Assessment Objectives 

As part of the second-year course, Strategies for Autonomous Learning in French as a Second Language, this assignment is designed to help students leverage tools – specifically the AI tool, Microsoft Copilot, and the online grammar and spelling checker, Bon Patron –  to support the development of their French writing skills. Throughout the process, students are encouraged to reflect actively on the revision stages, considering both the strengths and limitations of these digital tools. By engaging with AI-generated content and then personalizing, correcting, and analyzing their own writing, students develop strategies for autonomous language learning and self-assessment. The assignment emphasizes a process-oriented approach, placing greater value on learning and reflection than on the final written product. 

Assessment Process 

1. Use Microsoft Copilot to generate a French text in response to a prompt, then personalize, correct, and rewrite it using your own experiences, and submit screenshots and your revised text as annexes.  
2. Analyze your personalized text with the grammar/spell checker tool, Bon Patron, evaluating sentence length, error types, and the proportion of lexical word categories, and add a calculation table to your annex.  
3. Correct all errors identified by Bon Patron, revise your text for precision, vocabulary, connectors, and modifiers, then repeat the analysis and update the calculation table in a new appendix.  
4. Prepare a written report with personal reflections on each stage and a group discussion on the use and limitations of digital tools, referencing your appendices and calculation tables. In particular, describe your process of using Copilot to start your writing, and explain how you modified, personalized, and/or corrected the AI-generated response to meet your individual needs as a French as a Second Language (FSL) student. 
5. Submit your complete assignment, including the written report and all required appendices (screenshots, original and revised texts, and calculation tables). 

Future-Focused Skill Development 

This assessment aligns well with the University of Calgary’s STRIVE model, particularly student-centeredness and validity. First, by having student use AI tools like Microsoft Copilot as a starting point and then personalizing, revising, and reflecting on their own writing process, the assessment is fundamentally student-centered. It empowers learners to engage flexibly with technology, adapt content to their personal experiences, and develop critical self-reflection skills, all of which are central to fostering autonomy and meaningful engagement in language learning encouraging. Second, the iterative process of analyzing, correcting, and refining one’s work using Bon Patron and self-assessment tables directly supports validity. Students are encouraged to demonstrate their learning in fair and transparent ways, building agency through ethical decision-making and the development of meta-cognitive skills via self-reflection on their progress and the revision stages.

Student Feedback 

The following includes anonymized responses to an AI survey completed after Assignment 1: 

I think using AI helps since everyone with an internet connection has used it and using it in an academic situation can really allow us to implement different skills of thinking. 

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Since LLM’s are becoming more and more advanced, I would rather see it implemented into the education system since there is no point in ignoring the fact that we will one day have to work alongside some type of version of them. 

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[…] for the first assignment I did in FSL226, the paragraph copilot generated gave me a good starting point to continue working on my assignment and personalizing the responses.