1. Compare testing, assessment, and evaluation. Discriminate between the terms.

2. Talk about the principles of language assessment: ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘what’ of assessment.
3. Outline the types of assessment. Overall review.
4. Compare formative and summative assessment; subjective and objective assessment.
5. Describe the peculiarities of self - assessment and peer-assessment. Outline the self-assessment
tools.
6. Describe counseling as a self-assessment tool. Give examples.
7. Talk about continuous assessment and diagnostic assessment. Give examples.
8. Chraracterize tests as a form of assessment. Talk about different types of tests.
9. Compare norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests. Talk about advantages and
disadvantages of testing.
10. Give an overview of the main test parameters necessary for the effective use of testing
procedures.
11. Define validity, its types and its necessity for the assessment procedures..
12. Define reliability, its types and necessity for the assessment procedures.
13. Define practicality and talk about it the context of administering tests.
14. Outline the effects of backwash and spin off. Compare positive and negative backwash effects.
15. Characterize micro and macro skills of reading and listening and talk about the importance of
this distinction for the assessment. Give examples to illustrate your point of view.
16. Characterize micro and macro skills of writing and speaking and talk about the importance of
this distinction for the assessment. Give examples to illustrate your point of view.
17. Talk about assessing speaking. Outline speaking sub-skills, the types of speaking performance
(imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, extensive), and the common assessment tasks.
18. Talk about assessing writing: writing sub-skills, the types of writing performance (imitative,
intensive, responsive, extensive) and the tasks for assessment.
19. Compare analytic and holistic scales as tools to assess productive skills.
20. Talk about assessing reading: reading sub-skills and possible assessment tasks.
21. Talk about assessing listening: listening sub-skills, types of listening performance (intensive,
responsive, selective, extensive) and types of assessment tasks.
22. Talk about psychological assessment and the ways to perform it in the classroom.
23. Outline the role of portfolios and e-portfolios as a method of assessment.
24. Describe portfolio as a self-assessment and self-reflection tool for teachers in the course of their
professional development.

1)Compare testing, assessment, and evaluation. Discriminate between

the terms.

Evaluation’s main aim is to determine whether the goals and objectives of a

course have been achieved.
Evaluation refers to curriculum evaluation or materials evaluation, or both.
The main purpose of curriculum evaluation is to determine whether the goals and
objectives of a course have been achieved, or whether the course meets externally
imposed standards, such as those set by an educational authority—>it’s the not
about the learner, is about the course, materials
Assessment refers to the different ways of collecting information about a learner’s
progress and achievement.
Assessment may include informal procedures such as those carried out by the
teacher in the course of a lesson. It may take place at certain key points in a course,
such as half-way through or at the end, or it may be ongoing, in which case it is
known as continuous assessment.

Testing is a form of assessment, where the aim is to determine what the learner
knows, compared with teaching, which refers to the imparting of or sharing of (in
our context) linguistic knowledge.
Testing—procedure
Test-technique

In the educational context, the verb ‘to evaluate’ often collocates with terms
such as:

 the effectiveness of an educational system,

 a program,
 a course,
 instruction,
 a curriculum.
According to Weiss (1972), evaluation refers to the systematic gathering of
information for the purpose of making decisions. It is not concerned with the
assessment of the performance of an individual, but rather with forming an
idea of the curriculum and making a judgment about it. This judgment is made
based on some kind of criteria and evidence. The purpose is to make
decisions about the worth of instruction, a course, or even the whole
curriculum. Evaluation is thus larger and may include an analysis of all the
aspects of the educational system.

According to Le Grange & Reddy, (1998, p.3)

Assessment occurs when judgments are made about a learner’s performance, and
entails gathering and organizing information about learners in order to make
decisions and judgments about their learning.”
Assessment is thus the process of collecting information about learners using
different methods or tools (e.g. tests, quizzes, portfolios, etc).

Educators assess their students for a variety of purposes:

 To evaluate learners’ educational needs,

 To diagnose students’ academic readiness,
 To measure their progress in a course,
 To measure skill acquisition.
There are different types of assessment:

 Formative assessment:
It is process-oriented and is also referred to as ‘assessment for Learning’. It is an
ongoing process to monitor learning, the aim of which is to provide feedback to
improve teachers
instruction methods and
improve students
learning.
 Summative assessment:
It is product-oriented
and is often referred to
as ‘Assessment of
Learning’. It is used to
measure student learning
progress and
achievement at the end
of a specific
instructional period.
 Alternative assessment:
It is also referred to as
authentic or performance assessment. It is an alternative to traditional assessment
that relies only on standardized tests and exams. It requires students to do tasks
such as presentations, case studies, portfolios, simulations, reports, etc.  Instead of
measuring what students know, alternative assessment focuses on what students
can do with this knowledge.
 Simply put, a test refers to a tool,
technique or a method that is
intended to measure students
knowledge or their ability to
complete a particular task. In this
sense, testing can be considered
as a form of assessment. Tests
should meet some basic
requirements, such as validity and
reliability.
 Validity refers to the extent to which a
test measures what it is supposed to
measure.
 Reliability refers to the consistency of test scores when administered on different
occasions.

There are different types of tests:

 Placement tests: It is designed to help educators place a student into a particular

level or section of a language curriculum or school
 Diagnostic tests: they help teachers and learners to identify strengths and
weaknesses.
 Proficiency tests: they measure a learner’s level of language.
 Achievement tests: they are intended to measure the skills and knowledge learned
after some kind of instruction.

2)Talk about the principles of language assessment: ‘when’, ‘why’,

‘what’ of assessment.

When do we assess?
Assessment may take place before a language course begins, at the begging of the
course, during the course on specific occasions or on an on-going basis, or at the
end. It may also take place afterwards.

Why do we assess?
This is obviously linked to “when”. It may be done in order to place the learner or
to advise them on what kind of course or work they should be doing. It may be
diagnostic in nature, in order to analyze the learners’ needs and decide what to
teach, to plan the course and decide on appropriate learning activities. It may be to
gauge progress during the course or, at the end of course, it may be to assess
whether the student has learnt what was taught in the course. Or we may want to
assess their language proficiency in general, for example to advise them on
whether they are ready to do a public exam. These differ reasons for assessment of
course overlap.
What do we assess?
• Knowledge of lexis or grammar
• Their ability in the four skills
• Their ability to carry out certain kinds of real-life tasks which may involve
different language knowledge and skills
• Their progress
• Their behavior
• Their participation
• Their attitude
• Their suitability for doing a particular job or course
Lexis
—ability to spell words correctly (e.g. a dictation)
—selecting the most appropriate word in a given context (e.g. 4-option multiple
choice)
—knowledge of word formation (e.g. transform a base word and use it in its
appropriate form or complete a sentence)
—ability to use appropriate vocabulary in a given context (e.g. close test—
complete gaps with no options to choose from)
Listening
—ability to extract key information from a text (e.g. sent Ex which the learner has
to decide are true or false according to the text)
—Ability to understand detailed information (e.g. complete sentences with
information heard on the recording)
—ability to ascertain
attitudes and
relationships between
people (e.g. matching
speakers’ comments to
the correct speaker

3)Outline the
types of
assessment.
Overall review.
Teacher, peer, student himself, administrators, examinations

How can the students be assessed?

1. Formal/informal assessment
• Formal assessment—the grade
Formal assessment —ss are assessed under strict test conditions, where the
individual student cannon communicate with other, where they have to complete
exam tasks in a specific time and are allowed no other. Eternal, ss know the date,
they can’t use phones, etc

• Informal—just give feedback, during the class, more relaxed

Informal test is carried out during a lesson where students may be unaware that
they being assessed by the teacher. As they work together to complete a task, the
teacher may observe how they go about it, and how they arrive at their answers.
2. Continuous assessment
for the whole semester ongoing
Continuous assessment —the teacher collects in the answers at the end of the
activity to join other recorded marks, which, when viewed together, will help
forms full picture of the student’s progress in a particular skill or language point,
management of a task or behavior.

3. Self-assessment
4. Peer-assessment
5. Discrete point or discrete item test
you test one specific element —>to test only present perfect
Discrete point or discrete item test—we may wish to provide to see how well our
students have understood and can apply their knowledge of specific items of
language, for example the present perfect or ways of making suggestions, end of
unit tests in coursebooks commonly assess progress in this way.

