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Assessing Learning Outcomes of College-Level First-Year Arabic Students
Abstract
Learning outcomes, whose role in second language teaching is becoming more prominent, describe what students are able to perform with and in the language--the actual results of learning rather than the material "covered"--and are useful in assessing the benefits and limitations of a particular curriculum as well as recommending changes to it. This paper discusses learning outcomes of college-level Arabic students in the first year of study. The paper is divided into two major parts. The first part discusses a complete set of learning outcomes for first-year Arabic students derived from samples of students' exams, skits, oral interviews, and (Arabic) writing portfolios. Also included is an inventory of vocabulary items (both words and expressions) based on word lists from the primary textbooks used in the course, as well as grammatical constructions students have been exposed to and worked with throughout the year. The results are organized into skill areas, each skill subcategorized into strategies, global tasks and functions, and limitations. The second half of the paper analyzes the results of two questionnaires distributed once each semester, and designed to evaluate students' own perception of their learning outcomes. The questionnaires address the skills of speaking, reading, listening and writing and also contain a section on culture. Each skill area consists of a number of questions designed to elicit students' evaluations of material learned during the semester. The objectives of the paper are twofold. First, by providing a detailed record of learning outcomes for first-year college-level Arabic we seek to provide a basis by which one may develop a first-year Arabic curriculum, or improve an existing one. Second, through a comparison of the learning outcomes with the results of the questionnaire we seek to identify discrepancies between students' perceptions of their abilities and their actual learning outcomes. Finally, the paper itself represents a model for analyzing learning outcome data from a variety of sources and determining how to balance and evaluate these data.
Discipline
Education
Geographic Area
None
Sub Area
Pedagogy