Practical Proficiency Podcast
Where world language teachers gather to transition to proficiency oriented instruction through comprehensible input. All through practical, real-life, teacher-friendly ideas that make teaching language more joyful! Hosted by Devon of La Libre Language Learning.
Practical Proficiency Podcast
Authentic Assessment: Replacing Final Exams with Language Portfolios
Are you tired of watching your language students cram for final exams only to forget everything a week later? It's time to revolutionize your assessment approach with something that actually measures what matters: what students can DO with the language they've acquired.
Get the portfolio only available in the Practical Proficiency Curriculum here:
https://lalibrelanguagelearning.mykajabi.com/practical-proficiency-curriculum-world-language-info
WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/XuyxCX5MCFU
In this episode, I unpack how replacing traditional final exams with carefully designed portfolios creates authentic assessment opportunities that mirror real-world language use. Rather than testing isolated vocabulary and grammar points under pressure, portfolios allow students to demonstrate their genuine language capabilities through evidence collected throughout their learning journey.
The beauty of the portfolio approach lies in its flexibility and authenticity. You'll discover how to create a simple framework based on 15-30 targeted can-do statements that represent your course's essential skills. Whether you've meticulously saved student work all year or need to help students recreate evidence during those chaotic final weeks, I provide practical strategies for implementation that won't overwhelm you or your students.
What makes portfolios particularly powerful is how they transform student mindsets. When learners know they'll ultimately showcase their skills in a comprehensive collection, they approach each unit with greater intention and retention. This creates a cumulative learning experience rather than the compartmentalized "learn-test-forget" cycle typical of traditional courses. Plus, portfolios provide redemption opportunities for students who struggled earlier in the year but have since developed proficiency.
The portfolio approach also solves many end-of-year challenges: it provides meaningful work during days with spotty attendance, reduces the "checking out" phenomenon that leads to behavior issues, and eliminates the stress of high-stakes testing. By focusing assessment on what students can demonstrate rather than what they can remember, we honor the true purpose of language education: enabling meaningful communication.
Ready to transform how you assess language acquisition? Listen in for step-by-step guidance, resource recommendations, and practical examples that will help you implement portfolio assessments that truly capture your students' language journey.
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What's up? Que lo que Et salut world language teachers. Welcome to the Practical Proficiency Podcast, where we make the transition to proficiency-oriented instruction in your world language class in a way that works for you, your unique context and teaching style, and doesn't sacrifice your well-being along the way. I'm your host, devon Gunning, the teacher author, conference host, curriculum creator and consultant behind La Libre Language Learning. This podcast is for the creative world language teacher like you who's ready to ditch the overwhelming pressure of switching to acquisition-driven instruction and CI overnight. You're ready to discover how using more target language in class can actually bring you and your students more joy instead of adding to your plate. With practical, authentic and down-to-earth strategies that don't require reinventing the wheel or more training, we'll work together towards the magic of a community-based, target language-rich classroom, rooted in the power of community and comprehensible input. Let's go, hey. World Language Teachers, it's that time of year, it's springtime, things are blooming and you're also feeling all the things that you got to do towards the end of the year, especially if you're prepping and thinking about how am I going to assess my students for a whole year's worth or a block semester's worth of acquisition that they've done with me? So this episode is all about how can we make this whole idea of culminating knowledge and organizing what language you're able to use from your time in class this year instead of a final exam, which is always going to encourage, in my experience, a lot of cramming, a lot of flash cards and a lot of studying Instead of a world language final exam. If you've got flexibility, this episode is for you, so let's dive into this idea of how can we make the whole process of assessment more real, world and authentic to what a language user would actually want to be able to show like. This is what I can do with the language at this level. That will become pretty evident in a conversation. But what if they need to demonstrate it in a more concrete way, especially for things like a job or, in your case, what would hopefully be? This is how I know I'm ready to move on to the next course. That's the next level of proficiency course. That's the next level of proficiency Introducing it's not a new idea, but introducing my version of the final course exam portfolio.
Speaker 1:This idea is especially for you if you know that the way that you're doing assessments is a little bit disconnected from the reason that you wanted to be a language teacher in the first place, which is help students to acquire more language so that they could make new friends, dive deeper into cultures, understand themselves and the world around them better and be more empathetic global citizens of the world. So with that in mind, you already know that a lot of the trappings of traditional assessments just aren't going to get you there, and you might not have a lot of choice in this in the current teaching situation that you're in. Don't worry about that. Don't make waves if you don't need to, because there are a lot of things that are far more worth your time when it comes to making waves. But when it comes to a final exam, many of you that I interact with are working with a good bit of flexibility, so you get to choose how you want to do the final assessment for the year. I'm going to recommend to you highly, highly, highly that you do a portfolio.
