As far as assessment is concerned, I asked all the groups to hand in suggestions for assessment criteria, and I used these criteria when making this rubric for assessing the presentations. In addittion, I asked the students to assess themselves afterwards. They needed to say something about how the group had cooperated, how they themselves had contributed in the process, and also what they had learned from the presentations of the other groups. Here are some of the comments from the students:
- The assingment was actually very nice. It was fun to have the opportunity to be creative.
- I actually learned a lot about the English-speaking world from the presentations of the other groups, it was fun to watch, and I liked that it was a different learning method then we usually use. Eventhough I feel that I am going to forget a lot. This is not the way facts get stuck in my brain.
- I think it was fun to do something different in our class. I think it’s good to use different kind of ways to learn English.
- The assignment was interesting, but hard.
- I enjoyed the assignment very much actually. I'm very interested in geography, and countries, so this project suited me perfect. Although I would have preferred a different country, like Jamaica or South Africa. The reason to this is probably my interests would have suited better to these countries. Like the World Cup in football (South Africa) or Bob Marley’s life and career. But it was interesting learning about Canada too.
- From the other groups alltogether, I learned that English is a very common language. The presentations taught me that whereever I am, there is always someone who knows the English language, and that's why it's so important to learn English at school.