Taking the stress out of the Territory-wide System Assessment TSA (previously known as BCA)

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Taking the stress out of the Territory-wide
System Assessment TSA (previously known as BCA)

• WORKSHOP
• 11th January, 2006
• The British Council
• by Wendy Arnold

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Understanding TSAWhat does the TSA comprise
of?What do these assess?
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Content of TSA

• Listening
• Writing
• Reading
• Speaking
• For the purpose of this workshop we will
• only focus on the speaking part of the TSA.

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AIMS OF THIS WORKSHOP

• To give an overview of some of the components of
  the speaking part of the TSA
• To help you reflect on strategies for developing
  more effective speaking
• To help you reflect on what might be dilemmas for
  speaking and how to overcome them
• NOTE time constraints do not allow for very
  detailed discussion but the hope is that the
  reflective process will help you start to develop
  longterm practices in your schools.

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What does the TSA speaking entail?

• Reading aloud
• Teacher-student interaction (based on reading)
• Presentation
• Pairwork (not covered in this workshop)
• How it is defined officially

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1) Real aloud (1 minute)

• Showing a basic understanding of
• simple and familiar texts by reading
• aloud the texts with comprehensible
• pronunciation and generally appropriate
• pace, stress, rhythm and intonation.
• Link to http//210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tw
  s_eng.htm
• For video and feedback on marking

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2) Teacher-student interaction (2 minutes)

• Providing and/or exchanging
• (asking and answering)simple
• information and ideas (including
• personal experiences,
• imaginative ideas and evaluative
• remarks) and attempting to provide
• some elaboration with the help of
• cues.

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2) Student-teacher interaction contd/

• Using a small range of vocabulary,
• sentence patterns and cohesive
• devices to convey simple
• information and ideas fairly
• appropriately with the help of cues
• despite some grammatical
• mistakes.
• Link to
• http//210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.ht
  m
• For video and feedback of marking

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3) Presentation (2 minutes)

• Pronouncing familiar words comprehensibly.
• Providing and/or exchanging (asking and
• answering) simple information and ideas
• (including personal experiences, imaginative
• ideas and evaluative remarks) and
• attempting to provide some elaboration with
• the help of cues.

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3) Presentation contd/

• Using a small range of vocabulary,
• sentence patterns and cohesive devices to
• convey simple information and ideas fairly
• appropriately with the help of cues despite
• some grammatical mistakes.
• Link to
• http//210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.ht
  m
• For video and feedback of marking

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Killing 3 birds (skills) with one stone
(skill)! Guess how?TIP What skill is essential
for 2 out of the 3 components?
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Using reading as the vehicle to improve other
linguistic skillsNote books is used as it
could be fiction or non-fiction

• Listening to books with
• teacher/adult
• partner

CONTEXT!
reading
listening
Writing about books -bookreport -tasks based on
books
Speaking about books -teacher/adult -partner
writing
speaking
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Do you need any more reasons to improve the
reading skills of your pupils?

• Do you already have 40 of your
• timetabled English classes as
• reading?

2 of the 3 tasks of the TSA speaking are reading
or based on understanding the reading text!
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How ready are your Ss to do these TSA tasks?

• Task 1
• Groupwork (10 minutes)
• a) Why do you think its worth understanding the
  problems our Ss might have?
• b) What do you think are the problems your Ss
  will have with the 3 components of the TSA?

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Feedback (5 minutes)

• Some ideas

pronunciation problems
Lack of practice
TSA dilemmas
Read aloud
presentation
limited vocab
Teacher-Ss interaction
not enough practice
English only used in classroom so very shy Ss
Ss used to lower order questions and cannot
elaborate
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NOTELower order thinking http//www.coun.uvic.ca/
learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html

• Knowledge - Question Cueslist, define, tell,
  describe, identify, show, label, collect,
  examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when, where,
  etc.
• Comprehension Question Cues summarize,
  describe, interpret, contrast, predict,
  associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate,
  discuss, extend
• Application - Questions Cues apply,
  demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate,
  show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change,
  classify, experiment, discover

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Higher order thinkinghttp//www.coun.uvic.ca/lear
n/program/hndouts/bloom.html

