Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
1992). This trend has come at a time when the field of EFL/ESL is witnessing a
EFL/ESL classes should be carried out in a manner that does not cause anxiety
in the students. As new EFL/ESL curricula have moved in the direction of devel-
34 V O L U M E 43 N U M B E R 1 2005 E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M
well as language skill integration, the tradi- Alternatives in assessment
tional paper-and-pencil tests no longer cover The testing tools and procedures discussed
the variety of activities and tasks that take in this article are characterized by a deliberate
place in the elementary classroom. The sum- move from traditional formal assessment to a
mative form of testing that permeated the tra- less formal, less quantitative framework. Pierce
ditional curricula would not be fair to students and OMalley define alternative assessment as
whose studies are based on communicative any method of finding out what a student
activities. Fortunately, the field of evaluation knows or can do that is intended to show
has witnessed a major shift from strictly sum- growth and inform instruction and is not a
mative testing tools and procedures to a more standardized or traditional test (1992:2).
humanistic approach using informal assess- Specifically, alternative ways of assessing stu-
ment techniques that stress formative evalua- dents take into account variation in students
tion (ONeil 1992). needs, interests, and learning styles; and they
This article discusses alternative forms of attempt to integrate assessment and learning
assessment, in particular, personal-response activities. Also, they indicate successful perfor-
and performance-based assessment, which, in mance, highlight positive traits, and provide
congruence with the learner-centered princi- formative rather than summative evaluation.
ples of new methodological approaches, treat Until recently the assessment scene in
assessment as an integral part of teaching cul- EFL/ESL classes has been dominated by sum-
minating in formative evaluation. mative evaluation of learner achievement,
focusing on mastery of discrete language
Importance of assessment
points and linguistic accuracy, rather than on
In all academic settings, assessment is communicative competence, with test items
viewed as closely related to instruction. typically consisting of matching or gap-filling.
Assessment is needed to help teachers and ad- Communicative teaching methodology brings
ministrators make decisions about students with it a considerable emphasis on formative
linguistic abilities, their placement in appro- evaluation with more use of descriptive
priate levels, and their achievement. The suc- records of learner development in language
cess of any assessment depends on the effective and learning which [track] language develop-
selection and use of appropriate tools and pro- ment along with other curricular abilities
cedures as well as on the proper interpretation (Rea-Dickins and Rixon 1997:151).
of students performance. Assessment tools and Therefore, assessment becomes a diagnostic
procedures, in addition to being essential for tool that provides feedback to the learner and
evaluating students progress and achievement, the teacher about the suitability of the cur-
also help in evaluating the suitability and effec- riculum and instructional materials, the effec-
tiveness of the curriculum, the teaching meth- tiveness of the teaching methods, and the
odology, and the instructional materials. strengths and weaknesses of the students. Fur-
In the past, assessment tools and proce- thermore, it helps demonstrate to young learn-
dures were chosen at the level of the Ministry ers that they are making progress in their lin-
of Education, school district, school adminis- guistic development, which can boost
tration, or program coordinator. With the ad- motivation. This encourages students to do
vent of learner-centered and communicative more and the teacher to work on refining the
teaching methodologies, however, in many process of learning rather than its product.
settings control over the collection and inter- Young learners are notoriously poor test-
pretation of assessment information has shift- takers. [T]he younger the child being eval-
ed from centralized authority towards the class- uated, assessed, or tested, the more errors are
rooms where assessment occurs on a regular made[and] the greater the risk of assigning
basis (Fradd and Hudelson 1995:5). This false labels to them (Katz 1997:1). Tradition-
shift gives the classroom teacher a decisive role al classroom testing procedures can cause chil-
in assessing students and makes it necessary dren a great deal of anxiety that affects their
for the teacher to look for new assessment language learning as well as their self-image
techniques to evaluate students achievement (Smith 1996). Therefore, children need to
and progress. learn and be evaluated in an anxiety-reduced,
E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M V O L U M E 43 N U M B E R 1 2005 35
if not anxiety-free, environment. This can be Types of student responses
achieved if children perceive assessment as an Brown and Hudson (1998) identified these
integral component of the learning/teaching three types of responses required in most class-
process rather than an independent process room assessment: selected-response (true-false,
whose purpose is to pass judgment on their matching, multiple choice), constructed
abilities in relation to their classmates. response (fill-in, short answer, performance),
Using formative assessment can help and personal-response (conferences, portfo-
decrease the level of anxiety generated by con- lios, self and peer assessment). At the primary
centration on linguistic accuracy and increase level, assessment should begin with the use of
students comfort zone and feeling of success personal response. As students proficiency lev-
by stressing communicative fluency. Some els increase, teachers can move gradually into
teachers and researchers call for allowing stu- constructed response assessment and later into
dents to have a say not only in deciding the selected-response assessment.
format of the test but also in deciding its con- Many techniques of alternative assessment
tent and the way it is administered. Thus, were developed in line with the taxonomy of
Mayerhof (1992) suggests allowing students to student response types identified by Krashen
discuss questions during the test quietly as and Terrell (1983) and adapted by Olsen
long as each writes his own answers; of course, (1992), which suggests that there are four
she is referring to subjective types of questions. stages of language development in FL/SL
Friel (1989) recommends involving students learners. The first stage is preproduction, in
in suggesting topics for the test or in generat- which learners have a silent period and their
ing some questions. performance indicators are mostly kinesthetic
Murphey (1994/95) ventures beyond this in nature. During instruction and assessment,
concept to recommend that students make teachers may ask students to point, act out,
their own tests. He considers that student- choose, mark, gesture, and follow instructions.
