Placement Conversation

Description of the Placement Conversation

The Placement Conversation is a 10-minute, face-to-face interaction with an individual student. During the conversation, students are encouraged to perform specic functions (e.g., introduce themselves, compare, give advice) and to demonstrate their ability to use language appropriate to each given topic or task. The Placement Conversation Tasks chart on pages 45 provides a list of 18 suggested tasks that are reective of the content and goals of various levels of New Interchange and Passages. In the chart, each task consists of example questions that can be used to guide the discussion as well as a language focus section indicating relevant structures and vocabulary that the task is designed to elicit.

Administration of the Placement Conversation

During the Placement Conversation, the student is presented with a series of tasks from the chart with the goal of nding his or her optimum learning, or placement, level. This level is characterized as the stage at which the student experiences some challenge or difculty, but not so much as to cause a breakdown or induce failure. In presenting the tasks, the interviewer begins by introducing himself or herself and nding out a little about the student; based on initial impressions of the students speaking ability, the interviewer then selects a task at a level judged to be most appropriate. Throughout the conversation, the selection of tasks tends to depend on a students performance on prior tasks. For example, a student providing an excellent response to one or several questions within a level would usually be led to a task at a higher level; a student who cannot respond to a task at a given level most likely would be given a task at a lower level. It is not necessary to present all the tasks in the chart or all tasks at a particular level. The interviewer may close the conversation whenever it becomes clear that enough tasks have been completed to determine a students overall level.

Evaluation of the Placement Conversation

As the student completes each task, the rater or raters immediately evaluate the students performance using the Placement Conversation Rating Form. All tasks are rated with a plus sign (+), a check (), or a minus sign (), as follows:

+
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= = =

very good to excellent response appropriate/adequate response inadequate response

It is important to remember that these represent holistic ratings, which means that raters must consider content as well as accuracy when evaluating each response. Thus, a + indicates a very good to excellent answer with respect to both content and language; a  signies that the student understands the task and responds adequately, although the response may contain inappropriate words and/or grammar errors; and a indicates a major deciency in the response as, for example, when the student is not able to understand or answer a question even after it has been repeated or rephrased, or when the student gives a garbled or highly ungrammatical response. To arrive at an overall rating, the evaluator nds the level at which the majority of responses consist of s and then, based on all the responses, determines whether the student belongs in the

rst or second half of the level. Based on the Placement Guidelines below, the appropriate level is then assigned on the Placement Conversation Rating Form. Conversation Placement Guidelines RATING 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 PLACEMENT New Interchange Intro, rst half New Interchange Intro, second half New Interchange Level 1, rst half New Interchange Level 1, second half New Interchange Level 2, rst half New Interchange Level 2, second half New Interchange Level 3, rst half New Interchange Level 3, second half Passages Level 1, rst half Passages Level 1, second half Passages Level 2, rst half Passages Level 2, second half

The following examples illustrate the process of evaluating students oral skills during the Placement Conversation. Each example includes (a) the specic tasks selected, (b) ratings for each task, (c) the overall oral skills rating, and (d) a brief discussion of the evaluation process (comments). Example Student A TASK # 1 4 5 6 LEVEL Intro 1 1 1 DESCRIPTION Greetings, introductions Talk about likes and dislikes Talk about daily schedule Talk about or describe home TASK RATING

+ + + +

   

Oral skills rating: 3 Comments: The student responds quite well to the greeting and introductory questions, so is given a Level 1 task. Since this and the following tasks at the same level are rated no higher than adequate, the student is given a 3 in oral skills (equivalent to the rst half of New Interchange Level 1).

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Placement Conversation

Example Student B TASK # 1 9 10 11 13 15 LEVEL Intro 2 3 3 Passages 1 Passages 1 DESCRIPTION Greetings, introductions Talk about the past Give advice Talk about leisure-time activities Compare situations Talk about hypothetical situations in the past TASK RATING

+ + + + + +

     

Oral skills rating: 9 Comments: This student also does well on greetings and introductions, but since she appears quite advanced, she is immediately given a Level 2 task, which she also performs very well on. She also performs very well on two Level 3 tasks, so is given two Passages 1 tasks. Since the student achieves a  on Task #13 at the Passages 1 level but a on Task #15, she is given an overall oral skills rating of 9 (equivalent to the rst half of Passages Level 1).

