Chet tillarini o'qitishning integrallashgan kursi (III & IV) Qarshi- 2018 Module: Language Testing and Assessment Lesson Basic principles of language assessment

Chet tillarini o'qitishning integrallashgan kursi (III & IV)

Qarshi- 2018
Module: Language Testing and Assessment
Lesson 1. Basic principles of language assessment
Assessment, noun [U] – the process of making a judgement or forming an opinion, after considering something or someone carefully
The purpose of most forms of assessment in the English Language classroom should be to inform people of how much progress a student is making. Assessment can take many different forms and does not need to be limited to tests and exams. Here are two types of assessment:
Activity assessment
a) Did you like that activity?
b) Was that activity easy or difficult?
c) What was the hardest part of that?
d) Was the activity useful? How? Why?
Self-assessment
a) Now I can
b) I still need to work on
c) I’ve improved in
d) Today I learnt
e) In the test I got X and Y wrong. I’m going to study these for homework.
The task here is on the students to think about what they’ve done. Unlike tests which are handed out, collected in and marked by a teacher and then handed back, these forms of assessment are about the process of learning rather than only on the product.
Does this mean that tests are not a valid form of assessment?
After collecting in the test, teacher hands out a blank copy to each student. Teacher asks them to look at the test and a) say how well they think they did on each particular question; b) say which questions were easy, ok, difficult; and, c) say what score they think they got. Then, when the teacher hands back the marked tests he/she asks them to compare their thoughts to the actual test, i.e. Did they get the questions right that they thought they had?, etc.
After collecting in the test, teacher hands out a blank copy to each student. He/she asks them to look at the test, choose two questions and tell a partner how they worked out the answer.
When should assessment take place?
The simple answer is that it should take place at every stage of the learning process and that it should be fairly frequent. Of course, there are many different forms of assessment. So, at the start of a course some form of diagnostic assessment should take place to see how much students know. This can then be used as a form of ‘benchmark’ used later on to see how much progress has been made.
Throughout a course various forms of assessment can be used, from homework, project work, in class activities to more formal tests. If you are required to give students a certain number of tests each year – say three – then one thing you could do is give them five and tell them that only the best three will be used. This kind of flexibility not only helps students be a little less worried but also takes into account that people have bad days sometimes. In fact, we will see this idea of selection again when we look at portfolios.
Teachers should help students become comfortable
One of our first tasks as a teacher has got to be to help our students become more comfortable with the idea of assessment. Because assessment often has a negative connotation and is equated with tests, passing, failing and scores, this can be quite a challenge. But if we can make our students understand that assessment is actually beneficial then it will make the whole process easier. Here are a few simple ideas aimed at achieving this:
Talk about assessment with your students.
a) What is assessment?
b) Why do we assess students?
c) How are we going to assess them?
d) What are the criteria used? Are these criteria clear?
Get students involved in assessment.
a) Use self-assessment, i.e. ‘Can do’ statements.
b) Use peer assessment.
c) Get students to come up with assessment criteria / agree criteria with students.
d) Get students involved in picking or designing assessment tasks.
Make assessment part of the teaching and learning process.
a) If you can build in a form of assessment regularly, maybe even every lesson, then your students will become used to it and therefore more comfortable.
b) Make sure you include the results of any assessment into your teaching. For example, if students have a particular problem with an aspect of grammar then go back over the grammar in a lesson making it clear that you are doing this because it was identified as a problem from the assessment. If students can see that you actually take notice of the assessment, and not simply the score, it will become more meaningful and positive for them
Brown (2004) in his book, “Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices “mentioned five major principles of language assessment which consist of practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity, and washback.
1. Practicality refers to tests that should be true. A practical test considers not only the limitation of budget and time, but also has clear administration, scoring, and interpretation (Brown, 2004, p. 26-27).
2. Reliability refers to tests that are consistent and dependable. Students or groups of target students are given the same test in two different periods of time, the test result would be similar. For test-takers, they are not ambiguous to a given field of study. Also, a reliable test not only gives learners clear directions but also offers administrated rubrics for grading or evaluation (Brown, 2004, p. 27).
3. Compared to reliability, validity talks about a test which “is valid if it is measured what it is supposed to measure” and when it is used for the purpose of assessment (Nation & Newton, 2009, p. 167). Brown (2004) pointed out that a valid test should measure according to its purpose, but not “irrelevant or contaminating variables” (Brown, 2004, p. 30). Thus, a test’s meaningful information for criterion, and evidence of performance should be considered in order to measure a student’s learning ability. Furthermore, there are many ways to measure the validity of a test, including content validity, construct validity, criterion-related validity (concurrent & predictive) and face validity.
4. Authenticity emphasizes that language is natural, contextualized and meaningful. Besides, authenticity offers language theme-based organization, story-line, or episode to reproduce real-world tasks.
5. The last principle is washback which refers to “criterion for a test is the influence of the form and the content of the test” in the classrooms (Nation & Newton, 2009, p. 169). This is also what Hughes (2003) said,” the effect of testing on teaching and learning” (as cited in Brown, 2004, p. 37).
Wash back includes the effects of an assessment on teaching and learning prior to the assessment itself, that is on preparation for the assessment.
• Informal performance assessment is by nature more likely to have built-in wash back effects because the teacher is usually providing interactive feedback.
• Formal tests can also have positive wash back, but they provide no wash back, if the students receive a simple letter grade or a single overall numerical score.
• Classroom test should serve as learning devices through which wash back is achieved.
• Students’ incorrect responses can become windows of insight into further work.
• Their correct responses need to be praised, especially when they represent accomplishments in a student’s interlanguage.
• Wash back enhances a number of basic principles of language acquisition: intrinsic motivation, autonomy, self confidence, language ego, interlanguage, and strategic investment, among others.
• One way to enhance wash back is to comment generously and specifically on test performance.
• Wash back implies that students have ready access to the teacher to discuss the feedback and evaluation he has given.
• Teachers can raise the wash back potential by asking students to use test results as a guide to setting goals for their future effort.
Can these principles apply to classrooms?
According to five principles: practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity, and washback, they can be provided as guidelines for evaluating a step-by-step procedure in the classrooms (Brown, 2004, p.40). Clearly, validity is the first priority choice to consider, and practicality is a minor important. Brown (2004) showed eight tips based on five principles’ features below,
(1) Are the test procedures practical? (2) Is the test itself reliable? (3) Can you ensure rater reliability?(4) Does the procedure demonstrate content validity? (5) Has the impact of the test been carefully accounted for? (6) Is the procedure “biased for best?” (7) Are the test tasks as authentic as possible? (8)Does the test offer beneficial washback to the learner? (pp. 41-48)
Teachers can take these mentioned tips along with checklists into consideration in order to evaluate test designs themselves for their own classrooms (Brown, 2004, p. 40). As a school teacher and a language school instructor, quizzes, tests, final exams, and standardized proficiency tests” can be examined through five principles (Brown, 2004, p. 40).