Unit 22 · Choosing assessment activities

Assessment means collecting information about learners’ performance, progress or attitudes in order to make judgements about their learning, formally through tests and examinations or informally by monitoring and observing learners during ordinary classroom activities. When planning assessment we first think about our reasons for assessing, then decide when and how often to assess and which methods to use.

◆How do we choose assessment activities?

AssessmentTo discover, judge, or form an opinion on learners’ ability, achievement, proficiency or progress either formally or informally. click to keep open · see glossary means collecting information about learners’ performance, progress or attitudes in order to make judgements about their learning. We may choose to assessTo discover, judge, or form an opinion on learners’ ability, achievement, proficiency or progress either formally or informally. click to keep open · see glossary formally (through tests and examinations) or informally. We can carry out informal assessmentWhen a teacher decides whether a learner is doing well or not, or whether a course is successful or not, by evaluating learners by thinking about their strengths and weaknesses and thinking about their progress rather than setting a test or writing an official… click to keep open · see glossary during a lesson by monitoring (i.e. listening carefully) and observing learners while they are doing ordinary classroom activities. To get other information about the progress of individual learners, we can carry out formal assessmentWhen a teacher assesses learners and then gives them a formal report or grade, to say how successful or unsuccessful they have been See informal assessment. click to keep open · see glossary (e.g. a class test).

When planning assessment, we need to think first about our reasons for assessing learners. Then we can decide when and how often to assess them, and choose what methods of assessment we are going to use.

◆Key concepts

In Unit 18 we looked at informal and formal assessment. We can summariseTo take out the main points of a long text, and rewrite or retell them in a short, clear way. Learners preparing to study at university need to practise summarising skills. click to keep open · see glossary the differences between these two kinds of assessment under the headings of assessment tasks, purpose and marking:

◆Assessment activities

Look at these examples of formal assessment activities. What areas of language knowledge and/or skillsThe four language skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. See develop skills, subskills, receptive skills, productive skills. click to keep open · see glossary can we assess with the activities? Which activities produce the most real-life use of language? Which activities are easier or more difficult to mark?

◆Advantages and disadvantages of assessment activities

Every assessment activity has advantages and disadvantages. For this reason a good formal test includes a varietyTo introduce different things such as different types of activities or tasks, language skills, interaction patterns, pacing or timing into a lesson. Teachers try to include variety in their lessons, so that learners stay interested. click to keep open · see glossary of assessment activities. For example, activities such as multiple-choice or true/false, which test single items, are easy to mark and give us clear information about specificInvolving one particular thing or one type of thing; e.g. teachers might talk about teaching a specific language point. This means that they are teaching one particular language point, e.g. If I were you, I’d … for giving advice. click to keep open · see glossary areas of the learners’ language knowledge. However, such activities, with a single focus, do not tell us anything about the learners’ ability to produce longer samples of language. By contrast, activities such as interviews or summary writing can give us much more information about learners’ language knowledge or their ability to use the language. But because these activities test so many things at the same time, it may be difficult for us to focus on particular areas of a learner’s performance.

Single-focus activities (e.g. multiple-choice, true/false) are very practical to design and can give us reliable results, but they usually test knowledge about rather than use of language, and so are rather unrealistic, and can have a negative effect on the way we teach. Activities that require learners to produce whole texts or longer samples of spoken language, on the other hand, are far less practical to mark and the results may not be very reliable. But they enable learners to produce language which is very similar to the language they need to produce in the real world.

Single-focus activities are very useful for assessing receptive skillsIn language teaching we talk about the four skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing. Reading and listening are receptive skills because learners receive language; they do not have to produce language. See productive skills. Page 37 of 57 Recycle verb … click to keep open · see glossary, where we want to check that learners have understood a text. We can best assess productive skillsIn language teaching we talk about the four skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing. Speaking and writing are productive skills because learners produce language. Reading and listening and not productive skills. See receptive skills. click to keep open · see glossary with extended activities (e.g. summary writing, interview). Although these are less practical to mark, they have the advantage of putting learners in a situation where they have to use the language in the same way as in everyday life.

As mentioned in Unit 18, when we decide between subjective and objective test types, there are advantages and disadvantages to consider. The solutionAn answer to a problem. When teachers are planning a lesson, they think about what their learners might find difficult about the lesson (anticipated problems) and they think about how they can solve those problems. Lesson plans include anticipated problems and… click to keep open · see glossary is often to use both types of activity.

