, open nasal vowels, liaison, etc. A French speaker could understand me.
Communication: I was able to have a casual conversation, appropriate for my audience. I didn’t sound robotic.
Grammar: I tried my hardest to be accurate, and I learned from my mistakes. I improved from past assignments.
Interestingly, these are the same five criteria that researchers have used for over 60 years in evaluating speaking proficiency (such as in David P. Harris’s 1969 text, “Testing English as a Second Language”)
Developing a class speaking rubric is most effective when students are already familiar with using rubrics for oral proficiency. Read my blog posts on Writing Student-Friendly Rubrics for ideas on using rubrics effectively.
Lots of Low-Stakes Assessments
I’ve found that with my highly-motivated classes, many students are very worried about getting a bad grade. This fear may hinder them from pushing out of their comfort zone when speaking. For this reason, I use completion grades combined with self-assessments for most speaking assignments. Completion grades alleviate the external pressure many students feel, allowing them to focus on their own progress. As one student wrote, “I like using completion grades because it takes all the pressure off. This way students don't write a script to try to earn a good grade, they just speak.”
Frequent practice and Self-evaluation
I ask students to record themselves speaking on a prompt, and then complete our class speaking rubric as they listen to their own recording. Usually, the first recordings are pretty rough. That’s OK! It helps us identify goals for improvement.
“I like using completion grades because it takes all the pressure off. This way students don’t write a script to try to earn a good grade, they just speak.”
A variation on this assignment: sometimes I ask kids to fold a paper vertically. On the left side, they transcribe exactly what they said on their recording, including hesitations, fillers, and mistakes. Then on the right side, they write out what they wish they had said. Finally, students record their answer to the question a second time. In their reflection, students evaluate their growth between the first and second recordings; this is always encouraging, and further reinforces the importance of clear-eyed self-evaluation, setting specific goals, and taking steps toward individual growth. For more ideas on this topic, visit my blog post on Teaching Students to Use Feedback and Self-Evaluation.
Speaking a lot and thoughtful self assessment is key to this approach. I like students to record and evaluate themselves weekly. You don’t have to listen to all of these recordings, incidentally; reviewing every 2-3 recordings or rotating through a portion of the class each week is sufficient to give kids guidance (while maintaining your sanity!)
My lesson planning is influenced by trends I’m seeing in students’ speaking. Mispronunciations? A need for topical vocabulary, connecting words, or more varied adjectives? Errors in the past tenses? Difficulty with register? Whatever challenges I hear from the kids determines the types of practice and activity we will do in class, and ultimately the content I assess.
Embracing the Language-Learning Journey
At the end of the course, I invite students to go back and listen to their first recording. The difference is striking. Here are a couple of my favorite student before-and-after reflections from over the years:
“I think the coolest thing is how I am able to just speak what I am thinking now.”
Sydney, first recording: “I have a lot of mixed feelings about this oral recording. I found it extremely challenging and uncomfortable to upload my first attempt. I would say my progress from French 3 is not so high, but I think it's because in French 3 I recorded at least a thousand times before perfection. I really enjoy the truth though from this quiz because I feel as though I can improve.“
Sydney, last recording: “I think that I have improved a ton because this time I was able to speak with only looking up one word. I think the coolest thing is how I am able to just speak what I am thinking now. The biggest aspect to improving my French will be expanding my vocabulary. Also, if I listen to more French, especially at home, I will be more inclined to hear more words.”
“ I enjoy talking about personal and interesting topics in French. That gets my wheels turning and helps boost my confidence because I feel like the ideas I’m sharing are intelligent.”
Abby, first recording: “This truly was my first and only take and it is very rough, I have lots of pauses, lots of confusion in my voice and I hate it. I have a lot of trouble remembering and placing the small words. I also have a really difficult time using different verb tenses. Hopefully I can laugh at it in the future.”
Abby, last recording: “The oral quiz from fall can be described in one word. Rough. You can tell that I have stuff to say but I don't have to words to say it. There are lots of pauses and a good half of it doesn't even make sense. This last quiz I am able to express myself a lot better with humor, vocabulary and wit. When I speak my tone matches my ideas instead of sounding confused and hesitant the whole time. I enjoy talking about personal and interesting topics in French, that helps boost my confidence because I feel like the ideas I'm sharing are intelligent.”
I’m so proud of these kids: their reflections are thoughtful, specific, and full of hope. They are honest about their shortcomings, but this honesty led to a plan and specific steps forward. They have embraced learning as a process! Ultimately, they persevered through difficulty and achieved their goals. This is not only what I want for my students’ language study- it is my hope for every area of their lives.
Have you experimented with student-written rubrics? Share your experience below!
