How can technology facilitate language learning without being a crutch for students? What’s the role of textbooks? How do we emphasize the value of learning a second language in our global society?
These are some questions asked by more than 6,000 world languages teachers who gathered in Boston for the Annual Convention of the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) last month. Moises Gomez-Pastor, Spanish teacher, and Anna Shailer, French/ENL teacher, attended for University High School.
Amid all the questions being asked, one topic in particular kept surfacing for our teachers — Integrated Performance Assessment.
“My preconvention workshop was on IPA,” said Shailer. “I had heard of it before, but this was an in-depth discussion about the different forms of communication and the ways we assess students. In IPA, there’s presentational communication, interpretive communication, and interpersonal communication.”
Gomez-Pastor went on to explain how IPA differs from traditional world languages assessment. “In the traditional model, teachers separate writing, speaking, and listening skills,” he said. “The idea behind IPA is that when you need to actually use a language, you cannot differentiate. To speak in a conversation, you also have to comprehend what the other person is saying. They are connected.”