NEWSLETTER No 2

March 2016

Dear Teachers, Lecturers, Instructors, Educationalists and Examiners,

It is good to get back to you for the new summer term!

You may be wondering what has happened regarding the introductory questionnaire for Learners and Teachers about formative assessment, which has been designed and administered as part of the ‘FAB – Formative Assessment Benchmarking for Foreign Language Learning & Teaching’ project at the Foreign Language Centre, University of Warsaw. The questionnaire was mentioned in the previous newsletter.

Between 18th December 2015 and 17th January 2016, 458 students and 26 teachers completed it. Because some of the teachers did it with a few different groups, 36 questionnaires were returned in total, dealing with eight different languages. We are very happy with such a big response to our questionnaire. We have gone through the feedback with a fine-tooth comb and have started to analyse it. The first results are ready and they can be found here. Feel free to read and comment on them.

We hope that some of you have made the questionnaire available in your own institutions, and that the findings have contributed to a better understanding of both the learners’ needs and the strengths of the teachers who assess their students’ progress in a motivating way.

Does it mean that this is the end of our project? The answer is, of course, ‘No!’. Here, in Warsaw, we are looking forward to taking part in the ‘Formative Assessment in Speaking’ workshop that is going to be run by Jon Hird, courtesy of the University of Warsaw and Oxford University Press.

We would also be happy if you checked out our website: faberasmus.org and read our newsletters – the next one will appear before the summer break.

If you would like to receive our newsletter, please contact us.

We wish you all the best and hope that the challenges you face as lecturers and foreign language instructors lead you to a sense of success and satisfaction from using formative assessment in your work.

The FAB Team – The University of Warsaw