Collect evidence from assessment process for summative assessment – Reporting

The following exercise was used as an assessment exercise.  In response to the question:

What’s your story?  Write as much as you can about yourself. 

Thi wrote:

My Story

I went to school when I was five years old. I lived on an island.  It’s the biggest island of Vietnam.  I learnt to read and write but I didn’t learn English in Vietnam. I finished high school and one year later I left Vietnam and went to Thailand by boat. 

Our boat journey of escaping from Vietnam

The journey to Thailand was very log and very difficult to survive. In our desperation we tried everyting to signal to make our presense known to the sailing ships passing by.  But no one took any notice of our boat.  Probably our boat was too small for those ships to see and realise there were 41 people including children in a 3 metre boat.

We made it to Thailand after three long weeks.  In the refugee camp I lived in a small barracks.  There was not enough water to use.  They gave us some food, but it was not enough. It was a very difficult life.   In the camp I learned English for about half a year.  Some of my teachers came from England and France.

Then later on I put my name down to come to Australia but it took a long time for me to be accepted.  I waited almost two years.  Finally I left the refugee camp for Australia - on the way I stayed in Bangkok for one week and then at last I arrived here.

When I first saw Melbourne I was very excited to see the bright lights and the city.  In the beginning I lived in a hostel.  I was alone.  I could not eat the food - I could not even eat the breekfast or the cheese and butter, I never ate cheese and butter in Vietnam.  I stayed in the hostel for about six months, and then I moved to Richmond.

My first job was in a shoe factory and then a chocolate factory.  I worked very hard.  I worked long hours at the chocolate factory and I supported my parents back in Vietnam.

I had seen several pieces of work that Thi had written and was confident to make the following assessment:

The NRS Student Record Chart chart in Thi’s file was marked off to show that she showed competence at Level 4 Writing (4.5).

Reflect on Process

Evaluation sheets are always available for students to complete after a program, but in the environment I work in they’re rarely completed.  Verbal feedback is always encouraged, and after this program some of the comments were:

“Yeah.  It was OK.”

“This is real head stuff and I’m just not into head stuff today!”

“This really made me think – it was hard for me, I had to look up a lot of words.  But like to learn about other people.  It’s very interesting”.

I found one comment particularly worthwhile:

”It made me think about people who come to Australia.  I used to just think ‘Keep ‘em out’, now I think I’ve changed my mind.  Some people live in awful situations – they should be allowed to come here”.

The program certainly offered opportunities for students to develop their language, literacy and numeracy skills, and generally students did seem thoughtful about those around them and those who make up Australia.  Whether the program makes a difference to the way students treat each other in class remains to be seen!