Principles for assessing children´s language learning

Principles for assessing children´s language learning

1. Assessment should be seen from a learning-centred perspective

   • the Vygosky perspective on learning emphasises that learning occurs in social contexts and through interaction with helpful adults or other children.

2. Assessment should support learning and teaching

   • The assessment should contribute to the learning process, for an individual child and for the class.
   • Forms of assessment can have positive effects:
     • process and otcomes can motivate learners
     • an assessment activity can provide a helpful model of language use
     • the feedback can suport further learning
     • the outcomes of assessment can help teachers plan more effective lessons.
     • the outcomes of assessment can inform the evaluation and improvement of courses and programs

3. Assessment is more than testing

   • For this part it isn´t necessary to tets children to understand how much they have learnt .
     • ways to assess language learning either the simple classroom test or the more stringent national or international test.

4. Assessment should be congruent with learning

   • this principle suggests that assessment should, like teachimg and learning, be international rather than an isolated, oly experience.
     • McNamara: working with children highlights the issue even more strongly

5. Children and parents should understand assessment isues

   • the bteachers examine tecniques for assessment, we will emphasise the need for children to undrestand the purpose of activities and to play a role in them
   • self assessment can be a part of learning from the beginning, and can contribute to the development of self-motivated and self-directed learners at later stages
   • School policy on assessment must of course take account of parent´s demands, but also has a responsability to inform and educate parents about the teories of learning that underpin a school´s teaching.
     • Parents need to know what teachers are doing and why; the effort it takes to explain will be repaid by parental support for teachers.