4.3 What activities do English First Additional Language teachers participate in in
4.3.2 Moderation of orals
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this mark and the other teacher says no this learner deserves that mark.
There is a criteria for marking, but sometimes we don’t use it the right way.
I also witnessed this tension that transpired during the adjustment of marks as mentioned by the previous teacher‘s statement in one of the meetings I attended. One teacher had to give reasons for the big difference in marks, and she was very defensive about adjustment done to her marks. Her learner‘s marks were too high and the moderator felt that she had not given a true reflection of the learner‘s performance. Her marks were about ten to fifteen marks higher than the moderated marks. The teacher did not want to comply with her colleague and adjust the marks. The colleague asked for the cluster coordinator‘s intervention in the matter. The cluster coordinator then took the scripts and moderated them himself. Again the cluster coordinator also gave the learners lower marks than the teacher had given them, it was then agreed that the teacher had to agree with her colleagues and bring down her marks, even though she was not happy with the adjustment. However, the teacher was made aware that she did not have to agree to the adjustment, but had a choice of forwarding the matter to the subject advisor and asking her to moderate her marks. However, she opted for an adjustment of her marks, rather than forwarding the matter to the subject advisor. I did not observe any other difficulty with the majority of the other teachers when they were moderating each other‘s work.
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moderated. The moderation had to happen at three levels, i.e. at school level, cluster or district level and at provincial or national level, hence the moderation of grade twelve orals in cluster meetings.
In one of the cluster meetings I attended, there was a representative from the department of education. He stated that the aim of oral moderation was: ―To moderate the marks awarded by teachers at school.‖ DoE (2008) states that during the grade twelve oral moderations at district, provincial and national level, the Examinations and Assessment directorate will select subject advisors and moderators who will visit schools or venues of cluster meetings in order to ensure fairness, accuracy and validity of assessment. Another reason for the presence of the departmental official in the cluster meeting was that the grade twelve results are also used as an instrument to measure the performance of each school. It was therefore imperative that the grade twelve marks be verified by the official in order to ensure validity of the marks.
Before the actual moderation started, ‗Mr Dladla‘ (pseudonym), the department‘s representative discussed the procedure of the day with the teachers. He also discussed ways to create a conducive environment to make learners feel comfortable during the process of oral moderation. It was agreed that teachers would take turns in chairing the meeting. Mr Dladla went to talk to the learners in another classroom and explained the procedure of the day to them. It was decided that he should address the learners as he was a neutral body in this meeting, instead of any of the teachers. Each teacher had brought five learners with them. There was one highest achiever, three average and one lowest achiever. The DoE (2008) states that 10% of the learners per school should be moderated, but the 10% should not be more than ten learners. The teachers mentioned that they agreed as a cluster that the schools should all bring five learners per school for the oral
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moderations, in order to maintain uniformity. This is in accordance with Mrs King‘s words:
We also do oral moderation, it’s for grade twelve orals only. Teachers must bring their oral marks that the learners have done from the beginning of the year.
When we go for moderations, five learners are chosen, one highest, three in the middle and one lowest.
The teachers then took turns to call the learners into the classroom, but teachers did not call learners from their own school. One teacher then wrote the learner‘s names on the board, one of the learners was asked to choose a story from the table and read alone.
While the other learner was reading the story, the other four learners were asked to tell the panel about themselves. The reader then came back and read aloud to the rest of the group. The learners discussed the story that was read amongst them while the panel watched them and listened to their discussion. Learners were also asked to tell the panel about any of the set literature that they were doing at school, what it was about, the themes talked about, described and discussed the characters. At the end, the learners were thanked for their time and showed out of the room. The procedure that was followed during the moderation process was also in accordance with what the DoE (2008) says should be the procedure of the day during the grade twelve oral moderation.
After the learners left the room, the teachers and the departmental representatives compared scores. The scores were then discussed and moderated against the original scores from the schools. The scores were discussed until a consensus was reached for an adjustment and then they were recorded (see appendix K). In this particular meeting, I did not observe any tension about the adjustment of learner‘s marks as it had happened in the moderation of written work. This was because none of the teachers had a difference that was very big between the original marks and the moderated marks. Thereafter, the next school would be called in and the same procedure would be followed to assess the learners. This was the order of the day, until all the schools were finished. At the end of
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the meeting, teachers were reminded when and where the final cluster meeting for the year was going to be held, they were also reminded to bring all the necessary documents to the meeting.