Discrete item (or discrete point) tests are tests which test one element of language at a time. For
example, the following multiple choice item tests only the learner's knowledge of the correct past form
of the verb sing : 

14.    When I was a child I .......... in a choir.

          a. sing   b. singed   c. song    d. sung    e. sang

They have the advantages of often being practical to administer and mark, and  objective  in terms of
marking. However, they show only the learners ability to recognise or produce individual items - not
how s/he would use the language in actual communication. In other words, they are
inevitably indirect tests - they provide evidence of the learners' ability to recognise or produce certain
specific elements of the language, but do not demonstrate how  they might actually use them (or
anything else) in communication. Learners’ abilities are inferred rather than demonstrated.

Integrative tests, on the other hand, may be either direct or indirect. The use of the
term integrative indicates that they test more than one skill and/or item of knowledge at a time.
Dictation is an integrative test, because it involves listening skills, writing skills, recognition  of specific
language items, grammar (eg in order to distinguish whether /əv/ should be written as have or of) and
so on. Dictation is still, however, an indirect test,

Many integrative tests, on the other hand, are often also direct tests - they ask the learner to
demonstrate their ability to perform a specific "real life" communicative task by asking them to
actually do it. They therefore  demonstrate the learners's ability to use the language in actual
communication.

6. Integrative test—reading+ listening+ grammar —test several elements.

Integrative test involves the combination of various language elements in the
completion of a task. Examples of this are writing a composition, or carrying out a
collaborative oral task with other learners.
7. Direct and indirect testing
• Direct—they listen to check the listening
Direct test—we may prefer to set a gap-fill or multiple-choice exercise focusing
on the form.
• Indirect—test the element (grammar) but we give an essay and through the
writing we check grammar —>ss don’t know what you test
Indirect test— we could ask our ss to write a discursive composition and we
might use this as a means to assess their control and use of linkers of contrast and
addition

4)Compare formative and summative assessment; subjective and

objective assessment.

Formative assessment is more diagnostic than evaluative. The goal of formative

assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be
used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their
learning. More specifically, formative assessments help students identify their
strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work, and it allows educators
to improve and adjust their teaching methods and for students to improve their
learning.
Examples:
 Homework
 1-3sentenes on main points of a lecture
 2-3 question quiz on homework assignments
 Quick concept map or chart
 Checking for understanding

Summative assessment is usually carried out at the conclusion of a unit/units of

instruction, activity or plan, in order to assess acquired knowledge and skills at the
particular point in time. It usually serves the purpose the purpose of giving a grade
or marking a judgment about the students’ achievements in the course.
Examples:
 Midterm/ final examination
 Thesis
 Final essays
 Creative portfolio
 Final project
 Standardized test SATs, GCSEs, and A-levels
Formative assessment FOR Summative assessment OF
assessment as investigative tool confirmative tool of what ss know
(meeting the outcomes)
  A process  A single measurement
 During instruction  At the end of instruction
 Carried out by both teachers and  Designed and conducted by
students teachers
 Results used to adjust teaching  Results used to evaluate
and learning strategies by both students’ performance by
teachers and students teachers
 Assessment for learning  Assessment of learning
Assessment (either summative or formative) is often categorized as either
objective or subjective.
Objective assessment is a form of questioning which has a single correct answer
and answers are marked objectively. Objective assessment is well suited to the
increasingly popular computerized or online assessment format.
Examples:
 true/false answers
 multiple choice
 multiple-response
 matching questions

Subjective assessment is a form of questioning which may have more than one
correct answer (or more than one way of expressing the correct answer). A
subjective test is evaluated by giving an opinion. Subjective tests are more
challenging and expensive to prepare, administer and evaluate correctly, but they
can be more valid.

Examples:
 extended-response questions
 essays
 tests of writing ability are often subjective because they require an examiner
to give an opinion on the level of the writing.

In the classroom
Learners preparing for a subjective writing test, for example a letter of complaint,
need to think about their target audience, since they are being asked to produce a
whole text. Teachers can help them by emphasizing the importance of analyzing
the question and identifying the key points of content, register, and format.
5)Describe the peculiarities of self - assessment and peer-assessment.
Outline the self-assessment tools.
Self-assessment is where learners assess their language proficiency and evaluate
their performance, rather than a teacher doing it. The criteria must be carefully
decided upon beforehand.

Why is self-assessment a good idea?

Self-assessment
 boosts autonomy,
 lowers anxiety,
 promotes self-reflection,
 promotes study skills (learning to learn).

What problems do you anticipate?

 Lacking in criteria,
 poor habit,
 unclear goals,
 no motivation

How could these be solved?

Games, rewards, competitions, rubrics, counseling, report writing.

Self-assessment tools: learner diaries, records of learning, checklists, can-do

statements, assessing writing and speaking via scales, marking own work using
keys.
 Rubrics
 Scripts
 Journals
 Portfolios

Rubrics are an assessment tool which include two types of information:

 a list of criteria for assessing the important goals of the task

 a scale for grading the different levels of achievement in each of the
criteria, with a description for each qualitative level.
Using a rubric, students can compare their work against the criteria and assess the
standard they have reached.

Scripts consist of specific questions that are structured into a clear progression of
steps, to guide learners in how best to achieve a task. A script can help students to
assess whether they are on the right track to completing the task, and supports
them to adjust their learning behavior according to the directions of the scripted
questions.
 A learning journal is a place for students to reflect in writing about how their
learning is going, what they need help with, and the effectiveness of different
strategies for learning. Teachers need to provide regular, short periods of time for
writing in the journal, with guiding questions to support self-assessment.

A portfolio is a student-managed collection of work which demonstrates the

student’s learning and developing competence. Portfolios help students in self-
assessment skills such as understanding progress through record keeping,
documenting interests and strengths, and identifying choices and preferences.

Peer-assessment is a process when students grade their peers’ assignments or tests

based on a teacher’s benchmarks.

Why is peer-assessment a good idea?

 It helps students develop lifelong skills in assessing and providing feedback

to others;
 it enhances students’ active engagement with their studies.
 it helps to augment (enhance) learning as peer feedback invariably requires
explanation and justification, helps students understand what is considered
good work and why, thereby increasing their ability to achieve.

Examples:

 Discussion.
 Kinesthetic Assessments (Ss are acting – like labs)
 Learning & Response Logs. (aka mind map but more detailed)
 Observations.
 Online Quizzes & Polls.
6)Describe counseling as a self-assessment tool. Give examples.

Non-linguistic assessment.

Counseling sessions
• This term we use to refer to a meeting between a student, or it could be a group
of students, and the teacher to discuss their work, their objectives or assessment
results.
• This is clearly a way of involving the students in assessing their performance and
therefore encouraging them to take on responsibility for their learning. If done on
an individual basis it offers what may be quite a rare opportunity for the teacher
to find out about the student as an individual.
• As a result of a counseling session you may find yourself adjusting your
assessment of a student, perhaps because they tell you about smth that may have
affected their performance in a test or in class, for example.

Neuro-and psychodiagnostics of SEN

8. Cognitive and learning
9. Communication and interaction
10.Social, emotional and behavioral difficulties (SEBD)

Cognition and learning

• General learning difficulties
Students make slower progress that other students in the same age group across
all ares of learning (Down’s syndrome)
• Specific learning difficulties
Students may have problems in only one area of learning, e.g. reading and writing,
and no problems in other areas (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia)

Active Experimentation Reflective Observation

(Doing) (Watching)
Concrete Experience Accommodating (CE/AE) Diverging (CE/RO)
(Feeling)
Abstract Converging (AC/AE) Assimilating (AC/RO)
Conceptualization
(Thinking)
• Field dependence/ independence
• Holistic (overview) / surrealistic (details)
• Deep level (find the reason, ask questions, ect) / surface level processing
(intuitive, quicker)
• VAK
• Global / analytic

Coffield (Coffield et al.2004a, 2004b) set out to determine if any of these theories
could be used by educators, and suggest that classifying people into a fixed set of
characteristics may be counter-productive to learning.
• Visual learners like to see words or images
• Auditory learners like to hear words or sentences
• Kinesthetic emotional learners like to involve their feelings and emotions
• Kinesthetic motors learners like to do smth or touch smth

• Global learners like to have an overview

• Analytic learners like to have details

7)Talk about continuous assessment and diagnostic assessment. Give

examples.

Continuous assessment—teachers give grades for a number of assignments over a

period of time. A final grade is decided on a combination of assignments.