Speaker 1:So what is a portfolio? A portfolio is the idea that, instead of a large exam at the end of a semester or a course, you will ask your students to pull pieces from their whole year with you or their whole course with you, to show that they have mastered the different areas of proficiency that you are targeting. So what a portfolio can look like is that you spend the last two weeks of class going through old documents with students or recreating any documents that they don't have at the time to make this lovely portfolio at the end and when I say documents, I'm not just talking about physical documents. It could be things like recordings. It could be things like other tests and exams that you've given. It could also be an interview with your student.
Speaker 1:So there's so many different ways to do this. It's very open-ended, but at the heart of what a portfolio is is a portfolio demonstrates tangibly a progression from where your students started to where they are now, because they get to choose what they want to be a part of their portfolio. And if, like most of your middle school and high school students, they're missing a bunch of stuff or they've thrown things away, you know all that. If they're missing a bunch of stuff or maybe even assignments that they haven't completed throughout the year, this destroys the whole problematic idea of like a finite deadline towards the very, very busy end of the year and is more real world and work oriented for when your students go into the workforce or to go be a part of the world and contribute in however they're going to do it, if they're going to college or workforce, whatever, it doesn't matter. People are getting less and less. They're getting more and more. I should say away from the idea of traditional assessment in the workforce and in the college environment. So we should be doing this too if we want to really prepare our students for what's coming next.
Speaker 1:A portfolio will show different areas of progression from throughout the year, and this is what this can really look like for you and what will eliminate a lot of that like oh, this doesn't really matter, I don't feel like I need to study for this, because it's just quote unquote, spanish too, and I'm going to be done after this. I'm just going to cram for this test and move on with my life. You can eliminate a lot of that and bring a lot back of that real world context. That real world oh, this is very important for how you're going to move through the rest of your life by using this portfolio system. So enough about how awesome it is. It's really, really great. I know that you're with me by this point, so let's get into how you actually do this.
Speaker 1:How on earth would you replace a final exam with a portfolio? It seems like a lot of work. Well, it doesn't have to be a lot of work on your part if you give them a nice way for students to organize all of their work throughout the year. Here are two different ways that you can do this. If you're listening to this when I'm going to publish it, which is going to be in springtime, then you know that I've already gone through most of the year, so I haven't saved all of my students' work. That's completely okay. You can still do this even if you haven't saved a lot of work or they haven't saved a lot of work. So that's option one is how can you go back and recreate things or set up an assignment style where that they are recreating things that they've already done or skills that they've already mastered Very easy to do. It just looks a little bit different. Skills that they've already mastered Very easy to do. It just looks a little bit different.
Speaker 1:If you are watching or listening to this later on, and maybe you also are one of those stellar elementary style teachers who keeps a lot of your students' work and has it well organized in a filing cabinet or something like that, then what you can do is you're simply going to turn all the work over to your students. You're going to give them a checklist of between 15 or 30 can-do statements that demonstrate the different aspects of your curriculum, what you worked on this year in language class, and can-do statements that you actually have assessed on throughout the year. So what you will do is, no matter which way you do this, whether you need to recreate past work or if you are just asking students to collect and compile their very best work over the year. Either way, you're going to give your students a checklist. That's part one In this checklist.
Speaker 1:This should be a comprehensive list of the most important can-do statements from each of the units that you worked on this year. So, for example, I give the number 15 to 30 because I can guarantee you that if you're using the pretty run-of-the-mill like four unit system that moves you from like, for example, in Japanese 1, you're starting novice low, novice mid, novice, high, and you've got unit one is novice low, unit two is novice mid, unit three is novice mid to high and unit four you're trying to get everybody to novice high. That's like a pretty common progression that happens in a level, one class or whatever you're calling your introductory class, then what you're going to do is focus mostly on the novice mid and the novice high can-do statements and include some of the skills from, let's say, your unit one that you started with. But those can-do statements would probably be things that they can do now with more confidence, because you adjusted them for when they were little babies in the beginning of your course. Now you're going to make them so that those can-do statements are more like novice mid.
Speaker 1:What does that look like? It looks like, instead of like my unit one in my proprietary curriculum, the practical proficiency curriculum that first unit is school, so that they can navigate your classroom and interact with you. So some of those can-do statements from that novice-low unit are things like I can list the school supplies in my bag that I use the most often. Instead of that can-do statement of I can list the school supplies in my bag, I'm going to move it to novice mid or novice high by saying I can state, instead of list, I can state the school supplies I use the most often. I can say what I have in my book bag. That's more novice mid or high. So I would make first a take a look at all of your units, take a look at all of your can do's.
