2nd Alumni, CTJ and IBEU TEFL ConferenceFrank Couto & Lueli Ceruti

Test

Assessment refers to a variety of ways of collecting information on a student’s ability –

a test might be one of them.

A formal, systematic (usually paper-and-pencil) procedure used to gather information about students’ skills.

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Assessment

Coombe, Folse & Hubley – A Practical Guide to Assessing English Language Learners.

What assessment instruments do you normally use?

Written tests Grammar exercises

Role-play Oral tests

Speaking activities Portfolios

Self-assessment Compositions

Presentations Projects

Which of these contribute formallyto the students’ final evaluation?

Why are written tests so prevalent?

PracticalityReliability

Standardization

Cornerstones of Testing

• Practicality

• Reliability

• Validity

• Authenticity

• Impact (washback)

• Validity Test what you teach and how you teach it.

A communicative language learning approach must be matched with communicative language testing.

• Authenticity Learners are intrinsically motivated to perform when they

are faced with tasks that reflect real-world situations and tasks. Have your students use the language authentically.

• Impact (washback) A test-driven curriculum - studying and learning “what

they need to know for the test” – will certainly impact instruction positively or negatively.

Written testsRole-play

Speaking activities

Self-assessment

Presentations

Grammar exercises

Oral TestsPortfolios

Compositions

Projects

Alternative assessment:• Formative - providing information for instruction adjustment• Complementary - integrating instruction and assessment.• Varied - providing multiple indicators to measure students’ skills.

The Real-Beginner Experiment• 13 adult students• New to the school – no previous assessment

• In week 3 (of 10), having already worked most of Unit 1, we wanted to ascertain that the students were able to interact using the following exponents:

• What’s your name? My name is…• How are you? I’m…, and you?• What’s your telephone number? It’s (numbers 0-9)• Nice to meet you/Nice to meet you too.

Each pair of students received a dialogue cut up into slips. They were asked to put the slips in a logical sequence to make the dialogue.

What’s your name?

My name’s Jane. What’s your name?

Hello. Good morning.

Good morning!

Nice to meet you, too, Robert.

I’m Robert. Nice to meet you, Jane.

What’s your phone number?

My phone number is 9124 5678.

• With the correct sequence, students were asked to personalize the dialogue, by substituting names and other elements with their own personal information.

• Slips were collected and the T elicited the dialogue on the board – leaving blanks in which they would complete with their own names, etc.

• Students were asked to stand up and cocktail, talking to at least three different classmates, using the model. T monitored the exchanges, cleaning the board when most of the students had performed the dialogue at least once.

Finally, the T called on pairs of students and asked them to perform the dialogue out loud – no model available.

As they did so, the teacher filled in an assessment sheet with the following criteria:

The Upper-Intermediate Experiment• 7 adult students• Familiar with our traditional summative

assessment system

CASA THOMAS JEFFERSON Thomas Prime 1

Unit 1 – Advice for Unbalanced People (Page 5) Instructions

1. After having your students do activity D on page 5, have them revise the

suggestions presented by the text on page 4. 2. Copy those suggestions on the board. 3. Have the students read the directions to the Grammar Exchange exercise

on page 5. 4. Have them practice using the structures by doing the folder exercises and

the workbook exercises. 5. Ask them to prepare their lists on the exercise sheet (This can be done as

homework.) 6. Collect the sheets and correct the sentences at home.

Each of the sentences is worth two points.

a) Deduct two points if the student’s sentence does not make sense. b) Deduct one point if the student makes a mistake with the target

structure (verbs stop, remember, forget followed by the wrong verb form), but their sentence still communicates the idea.

c) Deduct half a point if the student makes small mistakes (prepositions, articles, spelling).

PR1 - 1

CASA THOMAS JEFFERSON Thomas Prime 1 Exercise 1

Unit 1 – Advice for Unbalanced People (Page 5) Name: _________________________________________________________ Write a list of five suggestions for what someone can do to enjoy life more. Use remember, forget and stop. (10 points)

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CASA THOMAS JEFFERSON Thomas Prime 1

Unit 1 – Advice for Unbalanced People (Page 5)

Name: _________________________________________________________

1. Go over your answers to the exercise and evaluate your performance.

□ I was excellent.

□ I did well enough.

□ I could do a little better.

□ I need to improve.

2. What can you do to improve your performance in this type of exercise?

□ I can study the grammar point more carefully.

□ I can be more careful when I write the sentences.

□ I can use the dictionary to check the spelling of the words.

□ ________________________________________.

PR1 - 1

10 10 15 15 15 10 10 15 100 100 100 100

8 8 15 13 15 9 10 15 93 97 91 94

10 8 10 12 14 6 10 15 85 91 80 86

9 10 10 12 14 9 10 15 89 87 91 89

9 8 8 8 13 8 9 15 78 83 75 79

10 * * * 15 * * * 25 92 90 91

9 9 12 * 13 8 10 15 76 57 75 66

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Alternative Assessment

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Students’ ViewsA survey was carried out to check how the students in these classes viewed the process.

How do you evaluate the “alternative assessment” system we adopted this semester?

□ excellent □ good □ not so good □ negative

Findings

Basic Course

72.7% - excellent18,2% - good9,1% - not so good

Upper-intermediate Course

100% - excellent

Basic Course

• “Ser avaliado através das atividades em aula aumenta o comprometimento do aluno em estudar.”

• “A avaliação contínua neutraliza o nervosismo do aluno, não é limitada a apenas um momento, e torna todo o processo mais leve, pois tira a expectativa por uma prova final.”

• “O processo de avaliação contínua é muito bom, pois obriga o aluno a estudar diariamente.”

Upper-Intermediate Course• “I think the biggest advantage is the study

routine that the students acquire because the evaluations are distributed throughout the course and they have to study every week.”

• “In my opinion the advantages are: a) The students don’t feel under stress when they are taking their oral evaluatons in class, with this system the teacher can make adjustments in his way of teaching since he immediately knows the weakenesses of the students.”