Techniques of continuous assessment: short tests, quizzes, projects, observations,

written/oral tasks

Purposes of continuous assessment:

Enhancing the student’s learning. This ensures that the student invests
considerable time in studying, preparing and building on academic skills. This also
ensures that the students are in constant touch with the curriculum and all than it
has to offer. This type of assessment is the key to building a competent and skilled
prospective workforce.
Improving the faculty’s teaching skills. The presses of continuous assessment
can ensure optimum performance of the teachers as well. Let’s say that a particular
curriculum only 1 has final examination for 100 marks at the ends of its course, in
this case, the students, as well as the teachers’ will ding the necessity to
consistently perform the end of the course, making it a great performance
improviser.
Improving the education and institutional assessment system. An education
system that understands the importance of comprehensive assessment is great. Not
only does this kind of system portray development but also shows how serious
they are when it comes to proving opportunities and student performance.

Diagnostic assessment, which is often referred to as pre-assessment, is designed

to test a learner’s knowledge BEFORE they begin their learning. That assessment
can also identify incorrect learning behaviors, misconceptions the learner may
have, and skill sets that need to be developed. At the end the course, the results can
be compared to the final summative assessments to see how far a learner has
progressed. A diagnostic assessment also gives you the opportunity to learn as
much as possible about your audience, so that you can create more meaningful and
memorable Learning experiences.

8)Chraracterize tests as a form of assessment. Talk about different

types of tests.

Testing is a form of assessment, where the aim is to determine what the learner
knows, compared with teaching, which refers to the imparting of or sharing of (in
our context) linguistic knowledge.
Testing—procedure
Test-technique

A progress / formative test

A progress / formative test is administered during the course. The test aims to
find out how well students have grasped what has been taught on the course so far.
In other words, the test content is based on the teaching content, not on other
things. As a result of this test, the teacher and the learners see how they are
progressing. They can be used to help the teacher and the learners themselves set
their own learning goals.

A final achievement/summative test

A final achievement / summative test is used at the end of a course to see if
students have achieved the objectives set out in the syllabus. An end of year test,
for example, falls into this category. A lot of information from this type of test is
often wasted because it doesn’t feed back into the learning process.
• To assess the level of achievement that a learner has managed during a course of
study. This might be given at the end of a course or the end of a school year.
Summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic
achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project,
unit, course, semester, program, or school year. Generally speaking, summative assessments are
defined by three major criteria:
 The tests, assignments, or projects are used to determine whether students have learned what
they were expected to learn. In other words, what makes an assessment “summative” is not
the design of the test, assignment, or self-evaluation, per se, but the way it is used—i.e., to
determine whether and to what degree students have learned the material they have been
taught.
 Summative assessments are given at the conclusion of a specific instructional period, and
therefore they are generally evaluative, rather than diagnostic—i.e., they are more
appropriately used to determine learning progress and achievement, evaluate the
 effectiveness of educational programs, measure progress toward improvement goals, or
make course-placement decisions, among other possible applications.
 Summative-assessment results are often recorded as scores or grades that are then factored
into a student’s permanent academic record, whether they end up as letter grades on a report
card or test scores used in the college-admissions process. While summative assessments are
typically a major component of the grading process in most districts, schools, and courses,
not all assessments considered to be summative are graded.
 Assessment of learners may be carried out for either of two purposes :

a) Formative assessment is used to improve the quality of future learning - ie to help the
teacher and learners decide how successful their learning has been up to that point, what
needs recycling and consolidation before they can move on, whether different learning
strategies need to be introduced and used etc etc. Examples of tests with a formative purpose
are diagnostic tests and progress tests.

b) Summative assessment, on the other hand, evaluates the success of past learning in terms
of pass/fail or various forms of grades. They show to what extent the learner has or hasn't
achieved the standards required by the programme. Examples of summative tests
include achievement testsand proficiency tests.

A placement / entry test

• A placement / entry test is used to find out what a learner’s level is before
deciding which course or level he/she should follow. It is usually used at the time
of enrollment for obvious reasons! The content may reflect the syllabus of the
school.
• To determine the precise level, they should be placed at when starting a course at
a language school. This is called a placement or entry test to determine their
strengths and weaknesses and general language level. This may involve a
straightforward multiple-choice test where the language tested becomes
progressively more demanding, or could be more comprehensive, and include an
oral interview, as well as reading, listening and writing tasks.

A diagnostic test
A diagnostic test is used at the begging of the course to find out what the students
know and what they don’t know. It’s more finely tuned than a placement test and
the content refer to what the students should know or will need to know at this
particular level. Based on the test results the teacher or course planner can then
ensure that the course content is relevant to the students’ needs, or in other words,
will teach them what don’t really know. To check the gaps
To help a teacher plan the contents of a course and the type of syllabus and suggest
the range of activities and techniques. This diagnostic test is used at the begging of
a course once students have enrolled. Its content reflects what the ss should know
or will need to jinx for the level they have been placed in.

A proficiency test
A proficiency test focuses on what students are capable of doing in a foreign
language, regardless of the teaching programme. It is used to assess whether a
student meets the general standard. These types of tests are often set by external
bodies such as examining boards. They may be used within schools to see for
example whether students are at the required level to enter for and pass a public
exam—IELTS, TOEFL (put you on the scale of your proficiency). Cambridge
exams testing what I know, my level (not related to the course I taught at the Uni).
This exam is likely to test candidates’ general proficiency and general ability in a
language, regardless of a specific type of teaching programme. The teacher or
school may ask ss to take a mock exam in order that they have an idea of their
strengths and weaknesses relative to the requirements and level of the actual exam.

Assessing the Quality of a Test

• Content validity—its content tests what it actually sets out to test: if I want to
test speaking, my test should be on speaking
• Face validity—not a scientific notion, but rather a kind of psychological and
subjective factor involved in testing. To have face validity, a test should appear
to both students taking the test as well as to teachers’ education authorities and
employers, to be testing what it says its testing—your learner clearly
understands what for they need a test.
• Construct validity—the term is used nowadays to answer the question “Do the
tests and questions allow you to be sure what you seek to measure?”
• Predictive validity—it’s concerned with the degree to which a test can predict
candidates’ future performance. An example of this would be as a measure of the
success of an initial placement test at a language school. Students who took a test
with high predictive validity would be expected to be successfully placed in the
correct level.
Tests: advantages
• To meet learner expectations: it’s often what they are used to, it’s a traditional
form of assessing, they usually easily see the relevance.
• If all learners are given the same tests it’s a straightforward way of comparing
them.
• There is less “record keeping” for the teacher than continuous assessment.
• A test result is a concrete record of learners; performance rather than an
impression based on informal assessment.
• To track progress, structure the material, easy to check, we see the results—>
motivation for us;
• Assess different amount of ss at one time
• Adaptable (audio tests for disabled students, Kahoot! For playful ones, paper/
online tests)
Tests: disadvantages
• Difficulties in designing good tests that actually what you have taught and that
are reliable;
• It’s time consuming writing tests and marking them;
• Many tests in schools are flawed because they are written by teachers who have
little specialist skill in test writing;
• Learners may have “off” days so the test doesn’t reflect their ability;
• Some learners never perform very well in tests;
• It’s; snapshot, not a full picture of their work;
• Tests may not reflect what you have done, i.e. you do a lot of oral work in class
but a written test is sued because it’s easier to design and administer;

Alternative to testing:
• Continuous assessment—teachers give grades for a number of assignments over
a period of time. A final grade is decided on a combination of assignments.
Techniques of continuous assessment: short tests, quizzes, projects, observations,
written/oral tasks.
• Self-assessment—ss evaluate themselves. The criteria must be carefully decided
upon beforehand.
Self-assessment tools: learner diaries, records of learning, checklists, can-do
statements, assessing writing and speaking via scales, marking own work using
keys.
• Teacher’s assessment—the teacher gives an assessment of the learner for work
done throughout the course including classroom contributions.
• Portfolio—a student collects a number of assignments and projects and present
them in a file, the file is then used as a basis for evaluation.
What do tests do?
 Competence testing is used to measure candidates’ acquired capability to
understand and produce a certain level of foreign language, defined by
phonological, lexical, grammatical, sociolinguistic and discourse
constituents.
 Performance testing includes direct, systematic observation of an actual
student performance or examples of student performances and rating of that
performance according to pre-established performance criteria. Students are
assessed on the result as well as the process engaged in a complex task or
creation of a product. A performance test measures performance on tasks
requiring the application of learning in an actual or simulated setting.
 Diagnostic testing seeks to identify those areas in which a student needs
further help. These tests can be fairly general, and show, for example,
whether a student needs particular help with one of the four language skills;
or they can be more specific, seeking to identify week nesses in a student’s
use of grammar.
 Psychometric testing is aimed at measuring psychological traits such as
personality, intelligence, aptitude, ability, knowledge, skills which makes
specific assumptions about the nature of the ability tested. It incudes a lot of
discrete point items.
 Achievement testing is sued to determine whether or not students have
mastered the course content and how they should proceed. The content of
these tests, which are commonly given at the end of the course, is generally
based on the course syllabus or the course textbook.
 Progress testing is used at various stages throughout a language course to
determine learners’ progress up to that point and to see what they have
learnt.
 Proficiency testing is used to measure learners’ general linguistic
knowledge, abilities or skills without reference to any specific course. Two
types:
1. Some of these tests are intended to show whether students or people outside
the formal educational system have reached a given level of general
language ability.
2. Others are designed to show whether candidates have sufficient ability to be
able to use a language in some specific areas as medicine, tourism, etc. Such
tests are often called Specific Purposes tests.

