Teaching for Success - Week 4 Assessing Learning

Assessment includes the day to day monitoring and evaluation of learning in class. If we need to know how much of the learning objectives have been achieved, we need to go for assessment. Assessment is also important to promote the students, to grade the students, and to give them feedback as well.

Assessment Terminology

Formative assessment	This is the use of assessment to give the learner and the teacher information about how well something has been learnt so that they can decide what to do next. It normally occurs during a course, and informs the teaching that follows. This can also be thought of as assessment for learning
Summative assessment	This evaluates a learner’s progress up to a certain point and provides a summary of where they are. Tests may be conducted at the end of year or the end of a course, for example. This is also known as assessment of learning
Continuous assessment	This means assessing aspects of learners’ language throughout their course and then producing a final evaluation result from these assessments. It might include a combination of formative and summative assessment.
Self-assessment	Learners are encouraged to assess their own progress, using specific criteria, which could include band descriptors such as those of the Common European Framework.
Peer assessment	Learners are encouraged to assess each other, against specific criteria.

Useful link

Analysing Test Questions

As teachers, we may use ready-made tests, or we may have to produce them ourselves. Whatever the case, it is useful to ensure that the tests we use are fit for purpose.

Below are some questions you could consider when evaluating a test:
What does it test?
Is it appropriate to my learners’ level/age/culture?
Can I do it?
Are there any special measures I need to ensure inclusivity?
Is there more than one possible answer?
How will I mark it?
How long will it take the learners to do?
How long will it take me to mark?
How will I give this a grade/marks?
How will I give feedback?

Getting Feedback

It is often useful to gather information about how well learners have understood a lesson. This could be done in a number of ways:
- Observing learners speaking, writing or doing other activities during the lesson, or collecting examples of learners’ work to assess after the lesson.
- Asking specific questions to check understanding of a particular language point.
- Asking learners to show evidence of their learning by creating a mind map, poster or diagram.
- Asking learners for feedback based on the lesson aims: ticking ‘can do’ statements, evaluating how confident they feel about a particular language skill or grammar point as a result of the lesson, or you could ask for more open-ended feedback (Plickers).

Different ways to gather speaking samples from learners

Digital tools: mobile phones, Vocaroo, sound recorder on PC, digital/other recording device
Speaking tasks: Group discussion, problem solving, role play, describe a picture, tell a story, presentations

Assessment criteria and feedback on speaking

- Band descriptors
Band descriptors are used in many international English speaking proficiency exams, such as IELTS, TOEFL and the Cambridge exams suite. These are descriptions of specific criteria that learners should display in order to be awarded a certain band.
- Global assessment
Another way to assess speaking is to give a global assessment of the learner’s overall performance. This may be in the form of a grade, mark or comment.
- Giving feedback about speaking
In terms of language development, it is useful to give specific feedback to learners so that they know where they can develop further.

Useful Links

assessing learning
inclusive assessment practices
short video introduction to the CEFR
Council of Europe speaking assessment criteria (pdf).
Council of Europe Tools for Language Teaching (pdf).
An article about evaluating speaking.
An article about providing feedback as formative assessment.
lower stakes assessment
videos about assessing learning from Reading University