Unit-15-Assessment-in-Language-Teaching.ppt

1、Unit 15 Assessment in Language Teaching,By Xu Zhijian,Aims of the unit,1. Assessment purposes 2. Assessment methods 3. Assessment criteria 4. Assessment principles 5. Testing in language assessment,I. Understanding assessment,1. Whats assessment? Task 1 The following is a list of understanding asses

2、sment given by different teachers. What do you think of them? Its to do with testing Finding out how good you are at something.,I use it to keep a check on my learners, by spelling tests, small quizzes and things like that. It is an on-going process which focuses on the whole life of our school. Fin

3、ding out if we are being effective. I feel as though its a big stick hanging over our heads, teacher evaluation and all that.,Finding out strengths and weaknesses of our students and ourselves. I use tests in my classroom. I also use quizzesas a way of keeping a check on the students learning. I als

4、o mark their work, sometimes with a grade but usually a comment. It is to do with record-keeping, collecting information about how well the students are doing.,2. The differences between testing, assessment and evaluation,Testing: It often takes the pencil and paper form and it is usually done at th

5、e end of a learning period, such as unit-test, mid-term-test, semester-test etc.,2. The differences between testing, assessment and evaluation,Assessment: it involves the collecting of information or evidence of a learners learning progress and achievement over a period of time for the purposes of i

6、mproving teaching and learning.,2. The differences between testing, assessment and evaluation,Evaluation: It involves making an overall judgment about ones work or a whole schools work. According to Cameron, it can be concerned with a whole range of issues in and beyond language education: lessons,

7、courses, programs, and skills can all be evaluated.,3. Assessment purposes,Assessment in ELT means to discover what the learners know and can do at a certain stage of the learning process.,Task 3:What do you think are the purposes of assessment?,1.To discover learners weaknesses N 2.To discover lear

8、ners achievements Y 3.To evaluate the existing curriculum Y 4.To check upon teachers performance Y 5.To motivate learners Y 6.To provide an incentive for learning Y,Task 3:What do you think are the purposes of assessment?,7.To provide the basis for further planning of teaching: what to teach next Y

9、8.To qualify students Y 9.To provide the basis for correction N 10.To provide criteria to qualify for higher level studies Y 11.To provide learners with a sense of accomplishment Y 12. To foster the ability to learn. Y,3. Assessment purposes,A close study on the assessment purposes will make it clea

10、r that all the people involved in education have some reasons to consider assessment necessary. 1) for administrators They need to know whether the programmes they have planned are working well. The only way to do this is to discover how well the students are doing with their courses.,2) for teacher

11、s Teachers put the administrators plans into practice. they need to know what has been done and what needs to be done next; what the students already know or can do and what they do not know or cannot do yet.,3) for parents They are anxious to know how their children are doing in school. Unable to w

12、atch their kids in the class, parents value the feedback about their childrens performance from the teachers and the school.,4) for students They need to know what theyve accomplished, be aware of what they need to work on next, and build up their confidence and satisfaction from what they have achi

13、eved. It should be noted that both positive and negative assessment should be made available to the learner, as honestly as possible.,II. Methods for assessment,Assessment includes testing but definitely not only testing. Assessment is often divided into summative assessment and formative assessment

14、.,summative assessment: (终结性评价),Summative assessment is mainly based on testing. It is done mostly at the end of a learning period or the end of a school year.,Formative assessment:（形成性评价）,Formative assessment is based on information collected in the classroom during the teaching processes for the p

15、urposes of improving teaching and learning, therefore, it is sometimes termed as classroom assessment as well.,The ways to gather students learning information.,1.Teachers observations Teachers observations of the learners overall performance or achievement can be quite accurate and fair. 2. Continu

16、ous assessment 3.Self-assessment and peer assessment,The ways to gather students learning information.,3. Project work Project work requires students to complete a set of tasks designed to explore a certain idea or concept. 4. Portfolios: (档案袋) A portfolio is a purposeful collection of materials ass

17、embled over a period of time by a learner to provide evidence of skills, abilities and attitudes.,III. Assessment criteria,It is agreed that assessment means to discover how well learners know things or can do things. But “well” is often comparatively “well”, not absolutely “well”. Depending on diff

18、erent assessment purposes and the stage at which the assessment is made, assessment should be made according to different criteria or references.,1.Criterion-referenced assessment(标准参照),Criterion-referenced language assessment is based on a fixed standard or a set criterion. The national or local ed

