APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT
Traditional Assessment
Authentic assessment
to evaluate if the students have learned the content;
to determine whether or not the students are successful in acquiring knowledge
to ascribe a grade for them; to rank and compare them against standards or other learners
Examples: True or False; multiple choice tests, standardized tests, achievement tests, intelligence tests, aptitude tests
Advantages
Easy to score; Teachers can evaluate students more quickly and easily.
Less time and easier to prepare; easy to administer
Objective, reliable and valid
Disadvantages
Provides teachers with just a snapshot of what the students have truly learned
Provides students limited options to demonstrate what they have learned, usually limited to pencil and paper tests
Assesses only the lower level thinking/cognitive skills: focuses only on the students’ ability to memorize and recall information
Teacher-structured: teachers direct and act as evaluators; students merely answer the assessment tool.
assessments wherein students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of what they have learned.
Provides teachers a more complete picture of what the students know and what they can do with what they know
Measures students’ ability to apply knowledge of the content in real life situations; ability to use
Flexible and provides multiple acceptable ways of constructing products or performance as evidence of learning
Examples: demonstrations, hands-on experiments, computer simulations, portfolios, projects, multi-media presentations, role plays, exhibits
Advantages
Provides teachers with the true picture of how and where their students are in their learning;
Provides students many alternatives/ways to demonstrate best what they have learned
offers a wide array of interesting and challenging assessment activities
Reveals and enriches the students’ high level cognitive skills:
Student-structured: students are more engaged in their learning
Disadvantages
Time consuming
Harder to evaluate
Susceptible to unfairness, subjectivity, lacking objectivity, reliability, and validity if not properly guided by well-defined/clear criteria or rubrics/standards