Assessment Criteria in FLT

Duration: Two hours

Name:Zholdasova Symbat

Instructions

(i) Please answer the questions in your own words not the words in the book or
other sources. You need to paraphrase. You will be penalized for using
wording directly from the book or other sources.
(ii) You are not allowed to use laptop or mobile phone during the exam.
(iii) You may use the textbook and/or paper copies of Power point slides from class
sessions or other handouts
(iv) Please write clearly or type in the space provided under each question.
(v) You must answer all the questions.

1. Define the terms ‘testing’ and ‘assessment’ and compare them.

5 points
Testing-is a way of checking learner's knowledge or ability of understanding the topic or unit or
new material . And it defines what level of knowledge or skill has been acquired students.
Assessment- is the way of evaluating,judging student's achievements at the end of the lesson, unit
or term by putting score, sometimes by giving a feedback.
Testing and assessment are used in education permutably,but they take different places and do
mean totally different,as you read. A test is a “product” that measures a particular behavior or set of
objectives. Meanwhile assessment is seen as a procedure instead of a product.
2. Define five different types and purposes of language tests. Which ones do you apply in your
class and why? Give relevant examples.
There are five types of language test. They are: achievement, diagnostic, placement, proficiency
and aptitude. And the purpose of a language test is to determine a person’s knowledge and/or ability
in the language and to discriminate that person’s ability from that of others.
In my own practice I use most of these types of tests. But now I want to mention one of
them. Placement test is a test usually given to a student entering an educational institution to
determine specific knowledge or proficiency in various subjects for the purpose of assignment to
appropriate courses or classes. The entrance test is a necessary and widely used and common type of
test. Today teachers use them in educational systems at school, college and also higher education
places. Because a placement test is an invaluable benefit contributing to the students’ academic
success. Firstly, it gives students a reliable standardised measurement of their language skills.
Secondly, as it is based on the CEFR, it is an accurate reflection of classroom expectations. Thus, the
student can effectively be placed in a productive learning environment. Thirdly, the placement test is
in essence a truncated certificate or proficiency test, using the same measurement system and the
same methodology.
When I worked as a teacher at an educational center, I often used placement test. When I accepted
students for the first time, I took a placement test from them and found out what levels and what

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skills they had advanced. And knowing the progress of the students worked further on academic
skills.. And at the end of each part and after the end of each level, a test was also taken to find out
their academic success. This helped me to work with the mistakes and shortcomings of the students.

3. What are the principles of assessment? Explain why it is important to follow them.
10 points

There are 5 principles of assessment:

 Practicality
 Reliability
 Validity
 Authenticity
 Washback
And I think that it is vital to use assessment principles and events that respect and support learners of
diverse backgrounds, experiences and needs. This builds learner confidence and self-assurance in the
learning and assessment processes. That’s why preferably,it will be good when we follow these them.
4. Define Summative and formative assessment and give your examples. Provide examples from
your own experience as a teacher or as a learner?
Evaluation of students' progress is one of the urgent problems in the learning process.
And now for this he pays special attention within the walls of the school. Therefore, we can consider
formative assessment to be the most key and important type of assessment.
Formative assessment is a sort of evaluation that is done during regular class activities
and it is an effective tool that allows you to increase the motivation of students to learn, allows you to
see the progress of each student, taking into account his age and individual characteristics. Formative
assessment is also important for both students and teachers. The student sets learning goals for
himself, determines solutions and evaluates his own progress, plans further steps under the guidance
of the teacher. Formative assessment means being close to the student and leading him to success and
allows the teacher to objectively assess the current level assimilation of knowledge, diagnose
insufficient assimilation of educational material and helps to improve the further learning process.
Summative assessments are any method of evaluation performed at the end of a unit or
term, allowing teachers to measure a students' understanding against standardised criteria.. The most
obvious benefit of summative assessments is that they give definitive grades, this means that both the
teacher and the student know exactly what level they are working at. This grade can have other uses
such as deciding the set or class that child will go into in the following academic year, or with
summative assessments like GCSEs and A-Levels, they can help students get jobs or places at
university.
As a teacher, I also use formative assessment in every lesson. This gives me a chance to
evaluate every success and achievement of my students in every lesson. But first, I will give them the
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opportunity to evaluate their knowledge, the work of classmates, it is not supposed to give marks,
constructive feedback is given. This helps them evaluate themselves and their classmates by giving
them feedback. And then after them I will give them my assessment for today's work of the students.
It is much better and more profitable than other assessments. I think that the use of new approaches in
assessing student achievement helps to increase motivation of students for learning, the formation of
skills of educational independence,responsibility for their own learning.
5. What are test specifications and why do you need them?
 Written document;
 A set of instructions;
 Related to test objectives;
 Generative & explanatory in nature;
 Indicates a rationale of the test;
 Tell us the Nuts & Bolts of phrasing the test;
 Build stronger Validity of the test;
Include:
 -The purpose of the test;
 -General description (GD);
 -Test or students’ level;
 -A list of language skills/elements to be tested;
 -Types & numbers of tasks & prompts;
 -Time, number of answers or words;
 -Test/text types & length;
 -Test sample
 -Expected response(s);
 -Grading criteria & rubrics;
6. What are the stages of designing listening and reading tests. What kind of tasks do you use
in each stage of designing them?
To design a test/assessment specifications/instructions for the assigned stage of the listening
activity we did:
 Pre-listening;
 While-listening;
 Post-listening;
 Reaction to listening
Categorize the suggested assessment types for each stage of the reading lesson:
 Pre-reading;
 While- reading;

