Pre-Service Training and Professional Development

“Local LCTL Assessments (LoLa)”

In this workshop, Paula Winke will explain how to design a list of 10 Can-Do statements that represent speaking tasks in your curriculum that are “key to students.” Each Can-Do statements should describe a task that students perform in class towards the goals of obtaining your class’s speaking objectives. The key is that the statements are task-based, descriptive statements of things that students can easily imagine themselves doing in the future at the pre-test (setting motivation at the start of class!), and that they can concretely reflect on at the post-test because they did the tasks across time in your class (which instills pride, awareness, and agency for continued learning at the end of class!). By linking each statement to ACTFL’s (2024) Proficiency levels (Novice-low, Novice-mid, etc.) through expert teacher judgement, Likert-scale performance scores of the statements, self-assessed by the students pre- and post-testing, can indicate self-perceived gains in speaking on the ACTFL scale. The student scores can be used as a diagnostic tool by teachers and can be used in addition to other measures of speaking to obtain a fuller picture of student performance and growth. At the end of the workshop, Paula will showcase in-class tasks that have been designed to instruct what is described in individual Can-Do statements. Paula will showcase those tasks’ rubrics that focus both on communication skills and the use of new vocabulary and grammar from the lessons.

At the end of the workshop, each participant will have:

• A template in MS Word to easily create paper-based Can-Do-based self-assessments for pre- and post-testing.
• A first draft of 10 Can-Do Statements based on speaking tasks in the curriculum that can be plugged into the template.
• Clear directions on how to put the 10 Can-Do Statements into either Google Forms or Microsoft Office Forms (if one would like).

Dr. Paula Winke, Michigan State University

Paula is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, & Cultures at Michigan State University and the outgoing Director of the Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program at Michigan State University. Her primary research is on foreign and second language assessment and is the recipient of received four research awards: (1)the CALICO Article of the Year Award with Senta Goertler in 2009, (2)the International TESOL Distinguished Research Award in 2012, (3) the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Research Article Award in 2020 and (4) the Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in World Language Education from the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Association (NFMLTA), the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL), and the Modern Language Journal (MLJ) in 2022.

Currently, Paula is serving on a U.S. Department of State Task Force as part of an agreement between MSU and the U.S. State Department, where she is advising the U.S. Foreign Service Institute on foreign language proficiency test redesign and on the new design of progress assessments, the latter of which includes Can-do-based self-assessments for the FSI’s language programs.

Paula Winke is a Wisconsin of Madison graduate, having received her BA in French from UW in 1993. Paula went on to obtain a MA in Linguistics from the University of Minnesota, where she taught German and worked as a research assistant at CARLA. After two years in the Peace Corps in China, Paula went to Georgetown University for her Ph.D. in applied linguistics, during which time she worked as a research assistant and project manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington DC.