Tips for IB Mandarin Teachers Conducting the Internal Oral Assessment

(Note that this article is translated from the Chinese version.)  

Every year’s February to March is the most busy time for International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IB DP) schools to conduct internal assessments. Today I am going to share with you some tips on oral assessment for Language B Standard Level (BSL) course, in order to lessen the burden of teachers who are preparing for the assessments.

Choose Visual Stimuli Carefully

Firstly, here’s a brief introduction to some basic internal BSL assessment requirements.

The assessment of the general course (BSL) is designed to measure student’s ability on understanding and producing communication in 
the target language, and to use the language in interactions successfully. Before starting the assessment, teachers need to prepare some visual stimulating materials according to the subject of the course, and let students participate in the task to demonstrate their language ability. The visual Stimuli will need to align with any of the five IB DP themes: Identities, Experiences, Human Ingenuity, Social Organization and Sharing the Planet.  

According to the Language B guideline: “a ‘visual stimulus’ may be a photo, a poster, an illustration or an advertisement. Any language that naturally 
appears on the image should be minimal and must be in the target language. It must not provide vocabulary 
and structures that would give a student an unfair advantage…” (Language B Guide, p. 43)

In addition, teachers must be mindful of the following tips when choosing a visual stimuli:

• Clearly relate to one of the five themes;
• Name the theme of the visual stimuli clearly;
• Link strongly to the culture of the target language;
• Make sure the piece give enough opportunities for students to demonstrate their international mindset;
• Provide ample opportunity for students to describe a scene or a situation;
• Allow students to make personal connections;
• Make sure the stimulus can help students to start a broad and deep dialogue;
• Age appropriate;
• Only use materials that students haven’t seen before.

Visual Stimulus Samples