1. 2nd Alumni, CTJ and IBEU TEFL Conference
Frank Couto & Lueli Ceruti

2. 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.
X
Assessment
Coombe, Folse & Hubley – A Practical Guide to Assessing English Language Learners.

3. 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 formally
to the students’ final evaluation?

4. Why are written tests so prevalent?
Practicality
Reliability

5. Cornerstones of Testing
• Practicality
• Reliability
• Validity
• Authenticity
• Impact (washback)

6. • 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.

7. Written tests
Role-play
Speaking activities
Self-assessment
Presentations
Grammar exercises
Oral TestsPortfolios
Compositions
Projects

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

9. • 13 adult students
• New to the school – no previous assessment

10. • 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.

11. Hello. Good morning.
Nice to meet you, too, Robert.

12. • 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.

13. 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:

15. • 7 adult students
• Familiar with our traditional summative
assessment system

19. 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

20. 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)
1
2
3
4
5

21. 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

22. 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
Listening1
TOTAL
Grades
Speaking2
Reading2
Alternative Assessment
TOTAL
WrittenTest
OralTest
Speaking1
Reading1
Writing2
Listening2
Writing1

23. A 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

24. Findings
Basic Course
72.7% - excellent
18,2% - good
9,1% - not so good
Upper-intermediate
Course
100% - excellent

25. 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.”

26. 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.”