Language Assessment Principles and Issues

Language Assessment Principles and Issues

1. Testing

   • Assessing
     • Teaching
       • Are opportunities for learners
         • To listen
           • To think
             • To take risks
               • To set goals
                 • and
                   • Process feedback from educators
     • Is a process that encompasses a much wider domian.
       • A good teacher never ceases to assess students
         • Assessments are incidental or intetional
           • Informal Assessment
             • Desing activities
               • Teachers can design activities to elicit performance but not with the intent of recording results and making fixed judgements about students competnece.
             • It’s more relaxing way of observing the students
               • Principles of Language Assessments
                 • The five basic principles for designing effective tests and assessments in our classroom are
                   • 1.- Practicality
                     • A good test is practical
                       • The value and quality of a test are dependent upon such nitty-gritty practical considerations 
                     • A test that is prohibitively is unpractical
                       • Test are designed to be
                         • Norm-referenced
                           • Are standardized tests intended to be administered to large audiences
                             • These tests have fixed, predetermined responses
                             • Can be electronically scanned
                         • Criterion-referenced
                           • Are usually required to deliver the feedback
                             • Are designed to give test-takers specific course or lesson objectives
                     • A test that can be scored only by a computer is unpractical
                   • 2.- Reliability
                     • A reliable test is consistent and dependable
                       • meaning that the test-takers will get the same score no matter when or where they take it, within reason of course
                       • A test can be reliable without being valid.
                   • 3.- Validity
                     • With these tests
                       • Validity is the degree to which the test actually measures what it is intended to measure.
                       • A high score should be substantiated by actual proficiency in language
                         • Types of Validation
                           • Content Validity
                             • It requires the test-taker to perform the behavior that is being measured
                           • Face Validity
                             • Is almost always perceived in terms of content
                           • Construct Validity
                             • Every issue in language learning and teaching involves construct validity
                               • Current Issues in Language Assessment
                                 • So many steps have been taken
                                   • In order to improve the construction, delivery and scoring of assessments.
                                 • We have engage into a new world of
                                   • More communicative
                                   • Learned-centered
                                   • performance-based assessment
                                     • One of the keystone of communicative competence theories is the interactive nature of language
                                     • Typical school subjects involves
                                       • Performance-based testing means that you may have a difficulty time distinguishing between formal and informal testing
                                       • Student Portfolios
                                       • Experiments
                                       • Group projects
                                       • Hands-on Projects
                                       • Open-ended problem solving tasks
                                     • Classroom-based assessment
                                       • Teachers can be involved in the creation of their own instruments
                                         • Traditional assesment
                                           • Summative
                                             • Oriented to product
                                               • Score sufficed for feedback
                                             • Noninteractive performance
                                               • Tests procedures
                                                 • Are always in a position of power over test-takers
                                                 • Can impose social and political ideologies.
                                                   • But teachers must be instrumental
                                                     • Establish an institutional system of evaluation
                                                       • That places less emphasis on standardized tests
                                                       • More emphasis on
                                                         • The ongoing process of formative evaluation
                                                           • We can make the difference in education
                                                     • Exercise some influence in
                                                       • The ways tests are used
                                                       • Interpreted test in your own contextest
                                         • Alternative Assessment
                                           • Formative
                                             • Oriented to process
                                               • Formative, interactive feedback
                                             • Interactive Performance
                   • 4.- Authenticity
                     • May be present in the following ways
                       • Real-world tasks
                       • The language in the test is as natural as possible
                         • Items are contextualized rather than isolated
                           • Topics and situations are interesting
                   • 5.-Washback
                     • Informal assessments are more likely to have built-in washback effects
                       • Washback imply the benefit learners experience in their preparation for a test
                         • One way to enhance wash back is to
                           • Comment generously and specifically on test performance
                             • The challenge to teachers is to create classroom tests that serve as learning devices through which washback is achieved.
           • Formal Assessment
             • Here teachers can include
               • Includes exercises or procedures specifically designed to tap into a store house of skills and knowledge.
             • We can say that all tests are formal assessments
   • Test
     • Is a method of measuring a person's ability or knowledge in a giving domain.  
     • Tests are subsets of assessments
       • Tests can be useful devices
         • Are only one among many procedures that teachers can use to assess students
           • Kinds of tests
             • Proficiency Tests
               • These tests have content validity weaknesses
             • Diagnostic Tests
               • Offer a checklist of features for the administrator to use in pointing difficulties
             • Placement Tests
               • Includes a sampling of material to be covered in the curriculum
             • Achievement Tests
               • Can serve as indicators
                 • The primary role of an achievement test is to determinate acquisition of course objectives at the end of a period of instruction 
             • Aptitude Tests
               • Are tests that can predict a person's success
             • There are many kinds of tests.
               • Each with specific purpose and particular criterion to be measured