Seeing Is Believing
It's midterm time again and in order to make sure that our students are in line with NYS standards, we routinely give questions from prior NYS Proficiency Exams as part of our exam. It is a very fair exam, but always a little dry for my kids. :o) I know that my academic stars will easily rise to the challenge; they love tests and do well on them. It's the students that are test-weary and/or test-tortured that I worry about.
My colleague is teaching Level 1 (2nd year of Spanish, grade 9...we start in grade 8) along with me this year. It's been an interesting voyage for her. It's been a gift for me. She is a fearless, brilliant Intro teacher and has brought these kids from true beginners to where they are now. She, too, was a little nervous about how the kids would do on this piece.....after all, it's only January. This test is designed to be given in June. We haven't really "done" a food unit, a house unit, a professions unit, a travel unit....and more.
But today we gave the listening section of the test and WOW. Seeing is believing. :o) Of the 110 ish kids who took the test, only 3 earned less than a 65. Two of them were dropped from the Intro course LAST year after midterms. They missed an ENTIRE semester of Spanish. By the way, they earned a 60 and 64 on this section. The vast majority (100 students) earned an 80 or above. Whew. And Wooo Hooo!!!
We love TPRS.
Can't wait to see how the Speaking, Reading and Writing sections go. :o)
with love,
Laurie
My colleague is teaching Level 1 (2nd year of Spanish, grade 9...we start in grade 8) along with me this year. It's been an interesting voyage for her. It's been a gift for me. She is a fearless, brilliant Intro teacher and has brought these kids from true beginners to where they are now. She, too, was a little nervous about how the kids would do on this piece.....after all, it's only January. This test is designed to be given in June. We haven't really "done" a food unit, a house unit, a professions unit, a travel unit....and more.
But today we gave the listening section of the test and WOW. Seeing is believing. :o) Of the 110 ish kids who took the test, only 3 earned less than a 65. Two of them were dropped from the Intro course LAST year after midterms. They missed an ENTIRE semester of Spanish. By the way, they earned a 60 and 64 on this section. The vast majority (100 students) earned an 80 or above. Whew. And Wooo Hooo!!!
We love TPRS.
Can't wait to see how the Speaking, Reading and Writing sections go. :o)
with love,
Laurie
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