While individual evaluation is very important to schools, it is not in the spirit of the project, but we might try to find how can we evaluate the overall impact of the “tales” on a class of pupils to see if a positive impact has been made on the level of oracy skills and self-confidence.
Age range: 5-11 years
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
An assessment is important so that we can take into account the overall impact of the sessions on the development and the self-esteem of the students when using their public speaking skills.
The assessment of the overall impact will be carried out through observations of the behavior and the relationship among the students in the group. The relationship the student entertain with public speaking is also very important. One of the main goals of this project being to encourage young pupils to develop oral skills but also to be at ease with speaking in front of other people.
GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT
As a general assessment, the teacher can keep a journal of each pupil’s general oral skills’ level with notes (not points per say, but taking note of observations) on certain criteria:
- Fluency
- Richness of vocabulary
- Rhythm
- Confidence
- Structure of the discourse
- Structure and complexity of the storyline
- Complexity of sentences and grammar
- Articulation
Other criteria are interesting to take note of:
- How many pupils volunteered to tell a story?
- Do pupils that previously did not want to take part in it participate now?
- In other classes, has there been a difference in the number of pupils raising their hands to answer orally to a question?
- Has there been a positive impact in “language” classes? (such as fluency in reading texts, better compositions in writing, more complex written structures, etc…)
- Has there been an impact on the general self-confidence of pupils?
Maybe it would be interesting to ask parents if they have noticed a difference in the pupil’s behavior at home? Also; does he tell tales at home or to his friends outside of the story time moment in class?
All of these elements can be indicators of a positive impact of the story-time on the pupils, both in general and individually.
SELF-ASSESSMENT AND MOTIVATION TOOLS:
Motivation to tell stories is very important in order to have a bigger positive impact. In this particular situation, whenever asking for auto-assessment, it is important to make the students feel as if this is another game, not a formal evaluation. The idea is to keep the story-telling time as a free expression space where students do not feel pressured to perform for points, but feel free to experiment with oracy. Here are some tips on how to make the auto-assessment part fun and interesting for the pupils.
Provoke the receptivity – surprise or ambiguity is used to attract interest.
Increase curiosity – various challenging questions, puzzles, problem solving are used.
Opportunity for each student to participate in the assessment process.
Preparation, implementation:
According to the technique chosen for evaluation. The teacher prepares the materials needed for the activity before the beginning of the story and provides them at the end.
Other options in case the children refuse to participate in the activity:
Suggest them to:
- to be an observer of the activity of the others;
- to be involved in the evaluation when they feel ready;
- to give an assessment individually after the other children have finished.
SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES RELATED TO ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF TELLING STORIES / TALES ON THE PUPILS’ MINDSET:
- Technique “Evaluation target”
A target with concentric circles with the numbers 0, 10, 20, 30 is drawn, with the largest number in the middle. The children answer questions related to the story / tale / Example: Did you like the end of the story? / They put a sign / self-adhesive dots / in the place of the corresponding number of dots with a meaning, that is explained in advance:
30 points – I really liked it.
20 points – I liked it.
10 points – I didn’t particularly like it.
0 points. – I didn’t like it.
Children who did not like the story are given the opportunity to form a team and create their own one to present to others.
- “Traffic light” technique
Each of the children has three multicolored sticks – yellow, red and green. After each question, asked by the teacher related to the story, they answer by showing the corresponding stick with the color having a meaning, that is explained in advance:
Green color – I really liked it.
Yellow color – I didn’t particularly like it.
Red – I didn’t like it.
Children who did not like the story are given the opportunity to form a team and create their own one to present to others.
Other questions can be asked in relation to stories, using the same techniques, such as:
- Did you like to tell a story?
- Was it difficult to tell a story?
- If you could change something during storytime, what would it be?
- How does telling a story makes you feel?
- What did you learn today?
The general feeling elicited by taking the lead and speaking in public, as well as how comfortable they are doing so, is an important indicator of the impact telling tales can have on pupils. The more comfortable they are and the more they like telling stories, the more susceptible to improve and have self-confidence when speaking in public they are. This is why self-assessment of the pupil, basically a “did they like it?” and “Why?” is very important.