Thursday, June 7, 2012

Videos as part of the Final

Since I've used videos throughout the semester for discussions in the TL, I wanted to carry that format through in the final exam.  
My Spanish 4 curriculum includes the subjunctive and to test them on that, I used the video "Defective Detective".  They watched the video, twice, and then had to write 6 sentences giving reactions/feelings on how they felt or how a character in the video felt.  In one of the sentences, they needed to say someone was sure or certain about something to show me that they knew NOT to use the subjunctive with those expressions.

Example for "Defective Detective":
- El hombre tenía miedo que alguien atacara a su vecina.
- Me sorprende que haya tanta violencia en el resto del apartamento.
- A la anciana no le gustaba que un ratón estuviera en su cocina. 
- Es cierto que el dectective quiere proteger a su vecina.

LINK to video - CLICK HERE


Since my juniors and sophomores took their final at a different time then the seniors, when I showed the video to the seniors, the others wrote the sentences as a practice. I used a commercial for the subjunctive part of their final for the juniors and seniors. (YouTube is an unlimited resource!) 

I also used this video as part of the final for my Spanish 5 class.  Instead of writing sentences with the subjunctive, their task was to simply retell what happened in the video (in written format). If they didn't know a word they used circumlocution to get their point across.  

For the verbal part of the Spanish 4 final, I sent the students to the hall, two at a time, with either my iPad or my iPhone.  They each had different sets of questions that they had not seen before they left the class.  Then I gave them 5 minutes to answer any 3 of the 5 questions in Spanish.  They used the app. QuickVoice to record their answers.  Overall I was pleased with how well they did and how they were able to self-correct their mistakes. 

These type of finals show me the students' abilities 10 times better than any traditional grammar based test could.

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