made tests are an effective way to mine stu- The second stage is early speech, in which per-
dents different perceptions and use them, formance indicators are kinesthetic responses
building upon what a group knows as a whole and one- or two-word utterances. During
and getting them to collaborate in their learn- instruction and assessment, teachers ask stu-
ing Murphey (1994/1995:12). He suggests dents to name, number, list, and group words
the following process: students choose the or phrases. The third stage is speech emergence,
questions that will go into the test under the in which the performance indicators are one-
guidance of the teacher; a few days later, work- and two-word utterances, plus phrases and
ing in pairs, they ask each other questions dur- simple sentences. During instruction and
ing class; later on, the questions are asked assessment, students are asked to describe,
again with a new partner to reinforce what is define, recall, retell, summarize, compare, and
being learned. Students are graded by their contrast. The fourth stage is fluency emergence,
partners or by the teacher for the correctness in which performance indicators are words,
of their answers and for the appropriateness phrases, and complete sentences. Students are
and correctness of their English. asked to justify, create, give opinions, debate,
A final characteristic of alternative assess- defend, analyze, and evaluate (Krashen and
ment techniques for young learners is that they Terrell 1983).
are performance-based, requiring students to Another assessment procedure that is com-
perform authentic tasks using oral and/or writ- patible with communicative approaches to
ten communication skills. These techniques FL/SL language teaching is the 3Rs: recognition,
can include traditional classroom activities, replication, and reorganization (Olsen 1996).
such as giving oral reports and writing essays, These three types of responses mirror the four
but they may also involve nontraditional tasks, stages of language acquisition of Krashen and
such as cooperative group work and problem Terrell. Thus, recognition requires simple
solving. Teachers score the task performances physical responses and short verbal responses.
holistically (Shohamy 1995; Wiggins 1989). Replication corresponds to early speech and
Student performance should be measured fluency emergence. The last step, reorgani-
against standards previously discussed in class. zation, can accommodate various levels of
E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M V O L U M E 43 N U M B E R 1 2005 37
for one-on-one interactions where the teacher Learning logs: A learning log is a record of the
can learn about a students communicative students experiences with the use of the Eng-
abilities, emotional and social well-being, lish language outside the classroom, including
attention span, attitudes, pace of learning, and the when and the where of language use and
strengths and weaknesses (Smith 1996; Aller- why certain experiences were successful and
son and Grabe 1986). others werent. Students may also use logs to
Conferences can be most effective when comment on what they have studied in class
they follow focused observations. Observa- and to record what they have understood and
tions could be done in class, for example, in what they havent (Brown 1998). An advan-
cooperative learning groups, or out of class, tage of learning logs is that they can contribute
for example, on the playground. Gomez, Park- to the teachers understanding of the students
er, Lara-Alecio, Ochoa, and Gomez, Jr. (1996) use of metacognitive learning strategies.
have developed an observational instrument Dialogue Journals: These journals are interac-
for assessing learners oral performance in nat- tive in nature; they take the form of an ongo-
uralistic language settings, which focuses on ing written dialogue between teacher and stu-
these seven language abilities: understanding dent. Dialogue journals have proven effective
by others, providing information needed by and enjoyable for students regardless of their
the listener, absence of hesitations, willingness level of proficiency. They are informal and
to participate in conversations, self-initiated provide a means of free, uncensored expres-
utterances, accuracy (in grammar, usage, and sion, enabling students to write without wor-
vocabulary), and topic development. rying about being corrected (Peyton and Reed
Tambini (1999) also recommends the use of 1990). Teachers can also use journals to col-
conferences to assess the oral and written abili- lect information on students views, beliefs,
ties of children. He, too, favors conferences that attitudes, and motivation related to a class or
follow observations and concentrate directly on program or to the process involved in learning
the learning processes and strategies employed various language skills (Brown 1998:4). As an
by the student. For assessing oral skills, he sug- assessment technique, dialogue journals can
gests that children be evaluated primarily on help the teacher assess students writing ability
their ability to understand and communicate and improvement over time.
with teachers and classmates. In assessment of Peer and Group Assessment: Recent trends in
writing tasks, conferences could be used to dis- EFL/ESL teaching methodology have stressed
cuss drafts of essays and evaluate progress. the need to develop students ability to work
Self-Assessment: Young learners may also par- cooperatively with others in groups. For
ticipate in self-assessment. Although self- assessment, for example, students can write
assessment may seem inappropriate at first, it evaluative, encouraging notes for each mem-
can yield accurate judgments of students lin- ber of their team emphasizing their positive
guistic abilities, weaknesses and strengths, and contribution to team work. The role of the
improvement (McNamara and Deane 1995). teacher would be to provide guidance, to
Self-assessment could be done using one of the explain to the students what they have to eval-
following two techniques: uate in one anothers work, and to help them
K-W-L charts: With this type of chart, individ- identify and apply properly the evaluation cri-
ual students provide examples of what they teria. At the end of group tasks, if necessary,
know, what they wonder, what they have the teacher can give each student a test to
learned. K-W-L charts are especially effective check their individual performance. Propo-
when used at the beginning and at the end of nents of cooperative learning suggest the
a period of study. At the start of a course, the teacher should give a group grade to help rein-
completed charts can help the teacher learn force the merits of group work.
about students background knowledge and Student Portfolios: The concept of portfolio
interests. At the end of a course, the charts can was borrowed from the field of fine arts where
help the students reflect on what they have portfolios are used to display the best samples of
learned as well as gain awareness of their an artists work (Brown 1998). The purpose of
improvements (Tannenbaum 1996). a portfolio in the context of language teaching
E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M V O L U M E 43 N U M B E R 1 2005 39
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