Marking system
 Objective (there’s a clear answer, and every marker would give the same
marks to the same question)
 Subjective (marking depends largely on the personal decision of the marker;
different markers might have different marks for the same question)

 Discrete items are likely to be marked objectively

 Integrative tests are more likely to be marked subjectively

 Some questions may involve elements of both

 Language systems are easier to test objectively

 Language skills to be tested subjectively

 Three criteria of a good test
1. A good test will seem fair and appropriate to the students (and to anyone
who needs to know the results, e.g. head teacher, other teachers, employers,
parents, etc)
2. It won’t be too troublesome to mark
3. It will provide clear results that serve the purpose for which it was set

Test construct
 Communicative language ability
 Speaking ability
 Fluency
 Literacy
Test of spoken fluency will test the following features:
 Rate of speech
 Number of hesitations
  Extent to which it causes strain to the listener
 Errors

Test – retest reliability

Marker –marker reliability
Validity aspects
The test can’t be just valid or not. Its validity should correlate with its:
 Purpose (why the test is taken, e.g. entry, progress, proficiency test, etc)
 The target audience (who is taking the test)
For a test to be valid, it needs to account for the different needs, cognitive abilities,
and characteristics of a learner.

Criteria vs marks
What is the aim of the progress test?
 To give encouragement that something is being done well
 To point out areas where learners need to improve
Thus, giving marks may be not the most effective wat of assessment, especially
when skills are being tested.

How to show learner’s success?

 To compare them against the “can do” criteria, e.g. “I can describe what is
happening in picture”, “I can listen to directions and follow a map”
 These statements may reflect the syllabus of the course.
 A criteria-based assessment scheme could measure each “can do” on a scale
(of four or five)
1. The candidate meets and surprises the criteria.
2. The candidate meets all main aspects of the criteria.
3. The candidate meets the criteria in some respects, but with significant
problems.
4. The candidate is unable to meet the criteria in any respect.
Common discrete- item techniques
1. Gap fill
2. Sentence transformation
3. Sentence construction and reconstruction
4. Two-option answer
5. Matching (pictures, words, sentence pieces, labels, etc)
 Two-option answer
1. True/ false
2. Correct/ incorrect
3. Defined option

Jill is a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. Mary is a one-year-old baby. Writer J next to

the things that belong to Jill. Write M next to the things that belong to Mary. (List
of words: teddy, Walkman, calculator, cot.)
Matching
1. Pictures+ words
2. Placing words into correct lists, groups, sets, etc
3. Grammatical labeling
4. Putting jigsaw pieces together (multiple matching)

9)Compare norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests. Talk about

advantages and disadvantages of testing.
Norm-referenced tests

Norm-referenced tests refers to standardized tests that measure student’s

performance in comparison to other students. Also, the age and question paper are
same for both of them. They measure whether the students have performed better
or worse than other test takers. It is the theoretical average determined by
comparing scores.
The following are a few representative examples of how norm-referenced tests and
scores may be used:

 To determine a young child’s readiness for preschool or kindergarten. These

tests may be designed to measure oral-language ability, visual-motor skills, and
cognitive and social development.
 To evaluate basic reading, writing, and math skills. Test results may be used for
a wide variety of purposes, such as measuring academic progress, making
course assignments, determining readiness for grade promotion, or identifying
the need for additional academic support.

Norm-referenced tests are specifically designed to rank test takers on a “bell

curve,” or a distribution of scores that resembles, when graphed, the outline of a
bell—i.e., a small percentage of students performing well, most performing
average, and a small percentage performing poorly.

bad results good results extremely good results

Criterion-referenced test

A criterion-referenced test is an assessment and test that measures student’s

performance. A Criterion reference test is a set of fixed criteria. That used to
measure student’s performance. These criteria include written and brief reports of
what students are capable of doing at different stages.

Criterion reference test is a method which uses test score to judge students. Also,
they help to generate statements about students’ behavior. Also, they use test
scores as their reference. Criterion reference mostly uses quizzes. The main
objective of this is to check whether students have learned the topic or not.

The following are a few representative examples of how criterion-referenced tests

and scores may be used:

 To determine whether students have learned expected knowledge and skills. If

the criterion-referenced tests are used to make decisions about grade promotion
or diploma eligibility, they would be considered “high-stakes tests.”
 To determine if students have learning gaps or academic deficits that need to be
addressed.

10)Give an overview of the main test parameters necessary for the

effective use of testing procedures.

Three criteria of a good test

1. A good test will seem fair and appropriate to the students (and to anyone
who needs to know the results, e.g. head teacher, other teachers, employers,
parents, etc)
2. It won’t be too troublesome to mark
3. It will provide clear results that serve the purpose for which it was set
Validity is defined as the extent to which the instrument measures what it
supposed to measure (It tells you how accurately the method measures something).
If a method measures what it claims to measure, and the results closely correspond
to real-world values, then it can be considered valid. There are four main types of
validity:

 Construct validity: Does the test measure the concept that it’s intended to
measure?
 Content validity: Is the test fully representative of what it aims to measure?
 Face validity: Does the content of the test appear to be suitable to its aims?
 Predictive validity

Reliability is defined as the extent to which any measurement tool (a

questionnaire, test, observation) produces the same results on repeated trials. In
short, it is the stability or consistency of scores over time or across raters.

Practicality relates to how ways and convenient it’s to administer the test, based
on straightforward practical considerations, here you would need to consider
questions such as the materials available, the time it would take to mark the test,
and how easy it would be to produce the materials.
So, for example, if you want to use video for testing listening skills, have you got
enough copies of the video and enough viewing screens for all the classes that
need it?

11)Define validity, its types and its necessity for the assessment
procedures.
Validity is defined as the extent to which the instrument measures what it purports
to measure (It tells you how accurately the method measures something).
If a method measures what it claims to measure, and the results closely correspond
to real-world values, then it can be considered valid. There are four main types of
validity:

 Construct validity: Does the test measure the concept that it’s intended to
measure?
 Content validity: Is the test fully representative of what it aims to measure?
 Face validity: Does the content of the test appear to be suitable to its aims?
 Predictive validity

Firstly, comes construct validity then comes content validity.

Construct -what we test, content-through what materials we test.
Construct-writing test, content-what ss need to do (only opinion essay)
Construct validity refers to a test testing what it’s supposed to test and nothing

else.

Content validity means that the test tests what it actually sets out to test.

Face validity test should appear to the students and the teacher to test what it’s
supposed to. It refers to how the test appears to the users. For example, if you aim
to test a student’s ability to read and understand whole texts, it might appear
strange to do this by giving them a multiple-choice grammar.

Predictive validity is concerned with the degree to which a test can “see”
candidates’ future performance.

12) Define reliability, its types and necessity for the assessment
procedures.

Reliability.
Reliability is defined as the extent to which any measurement tool (a
questionnaire, test, observation) produces the same results on repeated trials. In
short, it is the stability or consistency of scores over time or across raters.

