Assessment in Language Teaching: part 1 Lecture # 23

Review of lecture # 22 Characteristics of spoken language Principles for designing speaking activities Using group work in speaking activities Common types of speaking activities Role Plays and dialogues Picture description Other Speaking Activities: i) inviting someone as a guest speaker ii) Asking students to hold a workshop.

Aims of the lecture 1 Assessment purposes 2. Assessment methods 3. Assessment criteria 4. Assessment principles 5. Testing in language assessment

I. Understanding assessment 1. What’s assessment? Task 1 The following is a list of understanding assessment given by different teachers. What do you think of them? It’s to do with testing Finding out how good you are at something.

I use it to keep a check on my learners, by spelling tests, small quizzes and things like that. It is an on-going process which focuses on the whole life of our school. Finding out if we are being effective. I feel as though it’s a big stick hanging over our heads, teacher evaluation and all that.

Finding out strengths and weaknesses of our students and ourselves. I use tests in my classroom. I also use quizzes—as a way of keeping a check on the students’ learning. I also mark their work, sometimes with a grade but usually a comment. It is to do with record-keeping, collecting information about how well the students are doing.

2. The differences between testing, assessment and evaluation It often takes the ‘pencil and paper’ form and it is usually done at the end of a learning period, such as unit-test, mid-term-test, semester-test etc.

2. The differences between testing, assessment and evaluation it involves the collecting of information or evidence of a learner’s learning progress and achievement over a period of time for the purposes of improving teaching and learning.

2. The differences between testing, assessment and evaluation It involves making an overall judgment about one’s work or a whole school’s work. According to Cameron, it can be concerned with ‘a whole range of issues in and beyond language education: lessons, courses, programs, and skills can all be evaluated.

3. Assessment purposes Assessment in ELT means to discover what the learners know and can do at a certain stage of the learning process.

Task 3:What do you think are the purposes of assessment? 1.To discover learners’ weaknesses N 2.To discover learners’ achievements Y 3.To evaluate the existing curriculum Y 4.To check upon teachers’ performance Y 5.To motivate learners Y 6.To provide an incentive for learning Y

Task 3:What do you think are the purposes of assessment? 7.To provide the basis for further planning of teaching: what to teach next Y 8.To qualify students Y 9.To provide the basis for correction N 10.To provide criteria to qualify for higher level studies Y 11.To provide learners with a sense of accomplishment Y 12. To foster the ability to learn. Y

3. Assessment purposes A close study on the assessment purposes will make it clear that all the people involved in education have some reasons to consider assessment necessary. 1) for administrators They need to know whether the programmes they have planned are working well. The only way to do this is to discover how well the students are doing with their courses.

2) for teachers Teachers put the administrators’ plans into practice. they need to know what has been done and what needs to be done next; what the students already know or can do and what they do not know or cannot do yet.

Assessment purposes…. 3) for parents They are anxious to know how their children are doing in school. Unable to watch their kids in the class, parents value the feedback about their children’s performance from the teachers and the INSTITUTIONS.

4) for students They need to know what they’ve accomplished, be aware of what they need to work on next, and build up their confidence and satisfaction from what they have achieved. It should be noted that both positive and negative assessment should be made available to the learner, as honestly as possible.

II. Methods for assessment Assessment includes testing but definitely not only testing. Assessment is often divided into summative assessment and formative assessment.

summative assessment: Summative assessment is mainly based on testing. It is done mostly at the end of a learning period or the end of a COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY/INSTITUTE year.

Formative assessment: Formative assessment is based on information collected in the classroom during the teaching processes for the purposes of improving teaching and learning, therefore, it is sometimes termed as classroom assessment as well.

The ways to gather students learning information. 1.Teacher’s observations Teacher’s observations of the learners’ overall performance or achievement can be quite accurate and fair. 2. Continuous assessment 3.Self-assessment and peer assessment

The ways to gather students learning information. 3. Project work Project work requires students to complete a set of tasks designed to explore a certain idea or concept. 4. Portfolios: A portfolio is a purposeful collection of materials assembled over a period of time by a learner to provide evidence of skills, abilities and attitudes.

III. Assessment criteria It is agreed that assessment means to discover how well learners know things or can do things. But “well” is often comparatively “well”, not absolutely “well”. Depending on different assessment purposes and the stage at which the assessment is made, assessment should be made according to different criteria or references.

1.Criterion-referenced assessment Criterion-referenced language assessment is based on a fixed standard or a set crite­rion. The national or local educational authority may have this standard or criterion. A school or several schools in a district may have their standard or set criterion for what­ever purposes they might have. A fixed standard is usually the ultimate goal which the students are expected to achieve at the end of the course.

2.Norm-referenced assessment Norm-referenced assessment is designed to measure how the performance of a par­ticular student or group of students compares with the performance of another student or group of students whose scores are given as the norm. A student’s achievement is therefore interpreted with reference to the achievement of other students or groups of students, rather than to an agreed criterion.

3.Individual-referenced assessment Individual-referenced assessment is based on how well the learner is performing rela­tive to his or her own previous performance, or relative to an estimate of his or her individual ability. For example, if a student could only say a few words in English after a few months of the course, and now after another month’s study, he is able to speak with some fluency (although there is some inaccuracy), we can surely say he has made great progress.

Summary 1. What is Assessment? 2. Assessment purposes 3. Assessment methods 4. Assessment criteria 5. Assessment principles 6. Testing in language assessment