Taking students' voices into account in the classroom's referential dynamics.

Case study on student involvement in the co-construction of assessment criteria in a teaching sequence on oral debate

Abstract

This article explores referential dynamics throughout a teaching sequence that includes continuous assessment for learning (ECPA), drawing on work on referentialization and the theoretical framework of classroom microculture. How do students' voices come to the fore when they are involved in the co‑construction of assessment criteria and indicators, particularly in ECPA practices? The analysis is based on a case study conducted in a pre-vocational school. Triangulating various data sources (sequence outlines, documents, interviews with the teacher, audio recordings of classroom interactions), the results highlight, for each of the six stages of the teaching sequence on oral debate, the referential relationship (or dialectical co-constitution between referent and referred), the role of assessment judgments in action, the consideration of students' voices on the three layers of classroom microculture, and the role of reflection on what was experienced. The discussion returns to the main empirical findings and identifies structuring resources to characterize referential trajectories linked to teaching and continuous assessment for learning. Based on the empirical results, the article concludes by questioning several critical points of the theory.