What
Language Teachers need to know about assessment？
Assessment
involves the collecting of information or evidence of a learner’s learning
progress and achievement over a period of time for the purposes of improving
teaching and learning. It is not based on one test or one task, nor is it
expressed by a mark or grade, but rather in a report form with scales or levels
as well as description and comment from the teacher.
Assessment
Purposes：
◇ Discover
learners’ achievements
◇ eva luate
learners’ progress
◇ Check upon
teachers’ performance
◇ Motivate
students, not to frustrate them
◇ Provide motive
for learning, etc
In general, the
purpose of assessment in language teaching and learning is to discover what the
learners know and can do at a certain stage of the learning process, to a
certain extent.
And in the past,
the assessors could be administrators, teachers, sometimes, maybe the parents.
However, students can be assessors who can assess themselves and teachers’
teaching in some occasions. But the roles of the variety of assessors are more
or less different.
It is very clear
that all the people involved in education have some reasons to consider
assessment necessary:
Administrators need to know whether the programs they have planned are
working well.
Teachers need to know
what has been done and what needs to be done next
Parents value the
feedback about their children’s performance from the teachers and the
school.
Students need to know what
they have accomplished, be aware of what they need to work on next and build up
their confidence from what they have achieved.
Most of our
classroom assessment is formative assessment: eva luating students in the
process of “forming” their competencies and skills with the goal of helping
them to continue that growth process. The key to such formation is the delivery
(by the teacher) and internalization (by the student) of appropriate feedback
on performance, with an eye toward the future continuation (or formation) of
learning.
Summative
assessment aims to measure, or summarize, what a student has grasped, and
typically occurs at the end of a course or unit of instruction. A summation of
what a student has learned implies looking back and taking stock of how well
that student has accomplished objectives, but does not necessarily point the
way to future progress. Final exams in a course and general proficiency exams
are examples of summative assessment. （摘要人：张莹）
