By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
Students at Whitewater Middle School demonstrated their mastery of Spanish May 30 by ordering lunch in Spanish from Francisco Perez.
Perez, assisted by Francisco Valadez, prepared the orders in a taco truck operated by the Los Agaves Restaurant in Delavan and parked in Middle School’s circle drive.
Spanish teacher Kate Mors stood next to the students as they placed their orders and assessed their proficiency in Spanish using an “oral exam rubric.”
The rubric guided Mors in assessment of how successful the students were in ordering their food in terms of content (e.g., vocabulary), communication (e.g., fluency) and accuracy (e.g., grammar).
Ordering food in Spanish from someone whose first language is Spanish is an example of “authentic assessment” that offers students the opportunity to demonstrate their Spanish competence in a more “authentic” or real world setting than taking a paper and pencil multiple-choice test.
What a great idea!