Test reliability: a test can be said to be reliable if the same students, with the same
amount of knowledge, taking the same test at a different time, would get more or
less the same results. The closer the results, the more reliable the test is.
It’s unlikely that teachers designing tests will need to test this kind of reliability,
but it’s a very important factor in externally assessed exams such as the
Cambridge exams, where it’s vital that there is not a large discrepancy in the level
of difficulty of the exam each examining session.
Scorer reliability is about that different markers would give the same marks to the
same tests. This is easy with discrete item tests such as multiple choice, if there is
only one correct answer and the markers mark accurately. But with, for example, a
piece of writing, the marking may be more subjective, particularly if the marker
knows the students who did the test and is influenced by what they can usually
produce.
To improve scoree reliability, you can use things such as clear guidelines for
marking e.g. criteria and points awarded, standardization meetings; to compare
sample tests and agree on what constitutes the different grades, or double marking;
two teachers mark each price of work to produce an average mark. Clear
instructions to tasks are also important here.
13) Define practicality and talk about it the context of administering
tests.

Practicality
This relates to how ways and convenient it’s to administer the test, based on
straightforward practical considerations, here you would need to consider
questions such as the materials available, the time it would take to mark the test,
and how easy it would be to produce the materials.
So, for example, if you want to use video for testing listening skills, have you got
enough copies of the video and enough viewing screens for all the classes that
need it?
It might be considered a good idea to give students individual interviews to judge
their speaking ability, but with a class of say 15 students whose lesson are 90 min
long, twice a week, you would need to either have a number of extra teachers
available during teaching hours to carry out the test, or the test would take a lot of
time out of class time and might need to be carried out over seven lessons which
might not be satisfactory form the point of view of either the students or the
institution. What would the other students be doing while their classmates being
interviewed? These kinds of practical issues can narrow the choices available when
we decide the best way to test our students; skills.

• Tests may create negative backwash i.e. you adjust your teaching to suit what is
in the test, doing lots of “test practice” rather than focusing on learners’ needs
from a longer term or broader perspective;
• Learners may not bother with class activities or homework because they know
it’s only the final test result that counts.
• High anxiety, test for the sake of test, cheating, bad grades may discourage.

14)Outline the effects of backwash and spin off. Compare positive and
negative backwash effects.

Washback/backwash refers to the effect that the test has on the teaching
programme that lead up to it, and can be both positive and negative.

 Positivewashback refers to expected test effects.  For example, a test may

motivate students to study more and better. It may help them to see what
they are bad at, what they should pay attention to. 
 Negative washback refers to the unpredictable and harmful consequences
of a test.  For example, test preparation may take quite a lot of time at the
expense of other activities like pair work, discussions or negotiations.
 Washback from tests can involve individual teachers and students as well as
whole classes and programs.

Example: ss don’t want to do smth except what they need for ЕГЭ. if you give
students smth from FCE, they may tell you « I don’t need it, there is no such tasks
in ЕГЭ».
• Tests may create negative backwash i.e. you adjust your teaching to suit what is
in the test, doing lots of “test practice” rather than focusing on learners’ needs
from a longer term or broader perspective;
• Learners may not bother with class activities or homework because they know
it’s only the final test result that counts.
• High anxiety, test for the sake of test, cheating, bad grades may discourage.

In some circumstances, students studying for a test may spend most of their
classroom time doing practice tests and developing the skills and strategies they
need to do well in the final assessment, rather than developing the broader skills
which they may need in order to use the language in a communicative setting
outside the classroom. A teacher may decide to limit the lesson content to only
those structures and areas of lexis, or types of written and spoken texts, which will
appear in the exam. On the other hand. Students who are preparing to take an
examination may be better motivated to study outside class, to do homework tasks,
to practice their writing skills in the case of examinations with a written
components, and to develop other skills such as deducing meaning from context
which will improve their overall language ability and future studies in the
language.

15)Characterize micro and macro skills of reading and listening and talk
about the importance of this distinction for the assessment. Give
examples to illustrate your point of view.
 Often is taken for granted
 Acquired by the age of 5-7 y.o.
  Reading skill is often used for assessing speaking, writing (as a stimulus for
the test-taker response)
 Reading as a process is unobservable
Issues:
 Students don’t “see” reading as a skill
 Students aren’t used to using any strategies
 Students are overwhelmed by the amount of unknown vocabulary
 Students have low reading rate
 Students don’t read extensively outside the classroom
 Students don’t see any improvement
The importance of listening
 Closely connected with speaking
 It’s rare to find just a listening test
 Listening isn’t a clearly observable skill  we can assess the result of
listening, but no the process
Context-outside the text
Co-text- looking what’s around in the text (the gap filling and its surrounding:
collocations, phrasal verbs, etc) (goal  set a goal/achieve)

16)Characterize micro and macro skills of writing and speaking and talk
about the importance of this distinction for the assessment. Give
examples to illustrate your point of view.

Testing writing: issues

1. Writing tasks should be representative of the population of tasks that we
should expect the students to be able to perform
2. The tasks should elicit valid samples of writing (i.e. that truly represent the
students’ ability)
 Issues with assessing speaking
1. No speaking task is capable of isolating the single skills of oral production
2. How to design elicitation techniques? How to make the test taker avoid the
target language or paraphrasing?
3. Tasks become more open-ended how to score that?

17)Talk about assessing speaking. Outline speaking sub-skills, the types

of speaking performance (imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive,
extensive), and the common assessment tasks.
Assessing speaking
Sub-skills:
 pronunciation
 using stress, rhythm and intonation well enough so that people can
understand what is said
 using the correct forms of words
 word order
 using appropriate vocabulary
 using the appropriate language register
 building an argument

Basic types of speaking

1. Imitative (simple parroting back; traditional pronunciation level; no
interference is made about the test-taker’s ability to understand/covey
meaning or participate in an interaction
Imitative speaking assessment tasks
1. Repetition tasks for sounds/stress/intonation/rhythm
2. Reading aloud tasks
 Audio-lingual legacy
 Still important within the communicative approach
 Allows for clarity and accuracy
 The longer the piece of language the more difficult it’s to assess it

How to score imitative speaking tasks? Scoring scale for repetition tasks:
2 acceptable pronunciation
1 comprehensible, partially correct pronunciation
0 silence, seriously incorrect pronunciation

2. Intensive (production of short oral stretches of languages, shows narrow

band of grammatical, lexical, phrasal and other relationships; shows
intonation; stress, juncture)
Intensive tasks (examples):
1. Direct-response tasks (a particular grammatical form or a transformation of
a sentence is elicited). Requires minimal processing of meaning
2. Read-aloud tasks (reading beyond the sentence level up to a paragraph or
two)
3. Sentence/dialogue completion tasks and oral questions (fill in the omitted
phrases)
4. Picture-cued tasks/ map-cued tasks
5. Limited translation
Reading aloud: to read or not to read?
 Predictable output
 Practicality
 Scorer reliability
 Inauthentic
 Requires specialized ability, which’s different from face-to-face
communication
 Non-communicative
 Intensive speaking assessment tasks
Tasks should be cued to lead the test-taker to the narrow band of possibilities
 Limited responses
 “mechanical tasks” (Underhill, 1987)
 Controlled responses
E.g. Answer the question with a single word or a short phrase of two/three words.
Test-takers hear word groups in random and must link them in a correctly ordered
sentence: was reading/my mother/ a magazine

3. Responsive (interaction and test comprehension at the limited level: very

short conversations, greetings, small talk, requests, etc)
Responsive speaking assessment tasks
1. Question and answer (may be very simple in its purpose = display
question, where the answer is predetermined, or more complex= referential
 questions/response level questions/open-ended questions, where
meaningful production is expected)
2. Giving instructions and directions
3. Paraphrasing

Responsive speaking assessment tasks

 Requires brief interaction
 More creative than the intensive task
 Limited length of utterances in comparison with the interactive tasks
 4. Interactive (more extended than (3); may be transactional when people
exchange information or interpersonal, which has the purpose of
maintaining social relationship)
Interactive speaking assessment tasks
1. Interview: warm-up, level check, probe, wind-down
2. Role play
3. Discussions and conversations
4. games
Interview
1. Warm-up (preliminary small talk, lowering anxiety, mutual introductions)
2. Level check (preplanned questions  stimulate predicted form of
grammar/discourse structure; gives ides about test-take’s readiness to speak,
extraversion)
3. Probe (questions mean to discover the heights and limits)
4. Wind-down (relaxing the test-taker, providing information about results of
the interview)

5. Extensive (monologue)
Speaking strategies
1. Turn-taking
2. Paralinguistics
3. The co-operative principle (negotiating meaning)
4. Hedging (I’m not sure, euphemism (I think you’re not so clever))
5. Ellipsis
6. Buying time (thanks for the question …)
7. Adjacency
8. Openings and closings
9. Topic sensitivity
10.Stress and intonation
11.Backchannel devices
12.Prefabricated chunks
Issues with assessing speaking
4. No speaking task is capable of isolating the single skills of oral production
5. How to design elicitation techniques? How to make the test taker avoid the
target language or paraphrasing?
6. Tasks become more open-ended how to score that?
To assess speaking in Movers we use holistic scale.
18)Talk about assessing writing: writing sub-skills, the types of writing
performance (imitative, intensive, responsive, extensive) and the tasks
for assessment.

