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UNIT 18 ASSESSMENT TYPES AND TASKS

ASSESSMENT TYPES AND TASKS

Assessing students is kind of difficult because teachers need to judge or grade learners performance in a qualitative or quantitative way. Moreover, for evaluating students there are two types of assessing formal and informal. Formal assessing is when students are evaluated through exams or when teachers give them a quantitative grade. In addition, there are plenty exams to take into consideration for assessing such as Diagnostic test (taken at the beginning of a course to identify what learners know or do not know about the language), Placement test (taken to students to identify the level learners should go in), Progress test (taken at the end of a unit to check how well pupils have learned the content.). Achievement test (taken at the end of a course to check if they have learned the contents of the whole course).All these types of assessing include different questions which can be objective and subjective. What´s more, there are other formal assessments that are not exams like Portfolios which is a collection of all the written work, projects, recordings, videos, etc. developed during the whole course. This type of assessing is done with the idea of reflecting what students did right; wrong and how will they improve their work next time.

In the language teaching classroom assessing is not as easy as other may think that is why some teachers who have a big number of students just use formal assessment; testing learners with objective questions;  it is easy to grade, but sometimes it does not show critical thinking on students answers. Meanwhile, it is not the only way to evaluate leaners subjectively. Nowadays teachers are using portfolios to assess students because it is suitable to show evidences of learners’ summative work in which they can reflect on the content of their portfolio. To sum up, teachers may use tests with objective questions in order to grade fast and portfolios to have a critical analysis of their own work. 

For more information check on the following sources:

• App.griffith.edu.au,. (2014). Assessment Matters. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://app.griffith.edu.au/assessment-matters/docs/assessment-methods/tasks
• Rand.org,. (2014). Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monog
• Uts.edu.au,. (2014). Types of assessment | University of Technology, Sydney. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/teaching-and-learning/assessment/types-assessment
• Brown, J., & Hudson, T. (1998). The Alternatives in Language Assessment. TESOL Quarterly, 32(4), 653. doi:10.2307/3587999
• Education.qld.gov.au,. (2014). Assessment. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/learning/diversit
• Faculty.mu.edu.sa,. (2014). Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1384813388.793471132662-Language-Testing-amp-Assessment.pdf

  

UNIT 17 PRACTICE ACTIVITIES AND TASKS FOR LANGUAGE AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

PRACTICE ACTIVITIES AND TASKS FOR LANGUAGE AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT 

There are different tasks or activities used to practice the language. However, these activities can be categorized into three parts according to how much control the teacher gives to each activity. Firstly, controlled activities which are based on accuracy or can help learners to focus on form of the language using repeated activities such as copying sentences, transformation, substitution, individual and chorus drills. Secondly, free activities are focused on fluency. Therefore, when teachers give free activities to his/her students they cannot predict what language learners are using which means that these type of tasks could not be used with specific language. For example, discussions, sharing and comparing ideas, rank ordering and prioritizing. Finally, freer activities which are in the middle of controlled and free activities giving us the idea that is a bit of both; These activities encourage students to integrate the language they have with the new one to make more challenging their learning process even though these activities give less guidance and support. Examples of this activity are role- plays, sentence completion, surveys, etc. 

Teachers can vary these tasks depending on learners´ needs and what the teacher intend to develop in the class. Meanwhile, there are some teachers who mix tasks depending on the lesson goals. If the teacher wants to develop fluency he/she would use free activities which use the language to interact and communicate by a class discussion. On the other side, if the teacher wants to focus on form in the class controlled activities will be the best choice because learners can copy some sentences in their notebook to emphasize on form.

For more information check these sources: 

• prezi.com,. (2014). Unit 17 Practice activities and tasks for language and skills development. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from https://prezi.com/fyfhay4r2zel/unit-17-practice-activities-and-tasks-for-language-and-skills-development/
• Ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com,. (2014). Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/97802055
• Teaching English Games,. (2014). How to Teach English For Different Learning Styles. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/Articles/Lea
• YouTube,. (2014). Teaching Activities - British Council - BBC. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Gyd9NEa9M