◆Portfolio assessment and continuous assessment

The formal assessment activities discussed above are used to assess learners on a single occasion, like a photograph. We can use an informal assessment activity, continuous assessmentA type of assessment which does not involve a final examination. Some or all of the work that learners do during a course is marked by the teacher on a regular basis and these marks go into the calculation of the final grade given to learners. Continuous asses… click to keep open · see glossary or a portfolioA collection of work that a learner uses to show what he/she has done during a particular course. A purposeful document, regularly added to, that may be part of continuous assessment. See portfolio assessment. click to keep open · see glossary, to assess students over time, more like a film. A portfolio can contain all of the student’s work for a period of time, or just a selection of the work. Sometimes it will also include some kind of evaluation written by the student of his/her own work. By looking at a student’s portfolio we can assess their progress over a longer period of time. Portfolios can be used both for assessment by the teacher and for self-assessmentSee assessment. click to keep open · see glossary. There are a number of advantages to portfolio assessment:

• Portfolios are easy to integrate into teaching and learning, i.e. they contain work that learners do as part of their normal classroom programme.
• Portfolios are inclusive, i.e. they include the whole range of learners’ work, not just a few test tasks.
• Portfolios are informative, i.e. they provide a wide range of useful information for teachers, learners and parents, as they focus on productive and receptive skills, and they show what learners can do with the language in the classroom and outside the classroom, not just in test situations.
• Portfolios are developmental, i.e. assessment is continuous rather than being a single event, so they show how learning is progressing, not just what the learner can do on one particular day.
• Portfolios can also be reflective, when the owner of the portfolio (i.e. the student) writes some comments about the work, which are included as part of the portfolio.

Portfolios can also have disadvantages: for example, the teacher may have a large amount of marking at any one time and much of the marking may be quite subjective. Continuous assessment, in which each piece of work that the student gives in throughout the term contributes to a final mark, can overcome the problem of having lots of marking to do at one time.

◆Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important for you.

• When we use subjective tasks, such as oral interviews, letters and essays, to get information about learners’ general ability to use spoken and written language, we can help make the marking of these tests more reliable by using assessment criteriaThe qualities against which a learner’s performance is judged for assessment. For example, assessment criteria for judging learners’ writing may be: accuracy of grammar, use of vocabulary, spelling and punctuation, organisation of ideas. click to keep open · see glossary (see Unit 18).
• When we prepare a class test, it is important to test the main things we have taught, and to include a number of different tasks, so that we get a good picture of our learners’ strengths and weaknesses.
• For young learners, we need to choose assessment tasks very carefully, making sure that the tasks are familiar and not too difficult, too abstractConnected to thoughts and ideas rather than real objects, situations or actions. A text can be abstract and we use abstract words to express things like thoughts (e.g. believe), feelings (e.g. love) or ideas (e.g. beauty). Words for things that cannot be seen … click to keep open · see glossary or too long.
• The amount and type of informal assessment we do depend on a number of things:
  – the size of the class
  – the age of the learners (informal assessment is especially useful for young learners for whom formal test tasks are often too abstract)
  – the language knowledge, behaviours or skills we want to assess
  – the frequency of formal tests or examinations.
• It is important in informal assessment for learners to know that we are assessing them, and to know how and when we are doing it.
• To carry out informal assessment of productive skills in larger classes, we probably need to assess small numbers of learners in different lessons. We can observe the class or particular students and record our opinions on a record sheet or fill in a checklist. We need to plan informal assessment and think about how we can organise assessment activities as part of our teaching.
• We can carry out informal assessment of receptive skills by checking learners’ answers to reading or listening tasks, and taking notes on their performance.
• We can assess learners’ grammatical and lexical knowledge informally by using language games or quizzes, or by monitoring practice activities and making a note of frequent errors. We can then give feedback to individuals or to the whole class, or return to the problems later in a revision lesson.
• We may also wish to assess other things such as motivationMotivation is the thoughts and feelings which make us want to and continue to want to do something and which turn our wishes into action. click to keep open · see glossary and effort. We can do this by observation and also by talking to learners about their learning.
• It is important to keep records of informal assessment, especially in larger classes, so that we have the information we need to report or give feedback on our learners’ progress. These records can be quite simple, with headings (for example) for grammar, vocabulary, language skills, motivation and general progress against each learner’s name. When completed, they provide the teacher with a useful learner profileSee class, learner profile. click to keep open · see glossary.

✎Follow-up activity

💡Reflect

🔍Discovery activities

✎TKT practice tasks

These multiple-choice tasks are exactly as in the book, but interactive: pick your answers, check your score, and retry anytime. The scoring uses the official answer key from the back of the book.

📖Glossary terms in this unit

Key terms highlighted in this unit — study them on the flashcards page.