Planning and Assessment in French Immersion
This domain tests planning and assessment decisions specific to a program delivered in a second language: how to write outcomes, what evidence to collect, how to separate content from language, and how to keep assessments valid while students' French is still developing.
Plan with two objectives
Every immersion lesson should carry a content objective and a language objective - the structure (le passé composé avec avoir), the language function (décrire, comparer, justifier), and target vocabulary. Work backward: big idea, then provincial outcome, then acceptable evidence, then the task. The language objective must be teachable and observable, not "speak more French".
Three assessment purposes
- Diagnostic: an entry profile of oral, reading, and written French, used to select texts and form groups.
- Formative: exit tickets, je peux statements, oral conferencing, observation grids.
- Summative: end-of-unit performance tasks with success criteria shared in advance, in student-friendly French.
Score content and language separately
Use two rubrics. The content rubric measures the science or social studies outcome; the language rubric measures only structures you actually taught. A student with strong reasoning and weak French must not fail the content area, and a fluent student with thin, unsupported ideas must not pass on polish.
Guard validity
If a reading passage sits above the class's French reading level, a low score may measure decoding rather than understanding - construct-irrelevant variance. Fix the text, add visuals and a glossary, or assess orally before concluding the student "didn't learn it".
Worked example
Grade 6 social studies research task on Acadian communities. Content rubric: accuracy, quality of evidence, organization. Language rubric: three items taught this term - imparfait versus passé composé in narration, connectors, topic vocabulary. Student A has excellent content but narrates entirely in the present with English-influenced syntax: content 4/4, language 2/4, with a language goal recorded. Student B writes fluent, well-organized French but vague, unsupported claims: content 2/4, language 4/4. The two scales keep the judgements independent and defensible.
Traps that cost marks
- Deducting content marks for spelling.
- Translating the test into English "to be fair" - that changes the construct entirely.
- Assessing only written French when writing is the least developed skill.
- Keeping success criteria in the teacher's plan rather than in front of students.
- Confusing évaluation with évaluation au service de l'apprentissage in scenario questions.