Example Student C TASK # 1 2 3 LEVEL Intro Intro Intro DESCRIPTION Greetings, introductions Talk about self Talk about family TASK RATING

+ + +

  

Oral skills rating: 1 Comments: Since this student achieves only an adequate rating on greetings and introductions, he is assigned another task at the same level (Intro). The students inadequate responses to example questions from Task #3 indicate that he belongs in the lower half of this level (Intro).

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Placement Conversation

Placement Conversation Tasks

New Interchange Intro TASK # 1 TASK TYPE Greetings, introductions EXAMPLES Hello. How are you? My name is ____ . Im a teacher here. Whats your name? Tell me a little about yourself. Where do you live? How many languages do you speak? Do you have any brothers and sisters? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Where do they live? LANGUAGE FOCUS Simple present of be Subject pronouns Possessive adjectives Simple present

Talk about self Talk about family

Simple present Numbers Family terms

New Interchange Level 1 TASK # 4 TASK TYPE Talk about likes and dislikes EXAMPLES Do you like movies (TV/music, etc.)? What movies (TV programs/music, etc.) do you like? Whats your favorite movie (TV program/type of music, etc.)? Do you go to the movies on weekends? What time do you get up? When do you come to school? What do you do every day? What do you do in your free time? Do you live in a house or an apartment? Whats it like? How many bedrooms does it have? LANGUAGE FOCUS Simple present

Talk about daily schedule Talk about or describe home

Simple present Time expressions

Simple present

New Interchange Level 2 TASK # 7 TASK TYPE Talk about preferences EXAMPLES Which do you like better, ____ or ____ (e.g., hamburgers or cheeseburgers/ hard rock or jazz)? What kind of ____ (e.g., food/music) do you prefer? Why do you prefer ____ (like ____ better)? What other city/country do you know? What is that city/country like? Whats the weather like there? Is it hotter or colder than here? Where did you grow up? Did you study English in elementary school/junior high school/high school? What other languages did you study? What was your favorite subject? LANGUAGE FOCUS Sentences with like better and prefer Comparisons

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Talk about places

Descriptive adjectives Comparisons

Talk about the past

Past tense

Placement Conversation

New Interchange Level 3 TASK # 10 TASK TYPE Give advice EXAMPLES What advice would you give to tourists visiting your country/city? Where should they go? What should they be careful of? Do you like to play sports? What sports do you like to play/watch? Do you enjoy watching TV? Have you ever been to ____ ? How many times have you been there? When did you go there last? Where else have you traveled? LANGUAGE FOCUS Present modals

11

Talk about leisure-time activities Talk about travel

Innitives and gerunds with like/enjoy Present perfect Past tense

12

Passages Level 1 TASK # 13 TASK TYPE Compare situations EXAMPLES Compare your life today with your life a few years ago. How has it changed? How would you like it to be different in the future? What do you think is the biggest problem in the world today? What could be done to x it? What would you do if you were responsible for xing it? If you hadnt decided to study English, what other language would you have studied? If you could have gone to another school, where would you have gone? LANGUAGE FOCUS Verb tenses (present perfect, past, future) Comparisons Passive modals Unreal conditional sentences

14

Talk about problems, solutions

15

Talk about hypothetical situations in the past

Past modals Unreal conditional sentences

Passages Level 2 TASK # 16 TASK TYPE Speculate about the future Regrets about the past EXAMPLES What do you think youll be doing a year from now? Is there anything else you might be doing? When are you going to nish your studies? If you could change one thing about the past, what would it be? What do you think should have been done to avoid this? Is there anything else that ought to have been done? If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? What would you need to do to make this dream come true? LANGUAGE FOCUS Future tenses

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17

Should have and ought to have

18

Hopes and dreams

Mixed conditionals

Placement Conversation