Speaker 1:If you have a curriculum that already does this mine does this that where you have the can do statements that are most important for that unit, it's real easy. It's a copy and paste job where you're taking, you know, like unit one, these are the six big can do statements, unit two, all so on and so forth. You just compile the most important can-do statements from that year and you're asking students to demonstrate that skill, which is how your assessments should be designed anyways. So it's a really nice guide if you're not quite there at that point yet, because, again, this is a transition to proficiency that we're all going through right now. So if you have access to all those can-do statements, it's really easy. You just compile a list.
Speaker 1:So let's get on to part two, because this is where it's going to get different, depending on what situation or scenario that you have. If you're in scenario one, where you do not have a bunch of student work at the ready, which is going to be most people it's very simple what you're going to do is you're going to give this checklist to students and you're going to spend the majority of the last week or two weeks of school asking students to recreate these can-do statements. It's very simple and the best part is that all of it is done in class, like there's not a lot of studying that needs to go on outside of class. So it's a very beneficial, moving forward, real world way to say hey, if you want an excellent grade on this final exam, we're going to spend the next two weeks putting those together for you and doing any review that's needed so that you can achieve those can-do skills. It's a great, natural way to bring in all of these elements.
Speaker 1:So the next thing is you're going to take a look at those can-do statements and see which of those things involve you as the teacher and I would schedule that into your day. Things like oh, there's a bunch of interpersonal can-do statements about being able to talk about your hobbies. Well, cool, just ask your students to come up individually with you during one of those weird days that always happens towards the end of the year where only half your students are present anyway because of field trips, graduation practice, major band tournaments and like important games and things like that. And like, oh, all the 12th graders are gone, but all the ninth graders are here Like this is a perfect way to spend that day, where you're still culminating knowledge, consolidating knowledge and using your class time in a really efficient scholarly, quote unquote kind of way, like it's still academic and you're not having to be like well I don't know like review for your other classes. I guess, like it's a really nice way to still use up that time efficiently and effectively. A side note about that too is that I have found, because I've tried it both ways you tell me and let me know what works for you.
Speaker 1:But towards the end of the year, if you are letting a lot of your class time just be like used for whatever, because you only have a portion of your students, it gets really old really fast. Like your students will start they will start depleting in numbers very quickly of coming to your class. Like you'll get a lot more like cuts. You'll have to make a lot more referrals and things for that. If students know that there's nothing important going on in your class, you're going to see a lot of those issues pop up a lot more than if you had like, hey, this is a really important finals prep day review, so it really helps in that area of difficult classroom management that can pop up at the end of the year.
Speaker 1:My Spanish teachers know what I'm talking about. If you teach Spanish one during the final two weeks of May, it is hell unless you have some sort of system in place to make sure that students know that this time is really important, and we're working towards some stuff here Now with that in mind. What I would do with these days is I would schedule the time for your students to come up and do an interview with you and they can knock out a bunch of the things on the portfolio to do with you, them to work on. You don't have to necessarily have a lot of stuff saved up from their writing throughout the year, unless you keep all of your IPAs or whatever either presentational assignments that you're doing. If you have them, great, but if not, you can spend the last two weeks of class asking students to recreate those things by. You can give them a packet of questions for them to start prepping and making rough drafts for, and things like that, and then you can give them an assessment where it's like okay, no resources or whatever resources you want them to have, completely up to you. Please answer this question in writing form or in signing form, and I want to see your answers and we're going to see if you can get that can do checked off your list. And a really easy way to do this with interpretives is you don't have to recreate new things. Go back to the old, authentic texts that you've already used this year or the old videos that you've already used this year and just give them the same assignment that they already did with these things that you have from throughout the year.
Speaker 1:This is side note. One of the reasons I really like doing a portfolio is because it's not a lot of lesson planning work on you. You don't have to plan a bunch of review games or review activities or any of that stuff for a stuffy exam is that you can spend this time actually with your students and evaluating okay, this is crunch time here. What gaps in knowledge do we need to address and what materials from the year can I just pull out of my hard drive and pop on the computer. It's so organic and natural and it students feel it too. They notice that there's a huge difference and like oh, okay, this is actually a useful test for us if you are in. So I would say those are my going back. This is my best set of tips for you.
Speaker 1:If you heard this episode or you just heard about this idea of a portfolio and you're like, ooh, I want to do that, and so you didn't really have time to think ahead and start saving up materials for students, it's no big deal. They will be so excited to do an assignment that they don't have to study for that. They can just learn with you in class any gaps that they have to achieve that. Now, if you are on the other side of this of you have plenty of things that you can ask your students to go through. Maybe you keep things throughout the year, whatever it might be. Maybe you have a hard drive full of recordings also great.