• Analysis - Question Cuesanalyze, separate,
  order, explain, connect, classify, arrange,
  divide, compare, select, explain, infer
• Synthesis - Question Cuescombine, integrate,
  modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create,
  design, invent, what if?, compose, formulate,
  prepare, generalize, rewrite
• Evaluation - Question Cuesassess, decide, rank,
  grade, test, measure, recommend, convince,
  select, judge, explain, discriminate, support,
  conclude, compare, summarize

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Lets have a go! Put yourself in your Ss shoes

• Task 2
• Real aloud pairwork (10 minutes)
• Take it in turns to read the passage given to
• you.
• Part A) Note what you do when you come to
• unknown words, is this something you can teach
• your Ss?
• Part B) Using the TSA marking scheme, note the
  possible
• difficulties your Ss might have

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FEEDBACK 5 minutes

• What did it feel like to read aloud an unseen
• text?
• What strategies did you use to decode
• unknown vocabulary?
• What helped you decode?
• Could you teach these strategies to your Ss?
• What common errors do non-native speakers of
• English have?

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• Task 3 Teacher-student interaction (10
• minutes)
• Take it in turns to ask the questions about
• the passage you read.
• Try and give elaborated answers.

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FEEDBACK 5 minutes

• What problems did you have with this part?
• Which are the easy questions to answer?
• Why?
• Which are the more difficult questions to
• answer? Why?

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Presentation (move to main room)

• Task 4 (groupwork groups of 4) 15 minutes
• Choose one of these topics
• My home and family
• Weather in Hong Kong
• Food in Hong Kong
• You have 3 minutes to prepare a 2 minute
• presentation

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Presentation contd/

• In your group elect
• Timekeeper and 2nd marker
• Marker
• Sentence counter
• Take it in turns to present, timekeep and
• mark

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Presentation feedback

• Feedback (5 minutes)
• Timing
• Marking/comments
• Number of sentences spoken
• Room for improvement?

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Some ways to overcome these dilemmas
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1) Reading aloud

• The ONLY way to overcome problems with
• reading aloud is by doing more of it!
• Its NEVER too late to start the TSA is here
  for the
• longterm!
• The more you do it, the better you get.
• Do you have
• a reading scheme?
• listen to your Ss read regularly?
• parent workshops to show how they can help?
• a school buddying system whereby upper primary
  helps lower primary (and helps themselves)

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2) Teacher-student interaction

• As in the case of reading aloud, the more
• you do it the better you become, the same
• can be said of ANY interaction.
• Try these
• Ask Ss to write questions about a book theyve
  read (easy and harder ones)
• Ask Ss to share the book with a friend and then
  ask them the questions
• Ask parents helpers to come to school and help to
  train the Ss

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3) Presentation

• This looks like the hardest BUT it is the easiest
  to practice!
• Try these
• show and tell (Ss take it in turn to bring in
  something to the class to share. Ss speak about
  it for 2 minutes)
• after Ss have presented, rest of class are
  encouraged to ASK questions (practicing
  interaction)
• Ss have competitions to mind map keywords for a
  given
• topic (for 2 minutes speaking they will need at
  least 15
• sentences)
• Ss are invited to speak in front of the class on
  their given topic (start with 1 minute and build
  it up to 2 minutes)
• ALL OF THESE IDEAS NEED TO BE MODELLED FIRST BY
  THE
• TEACHER SO THE SS UNDERSTAND WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
  AND KNOW
• THE AIM

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SHARING

• What other strategies are you using to help
• your Ss with the TSA?

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Round up

• More practice reading aloud, introduce buddy
  system in school
• More practice asking and answering questions, use
  the buddy system for pairwork.
• More practice presenting, use mind maps to
  collect keywords/ideas
• NOTE you cannot do this alone! Get the help of
  parent and students helpers

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Many thanks!

• Hope youve learnt something useful to take
• back to the classroom tomorrow.
• Possible follow up workshops
• Using a reading scheme, with running records,
  tasks and continuous assessment
• Setting up a buddy reading scheme to enhance
  Primary 3 and Primary 6 reading and speaking
  skills
• Setting up parent workshops for supporting
  reading at home

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References

• http//www.systemassessment.edu.hk/pri/index.htm
• 8th December, 2005 Report on the Basic
  Competencies of Students in English Language (pg
  126,146,148)
• 4th November, 2005 Territory-wide System
  Assessment 2005 (Marking Scheme)
• 30th April, 2005 English Language Speaking Oral
  Assessors Training (videos)
• http//210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.ht
  m
• 12th April, 2005 Territory-wide system
  assessment 2005 Quick Guide