USING COLLABORATIVE ASSESSMENT TO ADDRESS LEARNER ISOLATION AND LANGUAGE ATTRITION: A PRACTITIONER INQUIRY ON FOSTERING AUTONOMY IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS

Abstract

The language retention rate among community college students has typically been worse than 4-year institutions because community colleges offer entry-level language courses twice a week rather than four to five times a week, potentially creating a long period when the student is not exposed to the target language. The issue of language retention has worsened in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic as a direct consequence of learner isolation and underdeveloped learning habits. This practitioner inquiry aimed to address the language retention issue through both modeling and integrating the use of learning strategies associated with successful language learning directly into the curriculum and coursework and by encouraging student interaction through the creation and maintenance of an online language learning community, and the implementation of a collaborative assessment policy during the Fall and Spring semesters of 2023. Based on teacher audio notes, video recordings of the collaborative assessment events, online platform chat transcripts, student conference data, and assessment performance data, I concluded that efforts to improve student learning habits were successful on an individual basis with students willing to participate in the proposed strategies, but the lack of participation by the students was an ongoing barrier to the success of this aspect of the study. It is possible that a single semester is not enough time to meaningfully alter students' learning behavior, especially when that behavior may be positively reinforced by success in other classes. However, the implementation of both the online community and collaborative assessment showed great promise in addressing the issue of learner isolation. Students used the collaborative assessment not only as a learning and teaching experience but also became more comfortable with interacting with each other in the classroom. This led to increased interaction between students inside and outside the classroom, ultimately leading to more successful learning outcomes.