Universidad Catlica de la Santsima Concepcin Facultad de Educacin Pedagoga en Educacin Media en Ingls

Language Assessment Task 4

Names Section Teacher Due Date

: Lidia Escalona Marcela Mellado : 02 : Gabriela Sanhueza : June 29th, 2013

Web page for assessing vocabulary

British council (Learn English Teens)

http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/grammar-vocabulary/vocabularyexercises

Comments: This web page is designed especially for teenagers, the topics that we can find there are really significant for them, because these contain vocabulary that learners could use in real life at present or in the future. This site offers a list of different topics; such as, the beach, air travel, money, among others. Learners can choose any of them to assess their knowledge about a specific vocabulary just clicking on any of them. Learners do not need to have a vast knowledge of English, because instructions are very clear and concise This page allows students to assess their achievement in certain vocabulary by themselves or guided by a teacher, they can obtain feedback immediately about how able they are for this, just pressing the button check. It gives the percentage of their achievement, the score obtained by the learner and the ideal score. In addition, learners can realize what was wrong with their answers pressing the button see answers, what lets students be aware of their errors by themselves and learn from them. This tool is suitable for informal formative assessment, because students can assess their performance in vocabulary during the process, and in an informal context. Also students can correct their errors and improve the vocabulary where they are weaker. In terms of the principles of a good quality test by Brown (2004), we can observe that it has some advantages and disadvantages. Advantages This tool is practical, because students can easily assess their performance. It is valid, because it measures what it is pretended to measure, in this case vocabulary. It gives washback, as it was said before; it provides feedback of the students performance in vocabulary and allows students to progress in what they are not quite able. It is partially authentic, because topics are really meaningful for students, but the kind of activities is not a quite authentic format for acquiring vocabulary, people do not acquire vocabulary in isolation as in these kinds of activities.

Disadvantages Despite of all good features that this tool has, it is not reliable, because students could see answers before finishing the activities or instead of using what they know they could look information in the net to complete the activities. Other problem that students could face with this web page is that, it is a little weight and sometimes it takes too much time for loading, maybe it is because of the amount of applications that it has. We consider that this more suitable for self-assessment not for using in formal summative assessment, because most of the activities have a game format and students can cheat while doing the activities.

Webpage for assessing Grammar English-grammar-lessons: http://www.english-grammar-lessons.com/ Comments: This webpage does not specify the level of English needed by the learners; however, by the language used it could be said that is for preintermediate learners. We found this website to be quite appropriate for assessing English grammar. It provides information of the main aspects of grammar such as: Tenses, Modals, passive voice, conditionals, among others. It does not only present definitions and examples about the already mentioned topics, but it also provides a variety of exercises for the student to practice varying on the range of difficulty. These exercises allow the student to assess how much they know about the rules, usage, among others. Based on that, we can claim that this webpage is perfect for informal formative assessment, because teacher can assess students progress throughout the whole teachinglearning process. This website also provides instant feedback on students performance, their weaknesses, in order to improve them. Another important aspect to highlight is that some extra links are given regarding other aspects of Second language learning, such as listening exercises and phrasal verbs. Nevertheless, the website also has its drawbacks, for instance: the layout is too dull; and not

appealing for any sort of learner; furthermore, it has ads that are distracting and unpleasant when assessing grammar rules. Regarding the principles of a good quality test by Brown (2004), this page fulfils the following: Practicality, the exercises are easy to assess and low cost, excluding internet connection; Validity, the contents to assess are relevant to what was taught. However, it has some exceptions: Authenticity, the exercises do not represent a real-life situation; and reliability, the exercises are not 100% reliable, considering that it has a button that shows the correct answers, this might be seen as something positive, because it helps in the process of providing Washback; but also as something negative, since it increases the chances of cheating, which would be detrimental when assessing students performance. To summarize, the webpage chosen is quite good for assessing English grammar rules and it uses for someone that already has the basic vocabulary in order to understand the information given. However, the exercises provided are not as motivating or appealing as they could be, but great to assess the teaching-learning process in order to be meaningful.