Skolverket have now published materials intended to help teachers assess written proficiency in accordance with the latest revision of the Swedish syllabus for English (2011):

Skolverket link

The original syllabus document sets out the communicative basis for English as a school subject, based on the overarching framework of the Common European Framework of Reference for modern languages in the EU,  specifying central contents for the subject and knowledge attainment targets.

What has been lacking in the syllabus and accompanying documents so far has been samples of pupils' work along with a detailed commentary which can help teachers to arrive at a grade on the new A-E scale.

The Kommentarmaterial till kunskapskraven i engelska document includes 18 samples of pupils' written work at year 6 and year 9 respectively.  Comments are given relating to:

* range of language (eg range of vocabulary, grammatical structures and phraseologies -språkets omfång och bredd)
* language accuracy (språkets precision)
* text cohesion, how individual clauses and sentences relate to each other etc (grad av textbindning)
* flow in interaction and production ( this covers in particular areas of spoken proficiency where hesitations and interruptions can disrupt the flow of speech- flöde i interaktion och produktion)
* adaption of language according to different purposes, audiences and situations (grad av mottagaranpassing)
* use of strategies (for solving communication breakdown problems, gaining the turn in spoken interaction etc - språkliga strategier)

The document stops short of actually giving a grade for the pupil samples presented but at least gives you something more to go on when carrying out an assessment of pupil performance.

We plan to take up aspects of the commentary material and written proficiency evaluation at our forthcoming meeting in Kalmar, week 45.

Chris

Scoop it!

Scoop it! is an interesting site which allows you to 'curate' digital content of relevance to your pupils. You specify a topic and parameters and Scoop it! will search the internet for suitable content.

At a click of a button, you can choose to 'scoop'  the articles which you think are particularly relevant, discarding suggestions which are of more marginal importance. Scoop it! then assembles your chosen content in the form of an online 'magazine'.  Imagine that your pupils are doing something on English spelling or New York restaurant menus. Scoop it! will crawl the internet suggesting authentic content sites based on the criteria you specify.

You can have a look at content I put together by specifying the topic of 'language teaching':

http://www.scoop.it/t/language-teaching-1

The Scoop it! website can be found at:

www.scoop.it

Chris Allen