Language Assessment in Year 2 KSSR.

This essay will discuss the language assessments that are suitable for students

in Malaysian primary school who are in their second year of schooling. The assessment

will be on a number of content standards in the new Standard Primary School

Curriculum (KSSR); namely Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. KSSR is one of

the efforts by the Malaysian Ministry of Education to change the Malaysian education

scene that are too exam-oriented and rigid. There are 6 basic principles of the new

KSSR; 1) basic literacy skills such as phonics and penmanship, 2) making learning fun,

meaningful and purposeful by conducting fun activities with meaningful context in the

classroom, 3) leaner-centered classroom where teacher will give in consideration of the

students’ needs and abilities in planning lessons, 4) integrating technologies like

internet, electronic media and networking facilities in the class, 5) implementing both

formative and summative assessment, and finally, 6) instill good values in the lessons.

With the new KSSR, teachers will have more freedom on how to plan their lessons

according to the students’ needs and abilities.

GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING YOUNG CHILDREN

In assessing young children, there are several issues that should be taken into

account. This is because the nature of assessing children’s language learning is

different from adult learners. Factors such as age, content of the language learning,

methods of teaching used in the classroom, aims of the lessons, and learning theories

are to be taken seriously. (Cameron, 2001).It is important to keep in mind that children

develop differently in term of motor skills, linguistic and social development. This theory

is introduced by the pioneers such as Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. It is important for

teachers to know their young learners’ level of development in teaching and assessing

them. Primary school teachers should understand the idea of zone of proximal

development (ZPD) by Vygotsky and scaffolding by Bruner as they are important in

teaching language to young learners. Scaffolding helps the young children to be

interested in the tasks and kept them on the right track in completing their task by

breaking it down into smaller steps.(Cameron, 2001). The content of language learning

that are to be assessed should also be aligned with the methods of teaching and the

learning aims. For instance, if the aim of the language course is to develop the

children’s communication skills, then the focus of the learning should be on oral skills,

and vocabulary development to enable them communicate with fluency. And teachers

should employ interactive activities for the children to practice their communication skills

in the classroom.

THE BROAD APPROACH

The new curriculum standard aims to prepare the children with basic language

skills in order for them to communicate effectively in a range of context. The objectives

are for the children to be able to communicate in both formal and informal situations,

read and comprehend a variety of English texts, write collections of text with the proper

language, styles and form, understand English literacy and creative works like poems

and plays, and use correct grammar rules in both speech and writing.

Therefore, formative assessment would be more suitable. This is because this

type of assessment lets the teacher to assess the children’s achievement in terms of

acquisition of knowledge and skills. It would be easier for the teacher to know where the

children’s levels are.The Curriculum Development Division had published a guidebook

for English teacher to look at in order to understand how to use the new KSSR

effectively in their teaching. The book gives several suggestions of methods of

assessment that could be employed by the teacher; observation, tests, checklists,

creative works, writing, and oral presentations. This shows that both formal and informal

assessments are values in the new KSSR. That is why in this essay, for each sub skills,

both formal and informal methods of formative assessment in nature will be used.

THE FOUR CONTENT STANDARDS

There are four modules in the organization of the new KSSR; namely Listening

and Speaking, Reading, Writing and Language Arts. However, this essay would only

look at the four basic language skills, such as Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing,

and how to assess the selected sub-skills.

Listening: 1.1.3 Able to listen to, say aloud and recite rhymes or sing songs.

Listening is hard to assess because there is no output produced by the children, making

it hard for the teacher to know if the children are able to listen effectively to the rhymes

chosen. Brown &Abeywickarama (2010) explained that with listening, teacher would not

be able to directly observe neither the process nor product by the children. Therefore, to

resolve this problem, teacher could give the children a gap-filling worksheet of the

rhymes. For instance, teacher could use a very famous nursery rhyme, Old McDonald

Had a Farm [Appendix A] for this skill. The rhymes here had been modified so that the

children would be able to relate and understand them. It is also very important for the

teachers to know the socio-cultural context of their young learners so that they would

not be offended by the teaching lessons. For example, in the websites,

nurseryrhymes4u.com, they include the animal pig and horse. But in Malaysia, pig is not

a common animal and it is considered as offensive for the Muslim children to sing about

pig. Horse is also another uncommon animal in Malaysia. That is why the teacher

should omit or change them to animals that the children know. In Appendix B, there is

an edited version of the Old McDonald Had a Farm. The edited version is much shorter

with some animals being replaced and cut out. The teacher could let the children to

listen to the rhymes and sing along for a couple of times before distributing the gap-

filling worksheet [Appendix C]. And while the children try to fill out the missing words, it

is better if the teacher would play the rhymes in the background. This would help the

children to fill the worksheet in. This is done to avoid frustration among the children.