Testing writing: issues

3. Writing tasks should be representative of the population of tasks that we
should expect the students to be able to perform
4. The tasks should elicit valid samples of writing (i.e. that truly represent the
students’ ability)

1. Manipulating the script of the language: handwriting, spelling and punctuation.

2. Expressing grammatical [syntactic and morphological] relationships at the sentence level.

3. Expressing relationships between parts of a written text through cohesive devices [especially through grammatical

devices such as noun-pronoun reference].

4. Using markers in written discourse, in particular:

 introducing an idea

 developing an idea

 transition to another idea

 concluding an idea

 emphasising a point [and indicating main or important information]

 explaining or clarifying a point already made

 anticipating an objection or contrary view

5. Expressing the communicative function of written sentences:

 using explicit markers

 without using explicit markers

6. Expressing information or knowledge in writing:

 explicitly

 implicitly

7. Expressing conceptual meaning

8. Planning and organising written information in expository language

 narrative

 straight description of phenomena or ideas

 descriptions of process or change of state

 argument
 1. Representative tasks
 Specify all possible content (genres, functions, styles, types of texts,
formality, levels, etc)
 Include a representative sample of the specified content (NB: the
desirability of wide sampling has to be balanced against practicality)

2.Ellicit a valid sample of writing ability

 Set as many separate tasks as possible
 Test the writing ability, not something else (creativity/ intelligence/ reading
ability, etc)
 Restrict candidates by setting clear requirements (provide information in the
form of notes, pictures, tips)

3.Ensure valid and reliable scoring

 Set tasks that can be reliably scored
 Set as many tasks as possible
 Give no choice of tasks (making the candidates perform all tasks makes
comparison between candidates easier)
 Ensure long enough samples (140-190, around 100 words)
 Create appropriate scales for scoring
 Genres of writing
1. Academic writing (papers, reports, essays, compositions, technical reports,
theses, dissertations and other)
2. Job-related writing (messages, letters/emails, memos; reports; schedules;
signs; labels; advertisements; manuals; announcements and others)
3. Personal writing (letters, emails; cards; messages; shopping lists; reminders;
diaries; fiction and others)

1.Imitative writing
 Fundamental, basic skill- ability to write letters, words, very brief sentences,
and use punctuation
 Mastering the mechanics of writing (handwritten texts)
 Form is primary
*The problem appears with the rise of personal computers, tables, and phones
 Writing scale
2.Grammatically and lexically correct
1.Eithier grammatically or lexically correct
0.Both grammatically and lexically incorrect
 3.Responsive writing
 Performing a limited discourse level, connecting sentences into paragraphs,
sequence of several paragraphs
 Tasks respond to pedagogical directives, lists of criteria, outlines
 The writer has mastered the fundamentals of sentence-level grammar and is
more focuses on the discourse conventions that will achieve the conventions
of the written text
 Form-focused attention is at discourse level, with a strong emphasis on
context and meaning
 4. Extensive writing
 Successful management of all the processes and strategies of writing for all
purposes
 Focus on achieving a purpose, organizing and developing odes logically,
using details to support/illustrate ideas, demonstrating syntactic and lexical
variety
 Engagement in the process of writing through multiple drafts
 Focus on grammatical form is limited to occasional editing or proofreading a
draft
Responsive and extensive writing
 The test taker is freed from strict control of intensive writing  test takers
are involved in composing, or real writing rather than a display of writing
 There’s a choice of topics, lengths, styles, language
 Higher-end production level

Responsive and extensive writing: scoring methods

1. Holistic scale
Primary trait scale (If the class or the assignment focuses on a particular aspect of writing, or a specific linguistic
form, or the use of a certain semantic group, primary trait scoring allows the instructor and the students to focus their feedback,
revisions and attention very specifically.)
2. Analytical scale
 Competence vs performance in assessment
 We assess competence, but observe performance
 Performance doesn’t always indicate true competence (emotional test
anxiety, memory block, illness, bad night’s rest, etc)
 Concern the fallibility of the results of single performance  consider at
least two performances
How can it be done?
 Several tests that’re combined to form an assessment
 A single test with multiple test tasks to account for learning styles and
performance variables
 In-calls and extra-class graded work
 Alternative forms of assessment (self-, peer-, portfolios, observations, etc)
Multiple measures will always give you a more reliable and valid assessment
that a single measure

19)Compare analytic and holistic scales as tools to assess productive

skills.
20)Talk about assessing reading: reading sub-skills and possible
assessment tasks.

Reading skill
 Often is taken for granted
 Acquired by the age of 5-7 y.o.
 Reading skill is often used for assessing speaking, writing (as a stimulus for
the test-taker response)
 Reading as a process is unobservable
Which words come to your mind when you think about teaching/assessing
reading?
 Bottom-up + top-down approaches
 Schemata
 Content
 Genre
 Comprehension
Issues:
 Students don’t “see” reading as a skill
 Students aren’t used to using any strategies
 Students are overwhelmed by the amount of unknown vocabulary
 Students have low reading rate
 Students don’t read extensively outside the classroom
 Students don’t see any improvement

What helps students deal with receptive tasks?

 Prediction (from headings, pictures, own ideas)
 Familiarization with different types of text
 Understanding of text structure
 Envelopment of different sub-skills (reading/listening/ for gist, reading for
detail)
 Vocabulary development
 Working out meaning from context

What do we bring to reading?

 Knowledge of the topic (schema)
 Knowledge of the format/layout
 Reading sub-skills:
1. Reading for gist
2. Reading for detail
3. Reding for specific information
4. Inferring attitude and opinion
5. Guessing meaning from the context
6. Intensive reading
7. Predicting
Approaches to reading. What to assess?
Learning to read vs reading to learn
 Where to include grammar and vocabulary in a receptive skill lesson?
 How to help the students to understand the text better? What would you do
before the reading/listening?

What’re the most common ways to assess reading?

 Multiple choice
 Matching
 Multiple matching
 Gapped text
 Open cloze
 Picture-cued tasks
 Information transfer (maps, charts, diagrams, etc)
 Ordering
 Interpretation
 Summarizing
 Note-taking

21)Talk about assessing listening: listening sub-skills, types of listening

performance (intensive, responsive, selective, extensive) and types of
assessment tasks.
Assessing listening
The importance of listening
 Closely connected with speaking
 It’s rare to find just a listening test
 Listening isn’t a clearly observable skill  we can assess the result of
listening, but no the process
Context-outside the text
Co-text- looking what’s around in the text (the gap filling and its surrounding:
collocations, phrasal verbs, etc) (goal – achieve / set goal)
 Processes underlying listening
 Recognizing speech sounds, holding them in short-term memory
 Determining the type of speech event (dialogue/monologue) + attend to its
context
 Using bottom-up and top-down decoding skills to assign literal and intended
meaning to the utterance
 In most cases the exact linguistic form of the message isn’t
stored/remembered
What to assess?
 Comprehension of surface structure elements (phonemes, words, sentences,
grammatical categories)
 Understanding the meaning
 Understanding pragmatics (context)
Listening sub-skills
1. Predicting
2. Listening for gist
3. Listening for detail
4. Listening for specific information
5. Intensive listening
6. Extensive listening
7. Inferring listening
8. Recognizing context

What makes listening difficult?

