Abstract:

This paper presents the design of a teaching innovation proposal implemented during the 2016-2017 academic year with first-course students at the Undergraduate School of Education of the University of Valencia (Spain). These students must develop a small research project comparing a concrete linguistic aspect in Spanish and Catalan. Through the four years of the career, both languages must be mastered, since they are the two official languages at the region, present in the primary schools or kindergartens which most of our graduates will join. The innovation covers two poles: the research task is, on the one hand, supervised by two professors in two different subjects, Catalan Language for Teachers and Spanish Language for Teachers, and, on the other hand, assessed with the collaboration of students. Coordination among professors is required during the process, but also collaboration among students, since the projects are developed and assessed in small groups, especially the oral presentation through a specific rubric. The challenge looked to promote and maximize learning environments in which students gain autonomy identifying and developing aspects related to competence in linguistic communication in multilingual contexts.

The design agrees the statement that assessment influences what and how students learn, so professors must consider the assessment act as a process of improvement and learning. That is why the chosen teaching model was the learning-oriented assessment (EOA). If we consider that these students are future teachers, learning to assess is a basic competence for their professional future.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Languages Contrast, Learning-Oriented Assessment, Collaborative Learning and Assessment.