Then, to make the lesson more interesting, towards the end of the lesson the teacher

could arrange the children into several small groups and ask them to come up with their

own unique movements of the rhymes. Here, the children could bring their own

interpretation of the animals into the rhymes and show it to the class. Since this is a

group work, the children would not be intimidated to show their interpretation.

Reading 2.2.4 Able to read and understand a paragraph of 5 – 8 simple

sentences.

Brown & Abeywickrama (2010) stated that there are three genres of reading; academic,

job related and personal. One of the new KSSR pedagogical principles is to make

learning fun and meaningful. And since the targeted children would be at the age of 8

years old, personal reading would be more appropriate to be used in the classroom.

Examples of some personal reading are newspaper, magazines, letters, short stories,

cartoons and maps. The teacher could use stories that are short and simple, like The

Lion and The Rabbit, by Beverley Randell. The teacher could first introduce the story by

engaging the children in discussion prior to the reading. Some example questions that

the teacher could ask the children are, Why do you think the lion is chasing the rabbit?,

Where could the rabbit run to be safe?, and What do you think happen to the rabbit?.

Then the teacher could give out a worksheet [Appendix D] with several questions of the

story to the children to complete. The aim of this worksheet is for the teacher to be able

to look at the children’s understanding of the story that they had read.

Writing 3.2.3 Able to punctuate correctly: a) capital letters, b) full stop, c)

question mark.

For Year 2, they are expected to master the mechanics of writing and learn to write at

word, phrase and sentence levels by the end of their two years of schooling. The focus

here is on their penmanship skills and content, rather than rules of grammar. What the

teacher could do here is to gives the learners a few topics to choose from and write a

paragraph of 5 – 8 simple sentences. It is important to give the learners several options

for them to choose from. This way, they would be able to choose topic that interest them

or topic that they can relate to. Then they would have something to write about, avoiding

frustration when they could not write from topics that they know nothing about. It is also

important for the teacher not to be too critical when assessing the children’s work. A

little motivation goes a long way in young language learning. Writing activity could be

made more interesting and fun by asking the children to make their own comic strips,

with some simple dialogues. The teacher could give a theme for the comics and let the

children’s imagination wonder. For instance, with the theme about superheroes, children

could come out with their own superheroes. They then must give their superheroes their

choice of super powers and create a situation that would show their superheroes heroic

action. Children may take a long time to finish their comic strip; therefore it is wise for

the teacher to gives a dateline to the children to submit their comic strips. A week or two

would be enough, with the teacher checking on the children’s work every two days or

so. It is important to check the children’s work progress from time to time, so that the

teacher could make sure that they are on the right track of finishing their works. The

teacher should also provide the children with constructing feedbacks on their work

progress. This would boost up the children’s self-confidence and self esteem.

Speaking 1.1.4 Able to talk about a stimulus with guidance.

Teacher could assess the children’s oral language using several contexts of speaking,

such as speeches, telling a story, and reading aloud. (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2010). In

speaking, learners would need to make their choices of vocabulary, structure and

discourse to use. For young learners, it is advisable to use extensive speaking like

speeches, oral presentation and storytelling where there is limited chance of contact

from the listeners. Teacher could allocate several minutes in the beginning of the lesson

for the children to share news with each other. This would allow them to use the

language without any pressure from the teacher. Another way that teacher could use to

assess the children’s speaking skills is to organize a public speaking competition in the

class. The teacher could list out several topics that the children had learners throughout

the year and put them in a bowl. Then the children are too randomly picked a topic and

talk about the topic for about 1 minute. It is important for the teacher to carefully select

the topics to be put into the bowl so that the children would have an idea of what to say.

The teacher could invite the parents to come and watch this little competition. Parents’

involvement in young children’s learning is important. The children would be motivated

to speak and make their parents proud.

CONCLUSION

The new KSSR stressed on the development of basic literacy skills, to equip the

children with strong foundation of the basic English language skills; Listening, Speaking,

Reading and Writing. It also aimed to break free from the exam oriented education

system that Malaysia had been using for the past years. That is why teachers are

encouraged to use leaner centered approach and fun activities in the lessons. In order

to achieve the aims and objectives of the new KSSR both formal and informal

assessment should be employed by the teacher. Formal assessment allows the teacher

to check the children’s knowledge while informal assessment would keep the children

interested in learning.