Speaker 1:Then what you can do is you can spend most of your class time asking students to organize all of those things, and this is a really beautiful way to do this, and I would recommend that, if you can, to start planning for this in the future, maybe for next year, because if you introduce to students the idea of a portfolio, what they will start to do throughout the year is they will start thinking about wow, this was a really great piece of writing for me. I want to say this and put this in my portfolio. Or I was really good at these questions. I want to save this and put this in my portfolio this little recording activity that I did with a partner and then for other activities where they're like, ooh, I'm having a lot of trouble with this can do statement or with this unit, instead of just skipping past it and saying you know to themselves, maybe if you're doing unit two in December, instead of saying to themselves, oh my gosh, like this unit was so hard, I can't wait for it to just be done. They're thinking about it in terms of well, I know I'm going to have to still demonstrate skills from this towards the end of the year, so how can I lock those skills down? Like it brings everything into a nice little bow at the end of the year where you really are pulling from all the things that you've learned so far this year Far better than a multiple choice exam would be able to do for you. So If you have the opportunity to look through some student work, just let your students loose on their own records and give them some time to reflect and look back at what they've done this year and be proud of themselves.
Speaker 1:With something like a checklist, it's a lot easier for students to pick out and decide. Oh OK, I know that this covers this can do statement. Now you may be thinking to yourself, because this is the first question that I had. Well, how are my students going to know that a certain piece of work, like maybe an IPA, is gonna hit all the can-do statements? Well, I have an answer for you. With the practical proficiency curriculum, with the portfolio resources that are in there if you own that, you can check that out because in there it has a guide for you and an editable section for you to input exactly what can-do statements that you're looking for and assignments that you remember assigning from throughout the year that would fit those can-do statements, so students know exactly where to go to find these things. If that's not something that's on your radar right now, I would think about spending some time looking at the assignments that your students have done over the year or that you know would fit the bill for these can-do statements and say, hmm, you know it would be a lot easier for them if they had a list, like if I told them you know that weather unit that we did. That covers these three can-do statements about, let's say, comparing and contrasting these three can-do statements about, let's say, comparing and contrasting. So if you can find a really good piece of writing from the weather unit, it's most likely going to cover that can-do statement that you need, which is really easy for students To make this successful, which is going to be let's go into, part three of how to have a successful portfolio instead of a final exam is the best way to do this is make sure that you give students time to find things, time to recreate things, and a list for them to do so.
Speaker 1:So be very explicitly clear in your can-do statements with what you're expecting students to be able to demonstrate. It cannot be the giant performance indicators that come from ACTFL, which are pretty vague and students have a really hard time reading. It should be a can-do statement. A performance indicator is going to tell you something like at the novice level, I can identify familiar and a few unfamiliar words in a text. You know that could be anything. So students are going to need more guidance from you on what this looks like. So what you can do is give them a simple checklist with very explicit and specific can-do statements. Something that's more specific would be things like I can read a document meant for a native speaker and I can identify five to ten familiar words and I can also get the main gist of what the article or document is about. That's much more specific for students and it can get even more specific once you get into the speaking and writing and the signing and all the things that you want your students to be able to demonstrate, and writing and the signing and all the things that you want your students to be able to demonstrate.
Speaker 1:So the last thing that we're going to do as part of this episode to get you on the path to using a portfolio instead of a final exam is I want to show you a really great example of what your final portfolio can look like and some resources to help you along. So check this out. This is the world language CEFR design final course portfolio and the level A1 corresponds very well with novice mid to novice high for ACTFL. This is something that's available in the practical proficiency curriculum, which you'll be able to see a link at the bottom here if you're interested in checking that out, and the other part of this is that I'm going to show you how this resource goes through, all of the things and the common questions on how to make this happen, the logistics on how to make it happen, and then it also has the actual student assignment here so you can see what it looks like. So let's dive in and check this out. This can be a really great idea generator for you, and then, if you know that you need this in your classroom, you can head to the practical proficiency curriculum to check it out. Right now, we have Spanish one and French one in the framework format available. Full publishing will happen towards the beginning of 2026, the end of 2025. The beginning of 2026, the end of 2025. So let's check this out this right.
