The assessment tasks 114

The vocabulary assessment was two-part: (1) knowledge of specific words, and (2) the number of words used in the picture description and picture story tasks. The vocabulary assessment started with a recognition task of ten real objects in the classroom, such as book, pencil, and chair. It was assumed that these objects would be familiar to the LESLLA learner in a classroom context. Secondly, the learning approach known as Total Physical Response or TPR (Asher, 1977; De Ru, 1991) was a well established didactic technique in the language classroom. Vocabulary knowledge of concrete objects was often drilled through TPR practice. Consequently, such commands as point to were well understood by the learner. Lastly, beginning the assessment with a relatively easy task boosts positive motivation and sets the learner at ease.

Specific vocabulary

The specific vocabulary task concerned recognition of single pictures. The pictures were in color and realistic, facilitating recognition. In order to tap a varied range of vocabulary, the pictures were selected from various topics. There were two receptive and two productive tasks, both at a beginners and a more advanced level. In order to determine which words were at a beginners or a more advanced level, an inventory was made of the vocabulary in five most used textbooks for beginners. These five textbooks surfaced from the results from the survey described in chapter 3. If a particular word appeared in at least three of the five textbooks, it was labelled beginners vocabulary; if it appeared in less than three of the textbooks, it was marked more advanced. Figure 6:3 illustrates two words used in the specific vocabulary part of the assessment. One word is on a beginners level and the other on a more advanced level.

Vocabulary - beginners level Vocabulary - more advanced level Figure 6:3 Pictures from the picture vocabulary task at two levels.

Receptive vocabulary knowledge was a recognition task in which the learner had to point to the picture mentioned by the tester. Productive vocabulary knowledge was a direct recall task. In this task the learner had to name the picture to which the tester pointed. For each task, twelve pictures were printed on a separate page. Of these twelve, two were distracters. To summarize, the vocabulary task consisted of five tasks, each with ten words. In the first task the student pointed to real objects when asked, “point to . . .” The following fours tasks were picture recognition tasks on two levels of difficulty, a beginners level and a more advanced level, each performed as a receptive and productive task. In total there were 50 words in 5 tasks.

Task 1: a recognition task of 10 real objects,

Task 2: picture recognition task on a beginners level of 10 words, Task 3: picture direct recall task on a beginners level of 10 words, Task 4: picture recognition task on a more advanced level of 10 words, Task 5: picture direct recall task on a more advanced level of 10 words.

The second part of the vocabulary tasks concerned vocabulary size. For this, the total number of words spoken in a response for the picture description and picture story tasks were counted and categorized as tokens or types. The tokens were the total number of words spoken and the types were the total number of different words spoken. The types are an indication of the diversity of the student’s vocabulary.

6.3.2 Picture description tasks

The aim of the description task was to elicit connected speech, not just single words. All the pictures depicted familiar actions and episodes, each requiring its own vocabulary to tap as much language as possible and to allow for variation in vocabulary and utterance complexity for the less and more capable students. The picture description task consisted of three tasks. The first task, Task 6, consisted of four pictures with simple line drawings, each showing one person performing one action: eating, drinking, walking, and reading. To avoid distracting the learner’s attention, no background was

added. The next was Task 7 with six pictures drawn in the same style as those in the previous task. These pictures were a little more complex than the previous task in that the protagonist performed an activity with an object or person. Task 8 contained four colored photographs of common daily affairs. These photographs contained a lot of detail and were the most complex of the description tasks, allowing the student the possibility to produce utterances with greater complexity. Figure 6:4 shows one picture from each task.

Task 6: Picture 3 Task 7: Picture 1 Task 8: Picture 1 Figure 6:4 Three pictures from the picture description tasks 6, 7, and 8.

6.3.3 Picture story tasks

The aim of the story telling task was similar to the description task, to extract connected speech, with the added complexity that it concerned a story. A story is seen as a series of connected events. This means that the events depicted in one picture are linked in some way to the events in the following pictures, in other words, there is a connection between the pictures, a connection that needs to be expressed when telling the story. The picture story task consisted of three picture stories, and these are presented in Figure 6:5. Each story was built up out of four pictures, each picture showing a separate episode of the story. The drawing style was the same as in the first two picture description tasks – a simple line drawing. To some pictures color had been added to assist interpretation. If this was indeed helpful is disputable, as will be discussed later. Concerning the direction of reading the pictures, Zikkenheimer (1986a:75) found that non-literate learners read picture stories from left to right as well as from right to left – regardless of cultural background. In order to avoid confusion as to which direction the story should be read, each story was printed on a separate sheet of paper with the four pictures arranged from top to bottom. The learners were instructed

to recount the story as presented in the pictures. The researcher explained and gestured where the story starts and ends. Each picture story differs in complexity. Picture story 1 opens with two protagonists and in the following three pictures only one of the two plays a role. Picture story 2 is about one protagonist that performs one action in steps. Picture story 3 involves three different characters. One character is seen in all four pictures. In the first two pictures, this character is with a woman, and in the last two, with a man. Next to unravelling the role of the characters, the learner also has to interpret the situation, making the best use of his limited

linguistic knowledge.

Picture story 1 Picture story 2 Picture story 3 Figure 6:5 The three picture story tasks.