Classroom Assessment. Overview Revision: testing vs assessment. Designing

Classroom Assessment

Overview Revision: testing vs assessment. Designing classroom assessment tasks Developing classroom assessment scales. Classroom assessment techniques. Their advantages and disadvantages.

4 Testing (or Traditional Assessment) measures student’s ability at one time Is done by teacher alone; students are often unaware of criteria Is conducted outside instruction Assigns student a grade Does not capture the range of student’s language ability Does not include the teacher’s knowledge of student as a learner Does not give student responsibility

5 Typical classroom based assessment….. (Dr. Steven Bax, CRELLA, University of Bedfordshire)

6 The problem with classroom based assessment “All too often, classroom tests are given, the results reported to students, and instruction remains unchanged…” (Genessee and Upshur 1996:258)

7 Assessment should have positive effects: The process and the outcomes of assessment can motivate learners An assessment activity can provide a helpful model of language use An assessment activity, and feedback from it, can support 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

Assessment should be a two-way process: The outcomes of assessment should help teachers plan more effective lessons inform the evaluation and improvement of courses and programs motivate learners support further learning

What are the different types of assessment?

Designing classroom assessment tasks Determine the purpose Specify objectives Decide how many students will be observed at a time Decide on the logistic for assessment, identify the number of elements assessed Set criteria Evaluate the results and determine how you are going to use them

11 Types of assessment: formative assessment summative assessment informal assessment formal assessment dynamic assessment (assessment for learning)

12 Formative assessment Evaluating students in the process of ‘forming ’ their competences and skills with the process of helping them to continue that growth H. D. Brown (2004), p.6 Using information from assessment to feed into our teaching and maybe give learners feedback M.Spratt et al (2011, p.105)

13 Formative and summative assessment Formative assessment =classroom assessment Summative assessment aims to measure what a student has learned(=final exams) Continuous assessment? Some or all of the work that students do during a course is part of the final mark

14 Informal assessment or formal assessment? Homework? Project Work? Dictation?

15 Formal vs Informal (The TKT Course by M. Spratt et all, 2011)

16 Formal vs Informal

17 Dynamic Assessment (DA) is an approach to assessment and instruction derived from Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (henceforth, ZPD) DA is assessment for learning and is opposed to assessment of learning (traditional assessment, henceforth, TA)

18 In Dynamic Assessment teachers use interactive assessment techniques to explore learners’ understanding and reveal misunderstandings. Rather than requiring the learners to work independently as in a test, the teacher interacts with the learners during the assessment. Dr. Steven Bax

19 Assessment for learning (or DA) provides scaffolding to help learners to complete tasks that they would not be able to accomplish under strict test conditions. In an interactive assessment, the teacher can probe what the learner is able to do independently and what he/she can do with different levels of support. The assessment process should also be a learning process. Interactive assessment helps teachers to judge what students are capable of and to explain why they are able or unable to answer certain questions. ibid

20 Dynamic Assessment Takes into account results of intervention. The examiner teaches the examinee how to perform better on individual items or on the test as a whole. Final score may be a learning score representing the difference between pretest (before learning) and posttest (after learning) scores, or it may be the score on the posttest considered alone. Sternberg, R. J. and E. L. Grigorenko. (2002). Dynamic Testing. The Nature and Measurement of Learning Potential. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21 Importance of Assistance responsiveness to assistance indispensable for understanding cognitive ability provides insight into the person’s future development (ZPD) what individual is able to do one day with assistance, s/he is able to do tomorrow alone potential development varies independently of actual development latter cannot be used to predict former Poehner, M. and Lantolf J. ’ Dynamic assessment in the language classroom (2005)

22 Designing classroom assessment: a) purpose b) criteria c) grading d) practicality e) reliability f) validity g) impact on learning and instruction

Assessment techniques: Teacher observation Learner profiles Interviews/Conferences/Questionnaires Progress cards Journals Reading logs Project work Dramatization Self-assessment Peer-assessment Portfolios

Teacher observation What kinds of student performance can be usually observed?

