Peer and self-assessment

Hi! I would like to tell you that I am convinced that peer and self-assessment are really vital methods in learning. I found an article that provides some helpful information as well as  activities and tips which relate to these two topics. I liked the following activity for the peer assessment:

Divide the class into groups of three, composed of Student A, Student B and Student C. Each learner is going to talk about a topic in turn. While Student A, for example, is talking, Student B will be listening attentively and encouragingly, and Student C will be taking notes in order to give constructive feedback. You set a time limit. When the time is up, the students exchange roles.
Once the three rounds have been completed, learners discuss their reaction to the feedback they received.

I think this method is very effective and it helps students to remember better some information. It also teaches students to be attentive and to finish everything on time.

Along with the introduction of the European Language Portfolio has come greater emphasis on shifting the responsibility for language learning from the teacher to the learner, on learner reflection and on self-assessment. According to this article, the listening activity is crucial for the self-assessment. Steve Muir and Tom Spain (the authors of this article) recommend telling students to watch series in English as an ongoing outside class activity and then students will talk about what they are watching and share their experiences with others every week. The teacher should ask students different questions each week.

To finish off, I want to share two successful examples of this method.

• The first is Laura, an A2 learner who got completely hooked on Glee. As a result, she has lost her fear of listening – her strongest skill now – and has seen over 20 episodes and counting – in English only! 
• The second success story was Rubén, who went from B2 to C2 in a very short space of time purely by virtue of his near-addiction to the series Friends. He used to watch in English first but the second or third time he would look again at bits he had missed, eventually resorted to the subtitles to find out what had been said. Most classes would finish with Rubén asking the teacher for the meanings of the last two or three expressions he hadn't been able to work out from the latest episode. 

Here is the link to this article: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/peer-self-assessment