AS 91555 annotated exemplars

This annotated exemplar is intended for teacher use only. Annotated exemplars are extracts of student evidence, with commentary, that explain key parts of a standard. These help teachers make assessment judgements at the grade boundaries.

Download all exemplars and commentary [PDF, 155 KB]

TKI Japanese assessment resources (external link)

For Excellence, the student needs to interact clearly using effective spoken Japanese to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

This involves the student accounting for and sustaining their own views, and finding out about, evaluating and giving evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others. There will be successful use of a range of language, and skilful selection from a repertoire of language features and strategies to maintain the interaction.

Interaction will not be hindered by inconsistencies.

The exemplified student speaks first in all interactions.

The student is confident and skilled in sustaining personal views and supporting the viewpoints of others, e.g. を見られます, たいふうのえいきょうので, 見ることがありません, おもしろそうです.

The interactions are spontaneous and there is clear evidence of using a range of language features and strategies to maintain the interaction, e.g. 見にいきたかったら, みたほうがいいです and たくさんアクティビティをしなければならないです.

For a more secure Excellence, the student could show less stilted pronunciation (especially when approaching particles), and have greater control of intonation throughout to ensure that there is no impact on communication.

Video for Low Excellence - Interaction 1 (3:11 mins)

Video for Low Excellence - Interaction 2 (3:53 mins)

Video for Low Excellence - Interaction 3 (2:30 mins)

For Merit, the student needs to interact clearly using convincing spoken Japanese to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

This involves the student accounting for and sustaining their own views, and finding out about, evaluating and giving evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others. There will be a range of language and generally successful selection from a repertoire of language features and strategies to maintain the interaction.

Interaction will not be significantly hindered by inconsistencies.

The exemplified student speaks second in interaction 1, first in interaction 2 and second in interaction 3.  

The student uses a range of language features and strategies, e.g. actively seeking and providing relevant information and making appropriate comments, such as らいねん大学に行くことにしました and 行かないのです.

The interactions have clear evidence of using a range of strategies to maintain the interaction, e.g. commenting, seeking and providing relevant information: あのう, わからない, なぜなら, ところで, せつめしてください.

Language inconsistencies do not significantly hinder the interactions.

To reach Excellence, there needs to be consistent intonation and pronunciation for effective communication.

The second interaction with the teacher does sound rather rehearsed, and is therefore not as spontaneous as the other two.

Video for High Merit - Interaction 1 (3:32 mins)

Video for High Merit - Interaction 2 (2:04 mins)

Video for High Merit - Interaction 3 (3:42 mins)

For Merit, the student needs to interact clearly using convincing spoken Japanese to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

This involves the student accounting for and sustaining their own views, and finding out about, evaluating and giving evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others. There will be a range of language, and generally successful selection from a repertoire of language features and strategies to maintain the interaction.

Interaction will not be significantly hindered by inconsistencies.

The exemplified student speaks first in interactions 1 and 2, and speaks second in interaction 3.

The student selects and uses a range of language and language features, e.g. たら, なければなりません, てほしい, について, ことがある and と言う.

The student is generally successful in selecting and using a repertoire of language features and strategies to maintain the interactions, e.g. びょうきだったね, かせをひきやすいです, えいがについてはなしましょう, かなしい人といいました, きけんなしごとですね, ほんとうなら and おいしゃさんはどうですか.

Inconsistencies do not significantly hinder the interactions.

For a more secure Merit, there needs to be additional evidence that the student is comfortable with the use of a range of language and language features to maintain the interaction.

Video for Low Merit - Interaction 1 (5:51 mins)

Video for Low Merit - Interaction 2 (5:55 mins)

Video for Low Merit - Interaction 3 (3:08 mins)

For Achieved, the student needs to interact clearly using spoken Japanese to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

This involves the student accounting for and sustaining their own views, and finding out about, evaluating and giving evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others.

Communication will be achieved overall, despite inconsistencies.

The exemplified student speaks first in interactions 1 and 2, and speaks second in interaction 3.

The student has shown ability in manipulating informal speech and this was especially evident in the third interaction, e.g. しにいった, はいらなければなりません, しっている, かったので.

There is evidence of use of higher level language and language features to sustain the student’s own views and support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others, e.g. おわるときに and かうことができます.

To reach Merit, inconsistencies will not significantly hinder communication, e.g. misuse of particles, e.g. たんじょうびをくがつ and other inconsistencies, e.g. えいがにみにいきことがあります, どちらがやすいですか and 二十 才. 

Greater fluency would have less impact on delivery of the message.

Further, some misinformation, i.e. the claim that Japanese students have time to watch T.V. after their homework, also detracts from the accuracy of the message.

Video for High Achieved - Interaction 1 (4:57 mins)

Video for High Achieved - Interaction 2 (3:42 mins)

Video for High Achieved - Interaction 3 (5:39 mins)

For Achieved, the student needs to interact clearly using spoken Japanese to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

This involves the student accounting for and sustaining their own views, and finding out about, evaluating and giving evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others.

Communication will be achieved overall, despite inconsistencies.

The exemplified student speaks third in interaction 1, first in interaction 2 and second in interaction 3.

In all three interactions the student correctly used very simple language (when talking of subjects studied, juku, shops, etc.).

The student was able to use a range of language and language features, with some evidence of the language required for Level 8 of the New Zealand Curriculum, to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

The student was able to take an active part in the interactions as well as showing a degree of fluency and spontaneity. These contributions were mostly comprehensible.

For a more secure Achieved there would be additional evidence of mastery of the language needed to present and justify perspectives. At this level it would be expected that there would be some evidence of an ability to use more complex language in order to express ideas that are beyond the very simple.

Inconsistencies would have less impact on communication, e.g. つかうながら, 私のつかいのともだち, 日本に間時 and あいだほうがいいです.

Further, while contributions to the interactions did improve, there needs to be greater contribution by the student overall. 

Video for Low Achieved - Interaction 1 (3:32 mins)

Video for Low Achieved - Interaction 2 (2:04 mins)

Video for Low Achieved - Interaction 3 (3:21 mins)

For Achieved, the student needs to interact clearly using spoken Japanese to explore and justify varied ideas and perspectives.

This involves the student accounting for and sustaining own views, and finding out about, evaluating and giving evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others.

Communication will be achieved overall, despite inconsistencies.

The exemplified student speaks first in interactions and 1 and 2, and second in interaction 3.

The student was able to maintain the conversational nature of the tasks as well as display a reasonable degree of fluency. She was able to give explanations or evidence to support or challenge the ideas and perspectives of others by the use of mainly simple language.

To reach Achieved, there needs to be additional evidence of the use of language and language features which support up to Level 8 of the New Zealand Curriculum to find out about, evaluate, explain and support or challenge ideas and perspectives.

The exchanges are based on very simple language, with inaccurate sentences that are at times incomplete, and there is too much reliance on fillers, adjectives and the phrase もうちょっと, e.g. もうちょっとがっこう and もうちょっとちいさい.

There also needs to be additional evidence of mastery of language and more basic language features, e.g. the joining of adjectives: こんでとせまい and こんでしせまいから, and tense formation, e.g. つかうする, 一日べんきょうするから, and クラスにまた行きました. Pronunciation and language inconsistencies will not hinder communication to the extent that the message is impaired.

Video for High Not Achieved - Interaction 1 (5:45 mins)

Video for High Not Achieved - Interaction 2 (7:44 mins)

Video for High Not Achieved - Interaction 3 (4:40 mins)