Observation Sentence – level oral production skills (pronunciation, stress, grammatical features, vocabulary) Discourse – level skills (e.g. in speaking- turn-taking, in writing- register, cohesion, coherence, etc) Evidence of listening comprehension Evidence of learning styles and strategies, etc.

Journals/logs ‘A journal is a log (or ‘account’) of one’s thoughts, feelings, reactions, assessments, ideas, or progress toward goals, usually written with little attention to structure, form, or correctness’ H. Brown ‘Language assessment: principles and practice’, Longman, 2004, p.260

The Listening Log is a variation on a journal (Nunan, D, 2004:157) in which learners record listening experiences outside class (e.g. movies, TV shows or serials, radio shows, etc) and reflect on them. Nunan, D. (2004) Task-based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,p.157

Guidelines for using journals/logs as assessment instruments Introduce students to the concept of journal writing State the objectives Give guidelines what to focus on Specify the criteria for assessing logs Provide feedback Designate timeframes and schedules for review Provide formative, washback - giving final comments H. Brown ‘Language assessment: principles and practice’, Longman, 2004, pp.262-264

Interviews/conferences Conferences. ‘This format typically involves the student visiting the teacher’s office, usually by appointment, to discuss a particular piece of work or learning process, or both’ J.D.Brown and T.Hudson (2002) ‘ Criterion-referenced language testing’ Cambridge University Press, ,78

Conferences. Advantages: ‘Can help students understand learning- processes and learning strategies; help ss develop better self- images; teachers can elicit specific skills or tasks that need review; can be used to inform, observe, mold, and gather information about students’ Ibid, p.79

Conferences. Disadvantages: Requires a lot of time; difficult to use for grading purposes; typically not rated or scored at all. Ibid, p.79

Questions that may be useful to pose in a conference What did you like about this work? What do you think you did well? How does it show improvement from previous work? Are there things about this work you do not like? Are there things you would like to improve? …. Genesee, F. and Upshur, J.” Classroom-based evaluation in second language education”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1996),p.110

Stages of Project Work Stimulus (initial discussion of the idea) Definition of the project objective Practice of language skills Design of written materials Group activities Collating information Organization of material Final presentation Ian Tudor (1996)“Learner-centerdness as language education” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.220

Drama in the classroom What can be assessed? Watch a video sequence and assess the students

Sample Self-Assessment for Student-in-Role Assess your performance in-role by giving yourself a number from 1 to 4 for each of these characteristics of role playing 1 = not very much 2 = at least half of the time 3 = more than half of the time 4 = almost all the time When I was in-role... I spoke using my character’s voice and vocabulary. 1 2 3 4 I moved the way my character would move. 1 2 3 4 I listened carefully to what other students were saying so that I could maintain the storyline when I responded. 1 2 3 4 I supported the other students by staying focused and on task. 1 2 3 4 I contributed to the dialogue which took place. 1 2 3 4 I was considerate of others and moved in a safe way. 1 2 3 4 Something I think I did well in this role-play was: Something I would like to work on next time we do a role-play is: The part I like best about this role-play was: Something I didn’t expect was: Taken from ‘C.King, E.MacGillivary’The Arts: a Support for Reading’’

37 Limitations of classroom assessment Lack of teacher education (Hamp-Lyons, 1996) only recent graduates have had any formal training in alternative assessment Does not actually translate into a score how does a ‘band’ or single digit convert? Wide variability among tasks makes it difficult to generalize results Control is out of the hands of the testers potential threat to reliability (Christine Coombe ‘Alternative assessment’)

38 More Limitations Difficult to standardize tasks & testing conditions amount of T support time allowed on drafts use of external sources Evaluation criteria and scoring standards are difficult to develop and implement very labor intensive and costly Scoring provides a dilemma achieving inter-rater reliability requires training more time consuming (ibid)