TMS3715
Assignment 4
(3404790)
DUE : 13 JULY 2026
, TMS3715
Teaching Home Languages in the FET Phase
Assignment: Learning Unit 6 – Planning, Designing and Reflecting on Lessons and
Assessments in Home Language Instruction
Student name: Student number: Date: 13 July 2026
Question 1: The Role of and the Types of Assessment
1.1 The role of assessment in the Home Language classroom (10 marks)
Assessment occupies a central place in Home Language (HL) teaching because it is the
mechanism through which a teacher gathers, interprets and acts on evidence of learners'
developing knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs about language (Shepard, 2019). In Mr
Nkosi's classroom, this ongoing process of documentation is what allows him to notice, after
a term of teaching Cry, the Beloved Country, that most learners have strengthened their
analytical skills while a subgroup still struggles to make inferences and evaluate characters'
motives. Without a deliberate and continuous assessment process, such a pattern would
remain invisible until it was too late to intervene.
According to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for English Home
Language, Grades 10–12 (DBE, 2011), assessment in the HL classroom serves four interlocking
purposes, often summarised as generating and collecting evidence of achievement,
evaluating that evidence, recording the findings, and using this information to support
learners' further development. Assessment is therefore never an isolated, end-of-unit event;
it is woven into the whole teaching and learning cycle and directly informs how a teacher
plans subsequent lessons. This is evident in the scenario, where Mr Nkosi's summative
assessment on the novel is itself a response to what earlier informal and formal assessments
have revealed about his learners.
Assessment further allows a teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of his or her own teaching
methods and materials, not only the learners' progress (Shepard, 2019). If, for example, a
large proportion of the class cannot evaluate a character's motives, this may indicate that
instruction on inferential reading strategies needs to be revisited, rather than being solely a
, reflection of individual learner ability. In this sense, assessment provides the teacher with a
diagnostic tool for reflecting on and refining classroom practice, one of the core competencies
developed in this learning unit.
CAPS also requires that HL assessment be holistic and integrated: a comprehension or
literature task should never test isolated facts in a vacuum but should require learners to
apply language skills – listening, speaking, reading/viewing and writing/presenting – in an
integrated and authentic way (DBE, 2011). Assessment tasks must furthermore cater for a
range of cognitive levels, from literal recall to inference and critical evaluation, ensuring that
learners of different abilities are appropriately challenged and supported. Finally, assessment
fulfils an accountability and reporting function: recorded formal marks inform promotion
decisions, parental reporting and school-based moderation, giving assessment both a
formative (assessment for/as learning) and a summative (assessment of learning) role in the
HL classroom (DBE, 2011).
1.2 Formative assessment methods to support inference-making and evaluation of
characters' motives (20 marks)
The scenario indicates that although Mr Nkosi's learners have improved in general analytical
skill, a number of them continue to struggle specifically with Level 3 (inference) and Level 4/5
(evaluation and appreciation) cognitive demands, as these are defined in the CAPS cognitive-
level framework for assessing literature (DBE, 2011). Two formative assessment methods are
proposed below to address this gap during Term 3, before the summative assessment is
administered.
Method 1: Dialectical reading journals with inference prompts
Learners keep an ongoing journal in which, after each reading session of the set chapters,
they respond to structured, higher-order prompts such as 'What does this character's action
reveal about his or her motives?' or 'What do you infer about the character's state of mind
here, and what evidence in the text supports this?' Mr Nkosi reviews a rotating sample of
journals every one to two weeks, writing brief, specific comments rather than a mark, and
holds short individual or small-group conferences with learners whose entries show weak
inferential reasoning.
Assignment 4
(3404790)
DUE : 13 JULY 2026
, TMS3715
Teaching Home Languages in the FET Phase
Assignment: Learning Unit 6 – Planning, Designing and Reflecting on Lessons and
Assessments in Home Language Instruction
Student name: Student number: Date: 13 July 2026
Question 1: The Role of and the Types of Assessment
1.1 The role of assessment in the Home Language classroom (10 marks)
Assessment occupies a central place in Home Language (HL) teaching because it is the
mechanism through which a teacher gathers, interprets and acts on evidence of learners'
developing knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs about language (Shepard, 2019). In Mr
Nkosi's classroom, this ongoing process of documentation is what allows him to notice, after
a term of teaching Cry, the Beloved Country, that most learners have strengthened their
analytical skills while a subgroup still struggles to make inferences and evaluate characters'
motives. Without a deliberate and continuous assessment process, such a pattern would
remain invisible until it was too late to intervene.
According to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for English Home
Language, Grades 10–12 (DBE, 2011), assessment in the HL classroom serves four interlocking
purposes, often summarised as generating and collecting evidence of achievement,
evaluating that evidence, recording the findings, and using this information to support
learners' further development. Assessment is therefore never an isolated, end-of-unit event;
it is woven into the whole teaching and learning cycle and directly informs how a teacher
plans subsequent lessons. This is evident in the scenario, where Mr Nkosi's summative
assessment on the novel is itself a response to what earlier informal and formal assessments
have revealed about his learners.
Assessment further allows a teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of his or her own teaching
methods and materials, not only the learners' progress (Shepard, 2019). If, for example, a
large proportion of the class cannot evaluate a character's motives, this may indicate that
instruction on inferential reading strategies needs to be revisited, rather than being solely a
, reflection of individual learner ability. In this sense, assessment provides the teacher with a
diagnostic tool for reflecting on and refining classroom practice, one of the core competencies
developed in this learning unit.
CAPS also requires that HL assessment be holistic and integrated: a comprehension or
literature task should never test isolated facts in a vacuum but should require learners to
apply language skills – listening, speaking, reading/viewing and writing/presenting – in an
integrated and authentic way (DBE, 2011). Assessment tasks must furthermore cater for a
range of cognitive levels, from literal recall to inference and critical evaluation, ensuring that
learners of different abilities are appropriately challenged and supported. Finally, assessment
fulfils an accountability and reporting function: recorded formal marks inform promotion
decisions, parental reporting and school-based moderation, giving assessment both a
formative (assessment for/as learning) and a summative (assessment of learning) role in the
HL classroom (DBE, 2011).
1.2 Formative assessment methods to support inference-making and evaluation of
characters' motives (20 marks)
The scenario indicates that although Mr Nkosi's learners have improved in general analytical
skill, a number of them continue to struggle specifically with Level 3 (inference) and Level 4/5
(evaluation and appreciation) cognitive demands, as these are defined in the CAPS cognitive-
level framework for assessing literature (DBE, 2011). Two formative assessment methods are
proposed below to address this gap during Term 3, before the summative assessment is
administered.
Method 1: Dialectical reading journals with inference prompts
Learners keep an ongoing journal in which, after each reading session of the set chapters,
they respond to structured, higher-order prompts such as 'What does this character's action
reveal about his or her motives?' or 'What do you infer about the character's state of mind
here, and what evidence in the text supports this?' Mr Nkosi reviews a rotating sample of
journals every one to two weeks, writing brief, specific comments rather than a mark, and
holds short individual or small-group conferences with learners whose entries show weak
inferential reasoning.
