(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of 2025. You can see the entire list of them here)

geralt / Pixabay

Our semester ends next week, so it’s time for “Finals.”

Obviously, I want to assess my ELL Newcomers in all four domains – reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

However, this year I wanted to try some experiments and take advantage of some new tech features, including Artificial Intelligence.

Here’s what we’ll be doing:

PART ONE: Students will choose a minimum of 100 words from any text (from an article, book, website, etc.) and record themselves reading it on Google Docs’ Voice Typing.  They’ll be able to practice it with a peer tutor as many times as they like before they record it, and can re-record it as many times as they like, too.  This activity will assess reading fluency.

PART TWO: Students will have two paper-and-pencil writing tasks.  First, they have to draw and label their family tree.  Secondly, they will see a story told in four pictures, and then have to tell that story in sentences.  I have a four picture story that I’ve used for years, but it would be easy for anyone to create their own using AI these days (see The Best Ways To Make Comic Strips Online).

PART THREE: I used Speakable’s AI feature to quickly create four illustrated “slideshows” of fifteen slides each.  Each slideshow contained simple sentences using vocabulary from the different themes we studied this semester (each slideshow includes words from three of the themes).   AI will assess their pronunciation, and they can repeat the words as often as they’d like.

PART FOUR: Students will watch four interactive videos on Quizizz, and they’ll have to answer comprehension questions for each of them.  There are many of these types of videos to choose from on Quizizz, though you can also create your own.

PART FIVE: Students will read four different short passages on Quizizz and answer comprehension questions.  There are not as many of these to choose from on Quizizz, but it was still pretty easy to find ones accessible to ELL Newcomers.  You can only use AI to create questions from a text if you have a school subscription, but you can manually create your own with the basic plan.

PART SIX: Students will complete four relatively simple reading comprehension activities on Wordwall.

PART SEVEN: Students will complete four short Quizizz activities where they need to either listen to simple questions and choose the correct answers OR listen to simple answers and choose the correct questions.

I know there are some holes in this, particularly in not really having a genuine “speaking” task (though I suspect there’s a way to do that with Speakable).  But, I think it includes activities they can do with peer tutors, pen-and-paper elements, and multiple different “gamified” assessments.

ADDENDUM: New Cool Addition I’m Adding To My ELL Newcomer Final Next Week!

What do you think?

I’m adding this post to THE BEST RESOURCES TO HELP EDUCATORS TEACH ELL NEWCOMERS.