A Journey Through Online
Language Learning
Assessment > Assignment
Things to consider
Assignments are unsupervised pieces of work, such as essays, reading comprehension or grammar tasks, which are normally completed during a programme of study as an integral part of the learning process. They are parts of online courses as much as of taught ones, and are often included in the summative assessment of a course.
In language teaching, assignments are invariably related to language skills. In Hogelands, every assessed assignment includes a listening activity, a writing activity, a vocabulary exercise, a comprehension exercise and a speaking activity which is conducted on Skype. The writing assignments entail producing longer texts (300-400 words) on topics more broadly related to the discussed materials. These include analysis/opinion on social/cultural problems (and comparison with country of origin); writing a poem or column; comparison/analysis of two websites; works of art.
In the beginner’s course Lagelands, each chapter finishes with an assignment that covers situations, notions and functions covered in the relevant chapter. Usually it is a writing task with a realistic context that will involve some revision and reading or research. This is subsequently sent to the tutor, and on some occasions, these texts are put on student’s homepages in the VLE for other students to read and comment on.
Students of Reading Skills in Business Dutch are principally assessed on the basis of the coursework, which requires answers to the exercises and tasks in the final unit of the General Module and two units of the Specialist Module. The assignment in the General Module is based on a text fragment from the Belgian financial broadsheet De Tijd about the sharp rise in the ageing population in Belgium and the related increase in social expenses. The tasks include reading, giving definitions and synonyms, grammar and syntax, reading comprehension, and translation. The tasks in the Specialist Module are equally comprehensive.
- Determine the goals of assignments. These can include testing students’ proficiency of one or more language skills
- Pay attention to the design; make sure you give clear instructions and that students fully understand what they are expected to do and why.
- Develop explicit assessment criteria and outcomes.
- Give clear instructions for submission, including the method and deadlines
- Ensure good-quality, timely feedback. Feedback helps students to improve and prevent them from making the same mistakes again. It is useless if feedback comes back too late in the semester. It can be given by email, or Skype, as in Hogelands.
- Warn students of the consequences of plagiarism.
Examples:
Assignments in Lagelands, Hogelands and Business Dutch
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