Cultivating Lifelong Multilingual Learners through Ungrading

Dr. Andie Faber is an Associate Professor of Spanish / Profesora asociada de español, Director of the New Faculty Institute, and Spanish Language Program Co-ordinator at Kansas State University.

To learn more about Dr. Faber take a look at her website!

https://sites.google.com/view/andiefaber

What drives you? 

I invite you to take a moment to reflect on your own multilingualism. What do you like about speaking multiple languages? What made you decide to pursue a career in language education? What motivates you to continue in this field? 

In my conversations with fellow world language educators, I find that common responses to these questions include relationships with others, a sense of enjoyment in exploring other cultures or decoding language like a puzzle, a talent for learning languages, and a feeling of personal satisfaction. These responses align nicely with learners’ three basic psychological needs: (i) autonomy, the drive to self-regulate and self-endorse one’s choices and behaviors and a feeling of acceptance and commitment in one’s actions, even when the choice does not come from within (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Alamer et al., 2023); (ii) competence, one’s need to feel capable with opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of their talents; and (iii) relatedness, a person’s sense of belonging, which includes being cared for and understood by the group as well as being able to contribute (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Research indicates that learning environments that support these three psychological needs promote intrinsic motivation and overall well-being. 

My guess is that these questions did not make you think of a time when you got an A on an exam, and I am confident that you did not think of a time when you completed a task to avoid losing points on an assignment. This brings me to the central thesis of this piece, which I have made into a meme for your enjoyment:

If we want to develop lifelong learners in our classrooms, we must think about fostering our students’ innate sense of curiosity. Consider how we can promote autonomy, competence, and relatedness in our classes rather than the carrot and stick approach that traditional grading practices espouse. 

Ungrading for lifelong learning

Ungrading is a recently coined term that educators use to describe the intentional process of shifting focus away from metrics and recentering student attention on the learning. It does not mean ‘not grading’. For me, ungrading means considering forms of evaluation that are in line with my learning objectives and values as an educator. 

Traditional grading practices attempt to standardize the learning process. They are rooted in a binary notion of ‘correct’ vs. ‘incorrect’, which is inherently at odds with linguistic diversity. They also inhibit risk-taking, which is problematic because mistakes are where the learning happens. Additionally, they have been shown to decrease learner motivation, which is an important predictor of successful language-learning outcomes. 

Maybe now you are intrigued but feeling overwhelmed with the idea of ‘ungrading’ – how does one even do that?! Well, the good news is that ungrading is an umbrella term that refers to a wide array of techniques designed to refocus student attention on their learning – there’s no right or wrong way to adopt its practices! And you don’t need to decide to fully reject traditional grades in your class. I suggest starting with some of the ideas from my handy dandy ‘where do I start’ list: 

• Consider first impressions

  • The way that you present your course will have a huge impact on how students perceive it. Consider inviting students to explore, promote curiosity, demonstrate wonder, and get them excited about the opportunity to learn. 

    
    

• Convey your message in a way that promotes motivation

  • Support autonomy by using language that promotes choice (invite, could, opportunity) and avoid controlling language (required, must, mandatory).

  • Cultivate competence by focusing on achieving communicative objectives, language norms, and pragmatically appropriate forms and avoid falling into the false dichotomy of correct vs. incorrect.

  • Foster relatedness by highlighting students’ role as contributing members to the learning community and avoiding impersonal statements, punitive language, phrasing that conveys distrust, or assumptions of homogeneous experiences.

    
    

• Articulate expectations clearly 

  • At the beginning of a new term, I set expectations, not only for how the class is structured and how I expect students to behave, but also for what they can expect from the learning process. I identify the benefits of learning a new language, describe the language learning process, present my teaching approach, indicate materials and resources to support growth and development, define expectations for engagement in and outside of class, and explain the what, why, and how of the evaluation process. 

  • I also set expectations regarding time commitment, engagement, and what it means to study in a language class. I tell them “This is a language class, so any engagement with the language counts as studying. Have a Spanish-speaking friend at work? Speaking with them is studying. Like watching telenovelas? Bingeing your favorite series is studying. Studying can be literally any use of Spanish. Have fun with it and – you’re learning!”

    
    

• Focus on meeting level-appropriate benchmarks 

  • Working with students, we determine evaluative criteria for summative assessments based in ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, Can-do Statements, and project genre norms. 

  • I use a minimal grading scale to communicate achievement. Depending on the class or the assignment, I either use a 3-point scale (meets standards / try again / not submitted) or a 4-point scale (meets standards / approaching standards / below standards / not submitted).