1. Clustering
2. Redundancy
3. Reduced forms
4. Colloquial language
5. Rate of delivery
6. Accents
7. Stress, rhythm, intonation
8. Interaction
 Selecting listening: designing assessment tasks
1. Listening cloze (a script with every 7/9th word missing to fill in while
listening)
 Should use the exact word method of scoring
 Focus could be on numbers/lexis/grammatical category
2. Information transfer (transfer the text into a picture/diagram/table)
 Reflects authenticity
 True/false
 Question to answer
 Identification (point to the person..., circle…, draw the line…)
Problems of designing assessment tasks:
 How to distinguish listening performance from cognitive processing?
 Do test mirror real-world language and context?
 These tasks become more open-endedhow to assess them?
 Assessing skills
 Skills aren’t assessed always in isolation (integration of skills is of
“paramount importance”)
 Assessment is more authentic and provides more washback when skills are
integrated
 We can’t assess form (grammar or vocabulary) separately from skills
22)Talk about psychological assessment and the ways to perform it in
the classroom.
Communication and integration
This category covers a wide range of problems such as disordered and delayed
language skills, caused by different factors, including developmental delays,
sensory impairments, and severe speech and language disorders.
• Autism spectrum condition (ASC)
• Asperger’s syndrome
• Others
Social, emotional and behavioral difficulties (SEBD)
SEBD terms is used to describe a broad range of students with different needs,
from those with emotional difficulties to those with very challenging behavior or
serious psychological difficulties. It’s used to describe that is:
• Severe
• Frequent
• Isn’t age appropriate
• Occurs in different situations
As a teacher, it isn’t recommended that you try to diagnose SEN yourself. Students
can struggle in class for a variety of reasons, and it’s important to consider all
factors that might be affecting their performance.
Questions still to answer
• Styles vs preferences (Preferences—more social and you can acquire it)
• Inborn vs acquired
• Fixed vs mutable styles
• Continuous vs unconscious

Learner types/learning preferences/ cognitive styles

• Field dependence/ independence
• Holistic (overview) / surrealistic (details)
• Deep level (find the reason, ask questions, ect) / surface level processing
(intuitive, quicker)
• VAK
• Global / analytic

Coffield (Coffield et al.2004a, 2004b) set out to determine if any of these theories
could be used by educators, and suggest that classifying people into a fixed set of
characteristics may be counter-productive to learning.
• Visual learners like to see words or images
• Auditory learners like to hear words or sentences
• Kinesthetic emotional learners like to involve their feelings and emotions
• Kinesthetic motors learners like to do smth or touch smth

• Global learners like to have an overview

• Analytic learners like to have details

The Experiential Learning Cycle

11.Concrete Experience —a new experience or situation is encountered, or a
reinterpretation of existing experience
12.Reflective Observation of the New Experience—of particular importance are
any inconsistencies between experience and understanding
13.Abstract Conceptualization reflection givers tries to a new idea, or a
modification of an existing abstract concept (the person has learnt from their
experience)
14.Active Experimentation —the learner applies their idea(s) to the world around
them to see what happens.

Learning styles
1. Various factors influence a person’s preferred style. For example, social
environment, educational experiences, or the basic cognitive structure of the
individual.
2. A typical presentation of Kolb’s two continuum’s is that the east-west axis
is called Processing Continuum (how we approach a task), and the north-
south axis is called the Perception Continuum (our emotional response, or
how we think or feel about it).

Active Experimentation Reflective Observation

(Doing) (Watching)
Concrete Experience Accommodating (CE/AE) Diverging (CE/RO)
(Feeling)
Abstract Converging (AC/AE) Assimilating (AC/RO)
Conceptualization
(Thinking)

Converging (doing and thinking  AC/AE)

People with that learning style can solve problems and will use their learning to
find solutions to practical issues. They prefer technical tasks, and are less
concerned with people and interpersonal aspects.
Such people are best at finding practical uses for ideas and theories. A converging
learning style enables specialist and technology abilities. They like to experiment
and new ideas, to stimulate, and to work with practical applications.
Accommodating (doing and feeling  CE/AE)
That style is “hands-on” and relies on intuition rather than logic. These people use
other people’s analysis, and prefer to take a practical, experiential approach.
They’re attracted to new challenges and experiences, and to carrying out plans.
They commonly act on “gut” instinct rather than logical analysis. Such people will
tend to rely on others for information that carry out their own analysis. This
learning style is prevalent within the general population.
 Diverging (feeling and watching  CE/RO)
These people are able to look at things from different perspective. They’re
sensitive. They prefer to watch rather than do, tending to gathering information and
use imagination to solve problems. They’re best at viewing concrete situations
from several different viewpoints.
These people perform better in situations that require ideas-generation, for
example, brainstorming. Such people have broad cultural interests and like to
gather information.
They’re interested in people, tend to be imaginative and emotional, and tend to be
strong in the arts. They prefer to work in groups, to listen to with an open mind,
and to receive personal feedback.
Assimilating (watching and thinking  AC/ RO)
That learning preference involves a concise, logical approach. Ideas and concepts
are more important than people.
These people require good clear explanation rather that a practical opportunity.
They excel at understanding wide-range information and organizing it in clear,
logic format. They are less focused on people and more interested in ideas and
abstract concepts. Such people are more attracted lo logically sound theories than
approaches based on practical values.
This learning style is important for effectiveness in information and science
careers. In formal situations, people with this style prefer reading, lectures,
exploring analytical models, and having time to think things through.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• Motivation—people having consistently different preferences (styles) in
perception and judgment
• History and popularity—most frequently used personality test in US industry
• Limitation —widely criticized by academics
• Takeaway
— Everyone has all eight skills, but in different amounts
—Used for insights and expansion of possibilities, bot to label yourself or others in
ways that limit growth.

4 basic preferences or Styles:

Managing People (E vs I)
Extraversion Introversion
Enjoy stimulation and variety; Easily over-stimulated;
MBWA; Self-contained;
Open-door: Organized;
Meetings used: One-at-a-time;
Communication stressed. Leaves others in the dark.

Acquiring information (S vs N)
 Sensing Intuitive
Matter-of-fact; Generating ideas;
Empirical/practical; Enjoys new jobs;
Dislike fuzzy problems plaguing Insight into complex problems;
Specialist/functional perspective; Gestalt (top-down) perspective;
Present oriented. Future oriented.

Making Judgments (T vs F)
Thinking Feeling
Tough-minded; Value-centered;
Analytic, quantitative; People-oriented;
Clear criteria; Personal perspective;
Impersonal, detached; Warmth, over-committed;
Task-oriented; Good-bad.
Correct-incorrect.
Establishing Goals (J vs P)
Judging Perceiving
Output-oriented; Take on many projects;
“Time is money”; Overload;
prefer action to analysis; “Look before leap”;
Implementation oriented. Emphasize diagnosis

Dynamic assessment (LPAD)

23)Outline the role of portfolios and e-portfolios as a method of

assessment.

24)Describe portfolio as a self-assessment and self-reflection tool for

teachers in the course of their professional development.
Portfolios.
Portfolio vs Portfolio Assignment
A portfolio is a collection of a student’s work, experiences, exhibitions, self-rating
(i.e. data), whereas portfolio assessment is the procedure used to plan, collect,
and analyze the multiethnic sources of data maintained in the portfolio.
A portfolio that is based on a systematic assessment procedure can provide
accurate information about the depth and breadth of a student’s capabilities in may
domains of learning. Sharon S. Moya; J.Michael O’Malley, 1994.
How did portfolio appear?
• Shift in pedagogical theory has resulted in the increasing use of student-centered
communicative approaches in the classroom.
• Shift to process learning

On most traditional tests, students are asked to work within a set time frame.
This offers little or no opportunity or the test-taker to think, reflect upon and
grudge their work.
The portfolio approach is developed from the concept of reflective practice. A
portfolio isn’t a collection or folder of all the students’ handouts or material/ the
essential consideration for the teacher and her/his students is what exactly they
want to include in the portfolios. Portfolios give students the opportunity to
reflect on their learning so that they may evaluate their progress in a course
or programme.
For results oriented —learning—tests are good
For process-learning—portfolios
• Portfolio development is increasingly cited as a viable alternative to standardized
testing
• Portfolio assessment is aimed at determining student achievement and
competences

A brief history of European Language Portfolios.

Teachers and learners have been working with Language Portfolios since the mid
1990s, and between 1998 and 2000 various ELP portfolios were piloted in Europe.
The concept of portfolios development was adopted from the field of fine arts
where portfolios are used to display illustrative samples of an artist’s work. The
purpose of the artist’s portfolio is to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the
work as well as the artist’s interests and abilities (Jongsma, 1989). Many
educators perceive the intent of educational portfolios to be similar to that of
portfolios are sued in fine arts, to demonstrate the depth and breadth of students’
capabilities.

Portfolio is collection of students anticraft; can be thought of a both:

 objects (what we have, works in the folders). As objects, they are a place
for holding materials such as papers, photographs, or drawings that are
representative of students’ work and progress.
 the methods (when we collect for the assessment) of assessment. As
methods of assessment, portfolios provide ways for teachers to
continuously collect and assess student work.

