ASSESSMENT

Hello guys...... Welcome back to my blog.

How are you? I hope all of us in good condition and always happy:)

By the way, Happy New Year 2021! I hope this year we will better than before.

Well, in this blog I want to share about assessment. 

Sooooo, let's check it out!!!!!!

Effective language assessment provides chances for children to use their abilities to demonstrate what they can do at their appropriate level. It requires acknowledgement of the principles we have already discussed last month and also of the curriculum goals as well as children’s cognitive-developmental, emotional and psychological stages as I have briefly discussed even before.

In order to suit young learners’ reality best, assessment should concentrate on the development of language use, in performance assessments so to ‘give the children opportunities to use the language for real purposes, and in real or realistic situations, and assess their attempts to do so successfully’ as explains McKay(2006:99).

Importance of assessment  

In all academic settings, assessment is viewed as closely related to instruction. Assessment is needed to help teachers and administrators make decisions about students' linguistic abilities, their placement inappropriate levels, and their achievement. The success of any assessment depends on the effective selection and use of appropriate tools and procedures as well as  on the proper interpretation of students' performance. Assessment tools and procedures, in addition to being essential for evaluating students' progress and achievement, also help in evaluating the suitability and effectiveness of  the curriculum, the teaching methodology, and the instructional materials.

Alternatives in assessment  

The testing tools and procedures discussed in this article are characterized by a deliberate move from traditional formal assessment to a less formal, less quantitative framework. Pierce and O'Malley define alternative assessment as "any method of finding out what a student knows or can do that is intended to show growth and inform instruction and is not a standardized or traditional test" (1992:2). Specifically, alternative ways of  assessing students take into account variation in students' needs, interests,  and learning styles; and they attempt to integrate assessment and learning activities. Also, they indicate successful performance, highlight positive traits, and provide formative rather than summative evaluation. 

Until recently the assessment scene in EFL/ESL classes has been dominated  by summative evaluation of learner achievement, focusing on mastery of discrete language points and linguistic accuracy, rather than on communicative competence, with test items typically consisting of matching or gap-filling. Communicative teaching methodology brings with  it a considerable emphasis on formative evaluation "with more use of descriptive records of learner development in language and learning which [track] language development along with other curricular abilities" (Rea-Dickins and Rixon 1997:151). 

Therefore, assessment becomes a diagnostic tool that provides feedback to the learner and the teacher about the suitability of the curriculum and instructional materials, the effectiveness of the teaching methods, and the strengths and weaknesses of the students. Furthermore, it helps demonstrate to young learners that they are making progress in their linguistic development, which can boost motivation. This encourages students to do more and the teacher to work on refining the process of learning rather than its product.

Classroom assessment techniques

The following assessment techniques can be used for effective and practical measurements of students' abilities, progress, and achievement in a variety of educational settings. 

Nonverbal Responses: At the early stages of learning, before the emergence of speech, children should be instructed and assessed largely through the use of physical performance responses and pictorial products (Tannenbaum 1996). These tasks require simple directions to carry out. As an assessment technique, this type of response may help lower the level of anxiety normally associated with evaluation, as students see it as a natural extension of learning activities.

Oral Interview: Pierce and O'Malley (1992) suggest using visual cues in oral interviews at the early stages of acquisition. Thus a student may be asked to choose pictures to talk about, and the teacher's role is to guide the student by asking questions that require the use of related vocabulary. This technique works well during the early speech and speech emergence stages.

Role-play: This informal assessment technique combines oral performance and physical activity. Children of all ages, when assessed through this technique, feel comfortable and motivated, especially when the activity lends itself to cooperative learning and is seen as a fun way of learning. Kelner (1993) believes that roleplay can be an enjoyable way of informal assessment that could be used effectively within a content-based curriculum. For example, he recommends the use of role-play to express mathematical concepts such as fractions, to demonstrate basic concepts in science such as the life cycle, and to represent historical events or literary characters.

Oke that's all

See you on the next blog :)

References

Brown, J. D., ed. 1998. New ways of classroom assessment. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Brown, J. D. and T. Hudson. 1998. The alternatives in language assessment. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 4, pp. 653-675.

Fradd, S. and S. Hudelson. 1995. Alternative assessment: A process that promotes collaboration and reflection. TESOL Journal, 5, 1, p. 5.