Everyday MFL

I wrote this post years ago with an attitude of “this is a good thing.” Time and experience has changed my opinion dramatically to the extent that I have now written the opposite. It is odd to recant an entire blog post but here goes…

I used to use peer-assessment a lot although that was before I read an article on http://classteaching.wordpress.com (check it out, lots of good ideas and reflections).

80% of feedback a student receives about his or her work in primary school is from other students.  But 80% of this student provided feedback is incorrect!” (I believe Nuthall is the original source on this – Hidden Lives of Learners).

Problems I have encountered when using it:

1) Even a clear measuring system can be flawed. 

Did their work contain opinions, reasons connectives etc? I would imagine for some lower ability students this is quite hard to gauge quickly and they probably miss them. It might work with higher groups but the only way I can see peer-assessment of speaking working is where mark schemes talk about fluency and lack of hesitation. That can be spotted whereas verbs, conjunctions etc can easily be missed

2) They write what they think you want, not what the student needs

3) You will receive minimalist comments that do not drive learning forward.

On a few occasions I can recall students writing things such as “good use of connectives”, the only issue was that they had no idea what else to write.  There was also not a single connecting word in the piece of work!  If you’re going to do it then there needs to be a checklist that not just only has what is needed but exactly what it looks like. Could you pick a few students each lesson whose speaking you are going to evaluate (some ideas for that here)?

4) Students are largely aware of their ability relative to others.

Students know who they perceive to be good at languages in a class. If a high attaining student receives feedback from a student they believe to be significantly below them, they are less likely to act on it, even if the feedback is actually accurate.

5) There are too many affective variables to make it worthwhile unless anonymised.

If at this point, you are still keen on peer-assessment. Shake things up a little.  Get them to hand their books to someone completely different.  Even insist they do not look at the name on the front.  They’re more likely to write honest feedback if they don’t know who they are writing for.  Also helps to avoid numerous hearts, flowers, declarations of affection or indeed other sorts of teenage artwork gracing your exercise books.