    
    

• Use visual markers to communicate progress

  • Traditional grading systems come with a lot of emotional baggage that distract students from the feedback on their work. Instead of using baggage-laden points or A-F letter grades on assignments, I use icons: ✔ = meets standards, 🟠 = approaching standards, ↺ = try again, ⚠️ = below standards, ❌ = not submitted. If you are curious as to how you can use visual markers with your LMS, check out this piece I wrote with my colleague, Christina Beaubien, Hacking Your LMS:Making Ungrading More User-friendly.

    
    

• Offer rationale for course content, assignments, and assessments

  • In our basic language classes, students complete homework activities that are auto-graded. Since these assignments are often practice of new concepts, I absolutely expect mistakes, and I don’t want students to feel penalized for them. As such, the assignment description reads “As the goal of daily assignments is practice, not perfection, meeting expectations is defined by maintaining an average of 75% or more on the unit’s activities”. 

  • On self-evaluation assignments, I include information about the value of developing self-assessment skills, highlighting that research finds that those who regularly engage in reflection and self-evaluation work more efficiently and effectively.

    
    

• Involve students in the evaluation process 

  • Students participate in defining successful completion criteria for the project based on their personal and professional goals, proficiency guidelines, course objectives, and project genre norms.

  • The result of this process is that students are keenly aware of expectations and show greater investment in their work. 

    
    

• Support global literacy and career readiness 

  • When preparing lessons, I consider perspectives like the history, culture, or psychology related to the topic. For instance, when teaching numbers in Spanish 1, I consider where to numbers come from? What do we use numbers for? Why types of number systems exist? How do we count different things or concepts? These questions led me to develop a lesson plan that explores Arabic, Roman, and Maya numerals – with very limited linguistic skills, they were exploring some cool stuff! 

  • Showing students the ways that course content connects to broader contexts and future ambitions makes the learning experience more meaningful – then I make explicit connections between that experience and the summative assessment.

Satisfying learners’ psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness sustains the intrinsic motivation that they bring to the classroom (Ryan & Deci, 2020). By prioritizing the development of lifelong learners in the world language classroom, we not only support successful language learning outcomes, but also help our students to build on their learning beyond the classroom, leading to increased adaptability, career advancement, and a sense of personal fulfillment (Laal & Salamati, 2012). 

In summation, get students excited about learning. Ensure that your assessment and evaluation practices are in line with your goals. Keep autonomy, competence, and relatedness at the forefront of your mind when developing course content. 

The “You’re not alone” Reading List!

Blum (ed.), Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead). West Virginia University Press.  

Brookhart, S. M. (2017). How to give effective feedback to your students (Second edition.). ASCD.

Elbow, P. (1997). Grading Student Writing: Making It Simpler, Fairer, Clearer. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 1997(69), 127–140. 

Faber, A., & Beaubien, C. (2023). Hacking Your LMS: Making Ungrading More User-friendly. The FLTMAG. https://fltmag.com/ungrading-lms/

Faber, A., & Beaubien, C. (2025). Exploring motivation: Contract-based ungrading in intermediate Spanish courses. Language Teaching Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688251367847

Feldman, J. (2019). Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it Can Transform Schools and Classrooms. Corwin.

Inoue, A.B. (2019). Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. University Press of Colorado.

Kohn, A. (1999). The Schools Our Children Deserve. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

Mesrobian, L. (2024). Small Steps to Ungrading the Language Classroom. In A. D. Tomlin & C. M. Nowik (Eds.), Effective alternative assessment practices in higher education (pp. 29–37). IAP/Information Age Publishing, Inc. 

Nilson, L. B. (2015). Specifications grading: Restoring rigor, motivating students, and saving faculty time. Stylus Publishing.

Stommel, J. (2020). How to Ungrade. In S. D. Blum (ed.), Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) (pp. 25-41). West Virginia University Press.

Wei, M., & Chen, Y. (2022). Motivational Practices in Foreign Language Teaching: From the Perspective of Self-Determination Theory. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 45(3), 401–415. 

Zhou, S. A., Hiver, P., & Al-Hoorie, A. H. (2023). Dynamic engagement: A longitudinal dual-process, reciprocal-effects model of teacher motivational practice and L2 student engagement. Language Teaching Research, 13621688231158789.

References 

Alamer A., Morin A.J.S., Alrabai F., Alharfi A. (2023). Introducing the Basic Psychological Needs Frustration in Second Language Scale (BPNF-L2): Examining its factor structure and effect on L2 motivation and achievement. Acta Psychologica, 240, Article 104021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.104021

Laal, M., & Salamati, P. (2012). Lifelong learning; why do we need it? Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 399–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.073 

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. The Guilford Press. https://doi.org/10.1521/978.14625/28806

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, Article 101860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860