Assessment of young language learners: Using rubrics to bridge the gap between praxis and curriculum

Abstract

This article discusses an action research project that took place during the author's second year of teaching English as a foreign language. During the course, the author/teacher was given the responsibility of introducing English as to a group of beginning young language learners (first graders; ages five to seven). Following a few months of teaching, the author detected the need to develop better strategies for the assessment of the pupils’ oral skills. This led to the subsequent steps of designing and implementing an Action Research (AR) project the following aims: to find an assessment system that worked well for the author/teacher, that provided clear evidence of the learners' improvements in their communicative competence and that matched the objectives as stated in the national curriculum for foreign language teaching and learning. This article will describe and discuss the design and outcomes of the AR.