Speaker 1:Here is the final portfolio project, and it has a bunch of common FAQs on how to start a portfolio and as well as how do students complete the skills and the most important section I would say, which is how do you grade this. So, if you have a lot of different proficiency can do statements that you want to check off. I give you some suggested structures on how to grade this here, and one of the big points that I want to point out to you here is, for those who are listening or viewing that. The most important idea here is avoid over emphasis on accuracy. It is important, but at this stage, when you're doing a portfolio, what you are looking for is can students demonstrate language at the level that you're looking for? That's the most important thing. The other thing I would say is that it's very important to strategically select which can do statements you think are the most important and can you allow students the freedom to select what they feel is their best work throughout the year? This also, I think, works really well in a portfolio, because I don't know about you, but I used to have a lot of students who would have a lot of missing work towards the end of the year and their grades were really suffering for it really suffering for it. So this is an opportunity for students to go through and recreate the assignments or the can-do statement evidence pieces, if you will. That will get them the grade that they're looking for on this final portfolio. There's also a section here on like how to handle speaking or signing and what if a student doesn't have enough work all of that kind of deal and I would say that my final thoughts on here is that this exact idea when you are showcasing student work from throughout the year or student skills from throughout the year and you're allowing for revisions and additions.
Speaker 1:Portfolios really do mirror the real-world practices where in most scenarios like applying to art school, applying to be a carpenter, working with clients in the future that people are always going to showcase their best work. It's not going to be a somebody's going to stop you on the street and ask you like how do you sit? What does the word who God mean in English? Like, what's going to happen is that people are going to use their best memories and their best skills to perform at their best in that conversational interaction. So it really does reflect what real-world language scenarios are like. Let's check out next what the actual assignment for students looks like. So on here you'll have a link to tell you what the what the student version of this looks like, and I'm gonna just read these aloud for you if you're listening here on what these instructions look like.
Speaker 1:So for a final French portfolio, it has a small section of instructions that says show off your French skills in an awesome way with a portfolio. This is your chance to prove that you've nailed all of the level blank French one, skills we've learned this year. Here's the scoop. Here's what you need to do. Number one is gather evidence. Collect your best work from throughout the year, anything that shows off your skills. Show what you know.
Speaker 1:Use the checklist to see which skills you need to demonstrate. And if you're missing something, no stress. You can create something or redo old assignments. Get creative. You'll need examples of reading, writing, speaking and listening, and you can adjust that as you'd like. And then the last piece of thought is be resourceful. Remember you can only use the resources your teacher allows, and conversations should be spontaneous and note-free. That is an expectation for me. I would adjust it for you.
Speaker 1:Then it has in here more info to help you what is the task, what are some of your options? And then it goes into the checklist and I have for you here a full checklist already done, based off of A1 skills from the CEFR framework, but these can be easily changed into ACTFL, novice, mid to novice high. And then I have a grading system underneath each of these. So I have in this section here, for example, let's do the first can-do statement here is for CEFR. The can-do statements look a little bit different, but for this one it says I can recognize concrete information like places and times on everyday, familiar topics.
Speaker 1:So you can think immediately oh, like my students did, a brochure, interpretive activity of some events for a special cultural event, then they know that this would be a good one to use for number one. Students have to write here their chosen portfolio submission, some teacher notes and possible assignments. Those are things that you can write down like hey, remember that Mardi Gras brochure, check that activity out if you still have it. Or, if you don't have it, go find information about Mardi Gras in French on the internet and I want to see if you can identify this, that and the other kind of deal. Girl, I'm French on the internet and I want to see if you can identify this, that and the other kind of deal.
Speaker 1:And then this part is for you where you have a rubric for you to select like oh yeah, this definitely shows the mastery of the skill, or maybe there's partial proficiency, things like that. So that's my example for you. I hope that that really helps you to visualize, or at least listen to, what a portfolio can look like. Just to give you an idea for this. What this version is in the practical proficiency curriculum is that it goes through several skills. It goes up to, I believe OK, yeah, 27, 27 different can do statements for this level. So the work on your part is really going to be identifying which can-do statements that you want for your course and adjusting that based on the level. It's not nearly as much work on you as the teacher and not nearly as much stress as trying to prepare for a final exam. So it's much more open-ended, but it also still achieves the exact same thing that you want it to and, I would say, better.
Speaker 1:So what do you think? Are you ready to try out a portfolio? Now that you've seen what some of this looks like, I'm so excited for you to try out this idea. Let me know how it goes. I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below on the podcast or on YouTube, if you're watching this on YouTube, and let me know what a final portfolio might look like for you. Or feel free to email me at Devin at LaLibreLanguageLearningcom, because I would love to hear about your portfolio ideas. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for spending some of your precious teaching time with me and I look forward to hanging out with you in the next edition of the Practical Proficiency Podcast. Ciao for now.