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    Programme 2020-2023
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    Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment
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    Assessing mediation

Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment

Overview
What is
mediation?
Mediation
in the CEFR
Mediation tasks
Teaching
materials
Teacher's
corner


Types of mediation tasks


Before the design process


The design process


Adapting mediation tasks


Assessing mediation
 

Assessing mediation

Both fomrative and summative assessment can be used for METLA tasks. The METLA project places particular emphasis on formative assessment. In fact many METLA tasks contain components which encourage learners to reflect on their performance and progress and to carry out a self-assessment activity. 

Formative assessment

Formative assessment of mediation

Formative assessment methods provide ongoing information on how learners are progressing and support the learning process. In the classroom formative assessment of mediation can be done by means of: 

  • Journals/logs: learners make daily entries in a diary about their progress. Teachers ask them to create a journal or a learning log, in which both teachers and learners write and through which they collaborate. 
  • Portfolios: collections of learners’ work (mainly written, but a portfolio could also include drawings, videos, etc). They demonstrate the evolution of learners’ work. Portfolios can be created either in the foreign language or in any language brought into the classroom. Teachers should bear in mind that they can exploit technology and involves learners in making their e-portfolios, i.e., electronic versions of a portfolio, to record and share their work, reflect on their learning and receive feedback;
  • Feedback: teachers provides structured feedback to students on their strengths and weaknesses in written or oral performance; feedback may also be provided by the learners' peers;
  • Conferences: a peer conference is a meeting of a group of learners to assess the written work of group members (Roberts and Kellough, 1996)
  • Self-assessment grids or reflection activities: self-assessment involves getting learners to reflect on their own performance on the basis of certain criteria. Reflection activities ask learners to track their learning progress, identify areas of strength and weakness, reflect on the strategies they used in order to carry out the mediation task etc (EXAMPLES: tasks 5, 9, 14 or 15).

EXAMPLES:

In Tasks 22 and 23 (project activity) learners are asked to select information from various sources in Language A (video and texts) and create an informative poster which will provide first-aid instructions about heat exhaustion in Greece and Finland. They then present their work to  a small group of other learners. A reflection activity is provided at the end of the lesson, which includes questions about the strategies they used in order to create their own poster. These questions encourage them to reflect on the steps they followed in order to carry out Tasks 22 and 23 as a whole. 

In Task 29, at the end of the lesson, learners are asked to reflect on their own motivation regarding the theme and the activities and on their use of previously acquired linguistic and cultural knowledge. In a subsequent phase, they are asked to summarise what they have learnt. 


Mediation tests

Testing mediation 

Testing, as a form of summative assessment, focuses on eliciting a specific sample of performance. Summative assessment ranging from classroom tests to standardised examinations can be used for mediation tasks. For example the Greek national foreign language examinations system, known as the KPG exams, offers exams in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Turkish. Following the CEFR six level proficiency scales, it is a high‐stakes exam battery which focuses on the use of language in different contexts. Taking an intercultural perspective, it measures candidates’ ability to mediate by including written and oral mediation tasks involving Greek and the foreign language that is assessed.

Some key questions to consider before creating cross-linguistic mediation tests: 

  1. Who is the test for? What are the characteristics of test takers? (age, educational level etc.) What is the proficiency level of the learners that are taking the test? 
  2. What languages to include? (Language A - Source text and Language B - Target text or other languages) 
  3. What CEFR-CV scales are relevant?  Does the test design take into consideration the CEFR can-do statements that specify language use?
  4. Is the aim of the test to assess written or oral mediation, or both? 
  5. What evaluation criteria will be used? 

Examples of  grading criteria for cross-linguistic mediation tests could include the following: 

  1. Is the output text appropriate for the context, and does it take into account text conventions? 
  2. Does the output text contain pertinent information from the source text? Has source information been relayed accurately?
  3. Have mediation strategies been appropriately used (streamlining a text, breaking down complicated information etc) with respect to the aims of the task ? 

Find here two examples of a test description (pdf).