It’s difficult to decide whether student performance is a reflection of their study habits or your teaching. Sometimes, it’s both. I am really struggling this year to figure out which of the two it may be. For some students, I can tell that I must do a better job of teaching students not only what to study but how to study.

It’s one of those things that needs to be practiced in order to be understood. At the elementary level, grading isn’t really an ELL job. This is all very new to me as I am writing my own curriculum. One solution I have is that I am going back into some of my pedagogical texts and seeing what can be done differently or if I missed something. This is a massive undertaking considering that each function in language holds its own research and tools. For now I will try to stick with vocabulary.

I am still unsure about how to treat the student’s scores. If I make a value judgement on whether they are trying or not, is that fair? If I don’t keep the scores, how can we see if a student is struggling in ways that show they need help? On the other hand, if we keep those negative scores, how much damage does it do to a student’s self esteem?

I think that all of this goes back to the question of what is the purpose of this class? Similarly, how will they be judged on whether or not they made it?