Section 2

ASSESSMENT AND RECORDING

Introduction

This section contains advice on assessment for all learners of Gaelic, in Gaelic-medium schools, in bilingual primary schools, in secondary Gàidhlig/Fluent Speakers' classes and in Gaelic Learners' classes.

The National Guidelines: Assessment 5-14 give schools advice on how to review and develop their assessment policies for all areas of the curriculum. The ways in which primary and secondary schools assess their pupils' progress in Gaelic should be consistent with that general guidance. The present section deals specifically and briefly with methods of planning, conducting and recording assessment in language.

Basic points about assessing language

Assessment procedures in language should be planned as part of teaching and learning processes and should contribute positively to them. They should not determine what is taught and learned, but they may well offer information to allow the curriculum to be revised and methodologies to be rethought.

Assessment should help to build the confidence necessary to cope with increasing challenge. Pupils should be encouraged to develop from where they are, building on their language skills, rather than having the gap exposed between their present attainments and some ideal level of performance. They should be encouraged to overtake the attainment targets they are capable of through following the programmes of study. At the same time teachers should be alert to the need to challenge some pupils by stretching their abilities towards further targets which are within their reach.

In language, assessment should assist in building a positive relationship between teacher and pupil. This is not just a matter of sympathetic assistance in advancing the pupil's developing skills; it is also the gradual encouragement, through introducing peer- and self-assessment, for the pupil to become an independent learner. Peer- and self-assessment techniques allow the teacher to share with pupils' expectations and criteria for success and assessment, in a friendly and supportive way.

To record pupils' performances in Gaelic on video as well as audio tape, where possible, will be of advantage for discussion and for purposes of self-evaluation.

Planning assessment

The attainment targets for Gaelic set out in Parts 1 and 2 are designed to be comprehensive sets of goals for pupils learning Gaelic, as a first or subsequent language, up to S2. Since they indicate reasonable expectations of achievement for both groups of pupils, they should be used by teachers as a framework for planning assessment. These targets do not, however, provide detailed assessment criteria for all the specific language tasks that pupils are likely to undertake. It is important, therefore, to note that within certain broad principles referred to later in this section, teachers retain scope and responsibility to choose forms and criteria for assessment that best fit their own programmes.



[RETURN TO 5-14 ONLINE] [BACK] [INDEX] [NEXT]

© The Scottish Office Education Department, June 1993