What are Language Portfolios?

They are a collection of individual students’ work put together in a file. They
belong to the student and can be updated as language learning continues by
adding to and taking away pieces of work.
• Individual
• Collective
• Continuous
• “Live”
Types of portfolios.
There are two types of portfolios (Cooper & Love, 2001)
1.The formative portfolio
It’s the process of learning of a particular student. An example may be when it’s
used as a report to parents or guardians. It contains samples of a student’s work
collected throughout the term to “remonstrate changes over a period of time”
2.The summative portfolio
It has learning outcomes as its focus and not the process of learning. These
portfolios contain proof of a student’s skills while also exhibiting their range and
depth.
Three distinct forms of summative portfolio-based assessment:
15. The competency-based or outcomes-based portfolio. It may show samples of a
student’s work collected as evidence of his/her skills and knowledge, which is
relative to the curriculum or syllabi.
16. The negotiated learning portfolio is which the outcomes of the negotiated
learning processes are assessed through a portfolio.
17. The biographical portfolio, which is record of achievement. This type of
portfolio may have a collection of work experience of a student which is
collected over a period of time and arranged chronologically. Cooper & Love
(2001)
Although comprehensiveness is a critical component of a good portfolio procedure,
a portfolio can too quickly become an aggregation of everything a student
produces. A screening procedure needs to be established that will include only
selected, high-priority information in the portfolio. The degree of
comprehensiveness should be tempered by practical limitations of the evaluation
environment such ad teacher-student ratios and teacher workload. Setting
realistic goals for portfolio assessment increases the probability of sustained
teacher interest and use.
Portfolio characteristics.
• Predetermined and Systematic
A sound portfolio procedure is planned prior to implementation. The purpose of
using a portfolio, the contents of the portfolio, data collection schedule, and
student performance criteria are delineated as part of portfolio planning. Each entry
in the portfolio has a purpose, and the purpose is clearly understood by all portfolio
stakeholders.
• Informative.
The information in the portfolio must be meaningful to teachers, students, staff and
parents. It also must be usable for instruction and curriculum adaptation to student
needs. A mechanism for timely feedback to the teachers and students and a system
for evaluating the utility and adequacy of the documented information are
characteristics of a model portfolio procedure. In ESL settings, a portfolio can be
particularly useful to communicate specific examples of student work to students,
to parents, and to other teachers.
• Tailored.
An exemplary portfolio procedure is tailored to the purpose for which it will be
used, to classroom goals and objectives and to individual student assessment
needs. Assessment instruments and procedures are adapted to match information
needs, to reflect student characteristics, and to coincide with student linguistic and
developmental capacities. With ESL students, assessment procedures are designed
to reveal information about student performance in all curriculum areas relevant to
the students.
• Authentic.
A good portfolio procedure provides student information based on assessment
tasks that reflect authentic activities using during classroom instruction. In ESL,
authenticity language may be assessed across several contexts: formal classroom
activities, natural setting (such as playground), and informal classroom settings
(e.g. cooperative learning groups). An affective portfolio procedure will include
assessment of authentic classroom-based language tasks, i.e., tasks that the student
encounters naturally as part of instruction. Focusing on authentic language
proficiency across sociolinguistic contexts and naturally naturally occurring
language tasks acknowledges the holistic and integrative nature of language
development and focuses on communicative and functional language abilities
rather than attainment of discrete, fragmented skills.

Three parts of Language Portfolios.

1. The passport
This contains factual information about the language learner. It gives a history of
the learners’ language learning experiences.
It may also contain any certificates or qualifications which show the learners’ level
in an internationally transparent manner. For the young learners this may mean a
certificate they received from a summer camp they attended or a qualification they
got from taking an English exam at school or in any other English language center.
It may also include a ticket to a theatre production in English, a film they say or a
trip board to an English-speaking country. (The example of a passport may be
found on British Council. Teaching English Activities)
2. The language biography
This is a personal history of the learners’ language learning experience. For
example. It may include a short narrative about the summer camp which they went
on and for which they have included the certificate in their passport section.
It also includes self-assignment materials, such as the learner checklists and any
aims that learners have for the future. These aims might be passing a specific
exam, attending a course and feeling well prepared for it or being able to speak
English to a visitor.
The biology lends itself well to “show and tell” sessions when learners can talk to

the class but their own experience. In this section too, learners may in due any
plans they have for taking an English exam, visiting an English -speaking country,
or having English-speaking visitors at home.

Rationale
• Raising learners’ awareness of the many different ways English can be learnt and
practiced.
• Moving away from the idea that English is a school subject and that is useful and
necessary outside the classroom.
• Sharing experiences and finding out about what others do.
• Reading about tier own classmates’ stories in English is useful for reviewing
grammar and vocabulary.
3. The Dossier
This is a collection of course work which shows learners’ level of English. It may
include corrected class or homework, tests and exams or any other piece of work
which illustrates where the learner is at. In this part of an LP, a leader may include
voice or video recordings or any part of project work which they have done.
Advantages of Language Portfolios.
4. They enhance learners’ motivation by providing smth personal and tangible
which they can build up and develop over the course.
5. They help learners to reflect on their own learning and achievement by asking
them to make choices, reviews, compare and organize their own work.
6. They enable learners to look for new cultural experiences by opening their
eyes to the possibilities available to them. Part of portfolio work involves
“show and tell” sessions where learners talk about their experiences and look at
other portfolios.
7. From a teacher’s point of view, portfolios lead to greater learner autonomy
since they involve self-assessment, leaner responsibility and parent
involvement.
8. Learners can work in their own time and at their own pace on different
sections of the LP.
9. Parents get to see the progress of their kinds.

The problems with Language Portfolios.

• With large groups the storage of portfolios can be problematic
• There are lots of students who forget or lose their portfolio.
• The provision of the folder and the organization of the contents can be quite time
consuming
• Older students might be less interested in creating portfolios.

Secondary teachers should realize that portfolio collection and assessment in the
secondary classroom, as in other education levels, is driven by the purpose and
organization of ESL instruction (Batzle, 1992)
Before launching portfolios systems educators must answer the following
questions:
• What specifically are the objectives that teachers have for particular time periods
(the six weeks, semester, year)?
• Is the curriculum for ESL students focused on language development only? Or
does it include content skills and knowledge?

Ways to manage portfolios

• Each teacher maintains student portfolios to track the ESL student’s achievement
in their class.
• All teachers who teach ESL students contribute to the students’ portfolios.
The second model of portfolio management is responsive to the concept of
authentic assessment because it facilitates collection and review of student data
form all sources, targeting all the teachers who work with each student.

Portfolio contents
• Language
• Skills
• Content knowledge and skills
• Effort and performance
• Works of different nature (drawings, written texts, audio recordings, videos,
DIY, ect)
• “Secondary evidence” (checklists, interviews, observations by the teacher)
Assessment and Evaluation
• At one level, assessment involves ongoing, periodic reflection of grown by
both teacher and student. This assessment may involve a teacher’s cursory
review of the portfolio noting changes in specific areas across specific time
perditions that culminates in a shot evaluation.
• At another level, assessment involves a more formal examination of what
students say,do, and think using locally developed rubrics, such as a checklist.
Assessment are conduced to provide a basic for some final evaluation of the
students. This evaluation may eventually be recorded as a grade, rating or mark
of some kind for each dimension or subject assessed.

Thematic Project: Insects!

• A second-grade class studies;
• Students a draw, read, and write about insects;
• They watch insect movies and visit insect websites;
• Each child researches a particular insect, then writes, creates a digital slide show,
or dictates a report about it;
• Students present their reports to the class.
Project -based learning: the square of life
• A teacher presents students with a world map and specimens of monarch
butterflies and Australian stick insects;
• He poses a challenging question: Why here and not here?
• Students select a square meter of local ground to examine
• Through close examination (facilitated by their teacher), they organize small
creatures into groups by shared characteristics.
 PBL and Problem-Based Learning
Both problem— and project-based learning press students beyond knowledge
acquisition, causing them to engage in critical thinking in order to construct
their own meaning by applying what they have learned.
Platforms for e-portfolios
10. Blogs/vlogs
11. Google sties
12. Google Docs
13. Wix
14. Padlet
15. Slimwiki (or any other wiki)
16. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) + clouds