What Is Assessment?: Educational Language Assessment Involves The Use of A Variety of Procedures and Tools To

What is assessment?
Assessment includes any means of checking students’ performance of what they can or can’t do
with the language, but proper assessment gives due weight to the positive side
of their achievement.
Educational language assessment involves the use of a variety of procedures and tools to
collect information about teaching and learning, and more importantly about students' language
ability which is not only useful but necessary to prepare them for success. The most common
kind of assessment procedure is testing. Testing means presenting a student with a set of
questions or tasks in order to obtain a measure of performance often represented by a score. The
score is intended to give information about the person tested.
Why Do We Assess?
An assessment that is constructed without a clear idea of what it is for, is no good. What and
how you assess should obviously depend on your purpose. We can distinguish at least seven
important purposes of assessment which indicate seven different emphases in measuring
students' ability and potential. There is, however, some overlap among them. Consider the
following purposes
1-Placement - to place or classify students on a suitable course .
2) Diagnosis to specify student's particular strengths and weaknesses .
3) Selection to select as fairly as possible the best candidates for a limited number of places or
jobs or for higher education studies.
4) Evaluation - to evaluate the effectiveness of the syllabus as well as the method of teaching so
as to make adjustments where needed.
5) Progress - to assess what students have learned of the specific syllabus and what progress
have they made.
6) Prediction - to discover potential abilities and aptitudes and to predict probable future
successes in school or outside.
7) Accreditation to provide evidence that a student has undergone a course of training or study
and is qualified to practice his profession.
When Do We Assess?
It is important to determine when to assess, as it is important to determine how and what to
assess. The three terms 'terminal' periodic and 'continuous' assessments are often used in
assessment and are introduced at different stages of a course of study.
● Terminal or final assessment refers to assessment that takes place at the end of a
predetermined period or unit, as, for example, a school year or a course of study. Assessment
ought, therefore, to concern itself with the whole of what is being taught .
● Periodic assessment measures levels of achievement reached at predetermined intervals
throughout the course, for example monthly tests or term tests.
●Continuous assessment is given to have a continuous updating of judgment about a student's

performance. A well- designed flexible programme of continues assessment would be perfectly
appropriate for a cyclical subject like English. Continuous assessment, thus, helps make
assessment an integral part of the teaching/learning process.
What Do We Assess?
Clearly the answer to this question is language. The two forms of language are the
spoken and the written. Two linguistic activities associated with both speech and
writing are: encoding and decoding.
Encoding activity (Speaking and Writing) are called " Productive skills
decoding activity
Types of Assessment
1-Diagnostic assessment
• Is often undertaken at the beginning of a unit of study to assess the skills, abilities,
interests, experiences, levels of achievement or difficulties of an individual student or a whole
class.
• Can involve formal measurements (e.g. IQ/aptitude tests, fitness tests) that are used to
establish a starting point or baseline OR informal measurements (e.g. observation, discussions,
questioning)
• Informs programming and planning, and learning and teaching methods used, as well as
assessment choices.
2-Summative assessment
• Assists you to make judgments about student achievement at certain relevant
points in the learning process or unit of study (e.g. end of course, project,
semester, unit, year).
• Can be used formally to measure the level of achievement of learning outcomes
(e.g. tests, labs, assignments, projects, presentations etc.).
• Can also be used to judge programme, teaching and/or unit of study effectiveness
(that is as a form of evaluation).
3-Formative assessment
• Is the practice of building a cumulative record ofstudent achievement.
• Usually takes place during day to day learning experiences and involves ongoing,
informal observations throughout the term, course, semester or unit of study.
• Is used to monitor students’ ongoing progress and to provide immediate and
meaningful feedback.
• Assists teachers in modifying or extending their programs or adapting their
learning and teaching methods.
• Is very applicable and helpful during early group work processes.
4-Informal assessment involves
• Systematically observing and monitoring students during in class learning and teaching
experiences.
• Interacting with students to gain a deeper knowledge of what they know, understand and can
do.
• Circulating the classroom and posing questions, guiding investigations, motivating and
quizzing students.
• Providing opportunities for students to present or report upon their learning and teaching
experiences.
• Collecting, analyzing, and providing feedback on in and out of class work samples (e.g. how
their group work projects are progressing).
5-Formal assessment involves

• The use of specific assessment strategies to determine the degree to which
students have achieved the learning outcomes.
• Assessment strategies including: essays, exams, reports, projects, presentations,
performances, laboratories or workshops, resource development, artwork, creative
design tasks, quizzes and tests, journal writing, portfolio.
• Individual and/or collaborative tasks that usually attract a mark (group work may
include both an individual and group component).
Assessment AS Learning
• Assessment as learning focuses on students and emphasizes assessment as a
process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought processes) for students.
• Students reflect on their work on a regular basis, usually through self and peer
assessment and decide what their next learning will be.
 Helps students to take more responsibility for their own learning and
monitoring future directions
Key Assessment Principles

1. Validity - Does the assessment measure what we really want to measure?
2. Reliability- Is all work being consistently marked to the same standard.

3. Practicality - Is the procedure relatively easy to administer.
4. Washback - Does the assessment have positive effects on learning and teaching.
5. Authenticity - Are students asked to perform real-world tasks.
Assessment For Learning

Assessment for learning is:
*The interaction& dialogue between teachers and learners.
*Help learners understand what they need to do next in order to improve it.
*Thoughtful improvement rather than getting it right the first time.
Purpose of Assessment for Learning

Information from assessment can be used to:
• Plan and modify learning programmes for individual students, groups of
students, and/or the class as a whole
• Identify and then address the learning needs of each student in a clear and
constructive way
• Involve and engage parents, families, whanau, and communities in their
child's learning
The Ministry of Education can undertake policy review and target funding and
intervention

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What is assessment?

1-Placement - to place or classify students on a suitable course .

2) Diagnosis to specify student's particular strengths and weaknesses .

●Continuous assessment is given to have a continuous updating of judgment about a student's

5-Formal assessment involves

Key Assessment Principles

2. Reliability- Is all work being consistently marked to the same standard.

5. Authenticity - Are students asked to perform real-world tasks.

Assessment For Learning

Purpose of Assessment for Learning

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