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  Post- reading;
 Reaction to reading

Listening & Reading

• Use only one type of testing technique (e.g. matching, short-answer questions, true/false/not
stated, information transfer, gap-filling, etc.)
• The task must include as many items as the text supports (minimum 5 items)
• Provide an answer key
• Provide clear instructions and indicate the scoring of the items
• Design the layout carefully (e.g. do not forget to provide space for the answers)
• Do not edit the text for content but feel free to make formal changes to suit the task (e.g. take
out words/clauses/sentences when designing a matching task)
• Choose your target CEFR level and indicate it clearly
I can use following types of tasks for Reading:
 Reading aloud
 Summarizing
 Written response
 Responding
 Multiple-choice
 Note-taking
 Picture-cues items
 Outlining
 Matching tasks
 Ordering
 Gap-filling tasks
 Editing
 Short-answer tasks
 Cloze tasks
 Scanning
 Skimming tasks
I can use following types of tasks for Listening:
 Multiple-choice or performance test
 Filling in a chart
 Listening cloze
 Completing table/map/diagram
 Short-answer questions

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  Gap-filling
 Information transfer
 Note-taking
 Cloze (Partial dictation)
 Transcription
 Debating
 Writing a brief report/summary

7. Define holistic and analytic scales for assessing productive skills. Discuss advantages and
disadvantages of each scale.
Holistic rubrics
single criteria rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess participants' overall achievement on an
activity or item based on predefined achievement levels;
performance descriptions are written in paragraphs and usually in full sentences.
Advantages of Holistic Rubrics
 Emphasis on what the learner is able to demonstrate, rather than what s/he cannot do.
 Saves time by minimizing the number of decisions raters make.
 Can be applied consistently by trained raters increasing reliability.
Disadvantages of Holistic Rubrics
 Does not provide specific feedback for improvement.
 When student work is at varying levels spanning the criteria points it can be difficult to
select the single best description.
 Criteria cannot be weighted.

Analytic rubrics
two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows.
Allows you to assess participants' achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric.
You can assign different weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall
achievement by totaling the criteria;
written in a table form.
Advantages of Analytic Rubrics
 Provide useful feedback on areas of strength and weakness.
 Criterion can be weighted to reflect the relative importance of each dimension.
Disadvantages of Analytic Rubrics
 Takes more time to create and use than a holistic rubric.
 Unless each point for each criterion is well-defined raters may not arrive at the same score

8. Discuss types of feedback you learned in the classroom. Which ones do you use in your class?
Give relevant examples from your experience.
Feedback is information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of
a system parameter which is used to alter the gap in some way. Types of Feedback:
 Motivational
 Evaluative
 Descriptive
 Actionable
As a teacher,in classroom I use these all types of feedback during the lesson. Sometimes I support
my students,sometimes I indicate them or sometimes I improve their learning.But mostly I use
evaluative feedback by judging student’s achievement with score/grade. My students motivated by
listening their grade. When one student gets a good mark, another student with a low mark next

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 time tries to get the same good mark as the others. And a student with a good grade tries not to
relax further.
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9. The following writing task was given to year 1 business students at a university.
These days many people prefer to online dating to traditional face-to-face one. What’s your
view? Which one do you prefer?
Write an essay.
What do you think of the task? Explain your view drawing on your reading. Would you set this task as
it is or would you modify? Why?

The modern world is changing everything in our society. Both adults and
small ones too. They have become more closed, passive and backward in
communication. Everything has now become much simpler and easier due to new
technologies. It is a global problem in our society. And to know the thoughts and
ideas of students about this topic following writing task is needed. Because as we
know, teenagers uses in their daily life online dating and it became major them
than others. As this topic is a broader problem today’s century, I set this task for
my students beside business writing tasks. They should share with their ideas in a
different topics.

10. A foreign translation company has entered the Kazakhstani market. They would like to
hire 10 employees. They have asked you, as a language expert, to help them with examining their
candidates’ English languages skills.
Explain what sort of assessment tasks (Type of test) you would set to assess candidates’ English
language skills. Provide examples of the tasks.
It would be better if I gave them a placement test. Because with these tests I can find out at what
level they really are. And I can also give them a diagnostic test to test that helps the employees identify
problems that they have with the language.

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