Spanish Pre-Assessments

Intro: 
I enjoyed this assignment, as it made me really think about the purpose and effectiveness of my selected pre-assessment. However, it was difficult to implement a solid pre-assessment, in a realistic, authentic environment, due to the fact that I do not currently have my own class. This week, I subbed one block of a Spanish I class, which was a mix of 7th/8th/9th graders, where I was able to select four students who finished with their actual classwork early enough to help me with my assignment. I explained the purpose of the assignment and gave them the instructions: they needed to choose five things, which would be: people, animals, places, or objects, and then list adjectives to describe them. I gave them prompts to get them started, saying they could look around the room for an object they knew they they could label and describe, or they could use friends, pets, someone famous, family members, etc.

Results: 

Interestingly, the 4 students who I worked with all chose their family members and pets. After reflecting on the assignment later, it occurred to me that my actual instructions didn’t entirely make sense for the unit that it was a part of. The adjectives the students were to theoretically have just learned in the previous lesson were ones which are used to describe people and/or pets (timid, social, daring, tall, short, fat), and can’t really be used to describe places or things. No wonder they all chose people and pets!

Reflection and Adjustments: 
I originally planned on using the pre-assessment only as a means of checking that students had digested the new adjective vocabulary they had learned the previous day. The lesson that would follow this pre-assessment would teach the students the grammar rules about matching adjectives and gender, and the lesson would conclude by having the students go back and correct the original pre-assessment using their new-found knowledge.
Because the students I used weren't actually my own students, though, and hadn't actually done my planned lesson the day before, I ended up getting results that differed from what I was expecting!
Because the students I used for the assignment had learned different vocabulary words and phrases to describe people, I was able to see how I could actually use the same pre-assessment at a later point in the unit (after they presumably have learned the gender grammar rules), as a way to check student understanding and to determine what I might need to reteach or further practice. For example, out of the four student samples I procured, I can see immediately that every student made at least some spelling mistakes (some more than others).  Additionally, while most students seemed to understand how to change adjectives to match the subject's gender (ex. a boy would be gracioso, while a girl would be graciosa), every student still made at least a couple gender mistakes, and three out of the four students didn't remember that the word "deportista" is an exception and stays the same regardless of the gender of who/what it is describing. I saw that I can learn, just from this simple pre-assessment, that I would need to review gender rules and exceptions, and also Spanish spelling rules (specifically which letters get doubled and which don't, and where and how to use accent marks).

Beyond the original "check for understanding" uses that I had foreseen, I realized that it could also serve as the first step in a bigger project either in the same unit, or in later, more advanced, units. For example, the textbook my school used for middle school had me teaching a unit on table settings (plates, tea cups and saucers, spoons, napkins, etc.). In an attempt to make the unit more exciting, I had the students create comic/cartoon characters out of the items. 
It occurred to me that I could use a similar pre-assessment in the table setting unit, which would require students to use creativity to assign characteristics to their made-up characters. Maybe Carlos el Cuchillo (the knife) is daring and intelligent, and Matador el Tenedor is timid, anti-social, and non-athletic. If I used the pre-assessment in this way, it could actually also double as an opener for a short writing piece. First, students brainstorm adjectives to describe their characters, and then they build on it bit by bit and eventually complete a larger writing piece with descriptive sentences, and potentially even likes/dislikes, action verbs, etc.         

Reflection and Adjustments: 
After the students finished, and after I realized they were familiar with more grammar rules than I had expected, I reminded them that, in Spanish, adjectives need to match what they're describing, in terms of gender. I asked them to work with a partner and see if they could locate and talk about any instances where they may have forgotten the rule. We spent a minute or so going over it and making sure they understood. I also pointed out how fantastic it was that they had thought to include things I hadn't even asked them for, but which they knew how to say, such as describing hair and eye color.

Conclusion: 
I went into this assignment thinking about the pre-assessment I had chosen as just a warm-up and as a way to make sure that students had retained information about what they had learned the day before. What ended up happening, however, is that I discovered several other uses for my original pre-assessment. What I particularly like about it is that the format involves very little prep (all I have to do is make the template once and just copy it) and it can have several uses. By providing the 5 columns, I can have students brainstorm information in a variety of ways: sorting vocabulary into categories, describing different characters in a story, listing facts about different Spanish-speaking countries, etc. And for assessment, it can be used to check for understanding, to see what I need to reteach, to check a student's progress, or to allow students to revisit and correct/add later, after learning new information.