The Listening and Reading Projects – Anne Stazicker
The Listening and Reading Projects – Anne Stazicker – A.Stazicker@leeds.ac.uk
In order to continue the LCs commitment to excellence in learning, teaching and assessment an investigation is currently being embarked on which will examine the profiles of the two receptive skills within the LC curriculum, syllabi, classroom materials, learning outcomes and assessments.
The scholarship projects will be conducted within the framework of an integrated approach to learning, teaching and assessment whilst at the same time taking into account the content-based and specific context of each LC module and provision (ESAP/EGAP).
The integrated approach “with its communicative language activities and strategies ….” is “grounded in interaction in which meaning is co-constructed” and “replaces the traditional model of the four skills … which has increasingly proved inadequate to capture the complex reality of communication. Moreover, organisation by the four skills does not lend itself to any consideration of the purpose or macro-function.” (CEFR Companion, 2018, p30).
This enquiry is, in part, in order that we can justify decisions that we make on the basis of assessment scores whilst ensuring that our learners are proficient in at least B2 level of the CEFR in all four components (ie all four skills) for UKVI reporting purposes, but also to continue to develop our own assessment literacy and evidence-based knowledge of reading and listening. As an ever-expanding teaching team including fixed term and summer only teaching staff, it is important to have a resource that can be consulted by existing LC staff as well as newly-arrived members.
The timing of these two scholarship projects is facilitated by the move towards semesterisation in September 2021, which is the working deadline for prototypes and first drafts of materials and assessment criteria.
The two projects; the ‘listening project’ and the ‘reading project’ will run concurrently with the aim of conducting scholarship into:
· What key transferable language, skills and competencies could and should be prioritised
· How learning of key language, skills and competencies can best be facilitated
· and how these can best be assessed taking into account both assessment for learning and of learning.
The projects aim to reevaluate and review the balance of:
· Academic language vs skills
· Receptive vs productive skills
· Summative vs formative assessments
· Product vs process-based pedagogy
· and to feed into the LC curriculum, the development of syllabi, classroom materials and assessment practices, types and criteria.
The projects comprise a steering group and a focus group
The steering group members will steer the direction of the teaching, learning and assessment of reading/listening through:
· Reading and research into the theory and practice of reading/listening
· Consultation with experts where available
· Consultation with colleagues in the LC
· Consultation with academics in Schools where applicable
The focus group will comprise one member of each module/teaching team who will:
· Work with MLs (where the focus group member is not the ML) and teaching team colleagues to review the syllabus, module learning outcomes, teaching/self-study materials and input, and assessments for their module/provision and
· Consult with steering group member(s) to help determine the most appropriate syllabus, classroom/self-study materials and assessments for their specific context.