It is a challenge for a teacher to choose text or materials that would interest the

young learners and keeping them on the right track in their work. With the classroom

system in Malaysia where there are at least 20 students in a class with mixed ability and

come from different socio cultural background, it is hard to find one common topic that

would be suitable for all the students. Another challenge that teacher might come

across is to employ all the informal activities in the classroom. Learner centered

approach is still a new thing in Malaysia, and there are a lot of people that are skeptical

about the approach. Experienced teachers and parents are still to adapt to the idea that

learning could be fun. It would pose a great challenge for the new teachers to employ

the new KSSR in school, which is why it is important for the new teachers to know and

understand the reason for the implantation of this new KSSR.

Appendix A http://www.nurseryrhymes4u.com/NURSERY_RHYMES/Page_46.html

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,And on his farm he had a cow,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Moo-Moo) hereAnd a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo), there a (Moo)Everywhere a (Moo-Moo)Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,And on his farm he had a pig,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With an (Oink-Oink) hereAnd an (Oink-Oink) there,Here an (Oink), there an (Oink),Everywhere an (Oink-Oink)(Moo-Moo) hereAnd a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo), There a (Moo),Everywhere a (Moo-Moo),Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.And on his farm he had a duck,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Quack-Quack) hereAnd a (Quack-Quack) there,Here a (Quack), there a  (Quack)Everywhere a (Quack-Quack)(Oink-Oink) hereAnd an (Oink-Oink) there,Here an (Oink), there an (Oink)Everywhere an (Oink-Oink)(Moo-Moo) here.And a (Moo-Moo) there.Here a (Moo), there a (Moo),Everywhere a (Moo-Moo),

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.And on his farm he had a horse,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.With a (Neigh-Neigh,) hereAnd a (Neigh-Neigh) there,Here a (Neigh), there a (Neigh),Everywhere a (Neigh-Neigh),(Quack-Quack) hereAnd a (Quack-Quack) there,Here a (Quack), there a (Quack),Everywhere a (Quack-Quack),(Oink-Oink) hereAnd an (Oink-Oink) there,Here an (Oink) there an (Oink)Everywhere an (Oink-Oink),(Moo-Moo) hereAnd a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo) there a (Moo)Everywhere a (Moo-Moo),Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Appendix B

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,And on his farm he had a cow,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Moo-Moo) hereAnd a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo), there a (Moo)Everywhere a (Moo-Moo)

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,And on his farm he had a cat,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Meow-Meow) hereAnd a (Meow-Meow) there,Here a (Meow), there a (Meow),Everywhere a (Meow)Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.And on his farm he had a duck,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Quack-Quack) hereAnd a (Quack-Quack) there,Here a (Quack), there a  (Quack)Everywhere a (Quack-Quack)

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.(Quack-Quack) hereAnd a (Quack-Quack) there,Here a (Quack), there a (Quack),Everywhere a (Quack-Quack),(Meow-Meow) hereAnd a (Meow-Meow) there,Here a (Meow) there a (Meow)Everywhere a (Meow-Meow),(Moo-Moo) hereAnd a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo) there a (Moo)Everywhere a (Moo-Moo),Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Appendix C

Old MacDonald had a _____,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,And on his farm he had a ___,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Moo-Moo) here

And a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo), there a (Moo)Everywhere a (Moo-Moo)___ MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,And on ___ farm he had a ___,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Meow-Meow) hereAnd a (Meow-Meow) there,Here a (Meow), there a (Meow),Everywhere a (Meow)Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.And on his farm he had a ____,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh,With a (Quack-Quack) hereAnd a (Quack-Quack) _____,Here a (Quack), there a  (Quack)Everywhere a (Quack-Quack)Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Old MacDonald had a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.(Quack-Quack) hereAnd a (Quack-Quack) there,Here a (Quack), there a (Quack),_________ a (Quack-Quack),(Meow-Meow) hereAnd a (Meow-Meow) there,____ a (Meow) there a (Meow)Everywhere a (Meow-Meow),(Moo-Moo) hereAnd a (Moo-Moo) there,Here a (Moo) there a (Moo)Everywhere a (Moo-Moo),Old MacDonald ___ a farm,Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Ee-l, Ee-l, Oh.

Appendix D

Title of the Book: The Lion and The Rabbit

Author: Beverley Randell

Answer all the questions.

1. What happen in the story?

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________________________________________________________________

2. Why did the lion let the rabbit go?

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3. Why do you think the lion could not catch the deer?

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4. How does the lion feel about missing the rabbit?

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5. What should the lion have done?

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6. What do you think the lion had learned?

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REFERENCES

Brown, D.H & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language Assessment: Principles and

Classroom Practices. (2nd Ed.). NY: Pearson Education, Inc.

Cameron, L (2001). Teaching languages to young learners. UK: Cambridge University

Press.