19、ucational authority may have this standard or criterion. A school or several schools in a district may have their standard or set criterion for whatever purposes they might have. A fixed standard is usually the ultimate goal which the students are expected to achieve at the end of the course.,2.Norm

20、-referenced assessment（常模参照）,Norm-referenced assessment is designed to measure how the performance of a particular student or group of students compares with the performance of another student or group of students whose scores are given as the norm. A students achievement is therefore interpreted wi

21、th reference to the achievement of other students or groups of students, rather than to an agreed criterion.,3.Individual-referenced assessment（个体参照）,Individual-referenced assessment is based on how well the learner is performing relative to his or her own previous performance, or relative to an est

22、imate of his or her individual ability. For example, if a student could only say a few words in English after a few months of the course, and now after another months study, he is able to speak with some fluency (although there is some inaccuracy), we can surely say he has made great progress.,Task

23、7. Advantaged and disadvantages,IV. Assessment principles,Generally speaking, assessment should based on the following principles: assess authentic use of language in reading, writing, speaking, and listening; assess literacy and language in a variety of contexts;,assess the environment, the instruc

24、tion, anti the students; assess processes as well as products; analyse patterns of errors in language and literacy; be based on normal developmental patterns and behaviour in language and literacy acquisition; clarify and use standards when assessing reading, writing, and content knowledge:, involve

25、 students and parents, as well as other personnel such as the ESL or mainstream teacher, in the assessment process; be an ongoing part of every day. It is ideal if assessors can follow all these principles. But in reality, it is very difficult to achieve this.,V. Testing in assessment,1The role of t

26、esting in the classroom Classroom testing is the topic of this handbook. Although the teacher is primarily concerned with teaching rather than testing, classroom tests play three important roles in the second-language program: they define course objectives, they stimulate student progress, and they

27、evaluate class achievement.,（1）Defining course objectives If all the tests are written tests the students will soon concentrate on perfecting the skills of reading and writing. If the teacher explains to the students that the course is intended to teach them how to perform the language with near-nat

28、ive fluency and then persists in giving tests composed of translations and declension tables, the students will continually refer to traditional grammatical terms and English equivalents. Therefore, in a very real way the classroom tests define the short-range course objectives of the teacher.,（2）St

29、imulating student progress As much as possible, the time given over to classroom testing should provide a rewarding experience. The test should furnish an opportunity for the students to show how well they can handle specific elements of the target language; gone are the days when the teacher design

30、ed a test to point up the students ignorance or lack of application.,（3）Evaluating class achievement Through frequent testing, the teacher can determine which aspects of the program are presenting difficulties for individual students and for the class as a whole. By analyzing the mistakes made on a

31、given test, or more precisely on given items of that test, the teacher can determine where to concentrate extra class drill and how best to assist each student.,2 Types of test,There are four basic types of language tests: Aptitude tests Progress tests Achievement tests Proficiency tests.,The aptitu

32、de test(能力倾向测试),The aptitude test is conceived as a prognostic measure that indicates whether a student is likely to learn a second language readily. It is generally given before the student begins language study, and may be used to select students for a language course or to place students in secti

33、ons appropriate to their ability.,The progress test（进步测试）,The progress test measures how much the student has learned in a specific course of instruction. The tests that the classroom teacher prepares for administration at the end of a unit or end of a semester are progress tests. Their format refle

34、cts the various components of the curriculum. This handbook is written specifically to help teachers improve their progress tests and evaluate those which commercial publishers distribute to accompany their materials.,The achievement test（成绩测试）,The achievement test is similar to the progress test in

35、 that it measures how much the student has learned in the course of second-language instruction. However, achievement tests are usually not built around one set of teaching materials hut are designed for use with students from a variety of different schools and programs.,The proficiency test（水平测试）,T

36、he proficiency test also measures what students have learned, but the aim of the proficiency test is to determine whether this language ability corresponds to specific language requirements. The proficiency tests, in fact, usually report student language ability on a continuum that reflects a predet

37、ermined set of categories.,3. Testing items,When we design a test question, we should focus on the followings: validity(有效性) reliability（可靠性） discrimination（区别性） difficulty（难度）,4. Types of test items,Test items can be designed in various formats. A test whose items are designed in different formats tends to have more validity and reliability than a test that is designed in a single format, for example, multiple-choice format.,The most frequen