PELE : Designing and Implementing Assessment

Effective assessment requires a clearly defined purpose. Thus, we must ask

ourselves several important questions:

• What am I trying to assess?

• What do my pupils need to know?
• What prerequisite skills do my pupils need to have?
• At what level do my pupils need to perform?
• Will the same level of performance be required of all my pupils?
• What type of knowledge is being assessed: reasoning, memory, or
process (Stiggins, 1994)?

By considering the above issues, we can decide what type of activity best suits
our assessment needs. After we have defined the purpose of the assessment,
we can decide what activity will serve our purpose and what tasks should be
included in it. There are some things that we must take into account before we
choose the activity: time constraints, availability of resources in the classroom,
and how much data is necessary in order to make an informed decision about
the quality of a student's performance (Brualdi, 2002).

Assessment researchers distinguish between two types of performance-based

assessment activities that can be implemented in the classroom: informal and
formal (Airasian, 1991; Popham, 1995; Stiggins, 1994). When a student is being
informally assessed, the student does not know that the assessment is taking
place. As an EFL teacher, we probably use informal performance assessments
quite frequently. Besides assessing the linguistic aspects of our pupils' learning
we may use informal assessment to assess extra-linguistic aspects of our
pupils' learning as well. One example of assessing in this manner is assessing
how pupils interact and cooperate (Stiggins, 1994). Another example is
assessing a pupil's typical behavior or work habits.

When a student's performance is formally assessed, we may either have the

student perform a task or complete a project. We can either observe the student
as he/she performs specific tasks (formative assessment) or assess the quality
of end products (summative assessment). A student who is being formally
assessed should be appropriately informed about it.

SUMMARY:

 Types of assessment: FORMAL - INFORMAL

FORMAL ASSESSMENT: FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT (assessment of process

and task) / SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT (assessment of end product)