Apr 30 2009
Linguafolio saved my life!
Ok, it is possible that the above title exaggerates a bit…but not by much. Honest!
Like most foreign language teachers I know, for some time now I have heard about Linguafolio and how as a portfolio-based, language-assessment tool that has origins in Europe, it can help students monitor and take control of their own learning. The idea always had an appeal to me but unfortunately I never found the time to delve into it and work it into classroom instruction.
Fast forward a number of years: I am now the teacher of an established K-12 online German program that finds itself in a period of rapid transition as we move away from traditional, lecture-based, one-way instruction. Though I had been taking care to include performance-based assessments in the new courses as a way of providing more context and meaning to the student-learning experience, there still were some sizable pieces missing from the puzzle. And I didn’t even realize it — that is,until I heard Ali Moeller from the University of Nebraska speak this past weekend.
Dr. Moeller was conducting a seminar called: LinguaFolio Review and Classroom Implementation for the Kentucky World Language Teacher Network. She reiterated the underlying ideas behind Linguafolio over the two-day event. In my opinion, the following LF requirements for students are especially ground-breaking and compelling:
• Goal setting
• Self assessment
• Self-reflection and self-regulation
All of these components reveal a focus that is central to the Linguafolio design: that the student become more and more responsible for his own learning.
Of course for any educational scenario, such an objective would be highly desirable. But for K-12 distance learning formats in particular, this is just what the doctor ordered: a way to ‘teach’ and/or instill independence in the learner. Of course the devil is in the details. There is a lot of work ahead – I will be documenting our LF path here- but , following the tenets of backwards design, if we start with where we want to end up (in this case: greater student responsibility and autonomy) then we will be able to build a better road to get there. Right?
My life is saved.
Click here for Linguafolio Kentucky
Click here for Linguafolio Virginia, Carolinas, Kentucky, Georgia.
Click here for Nebraska LF Teacher’s Guide.