Assessing Language Learning
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How to assess language learning in an authentic, reliable and valid way!
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Assessing Language Learning
- 1. • What does it mean to know a second language? • How do international, national and state standardized tests influence language learning and teaching? • What are advantages and disadvantages of teacher-made tests? ASSESSING LANGUAGE LEARNING
- 2. • Impossible to determine how people learn languages without knowing what they have learned • Language testing researchers seek to assess consistently and accurately • All assessment is an estimate of what people know What they know Learning What they can show Assessment Data INTRO TO ASSESSMENT
- 3. WHEN DOES ASSESSMENT TAKE PLACE?
- 4. DEFINITIONS • Language test – systematic and practical way to elicit samples of a learner’s oral, written, listening and reading performance • Publisher-produced tests • Standardized testing • Alternative assessment • Norm-referenced • Criterion-referenced
- 5. DEFINITIONS • Multiple choice • True/False • Matching • Short answer (constructed response) • Essay (extended constructed response) • Oral interview • Presentation Sources: University of Waterloo, Northern Illinois University
- 6. FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT - DIAGNOSTIC
- 9. STANDARDS • Standards give us a vision of what students ultimately need to be able to do with the language • ACTFL and state • European Framework
- 10. ACTFL STANDARDS • 5 goal areas known as the 5 C’s • 11 total standards
- 17. ISSUES – COMPETENCE-PERFORMANCE • Competence-performance problem – theoretically impossible to access “true” language ability • We can observe what students can write or say in situations, but students may be anxious, unmotivated, or have nothing to say • Think of a time that for any reason you were not as communicative as usual
- 18. ISSUES • Reliability - Does your assessment consistently produce output? • Validity – Does your assessment address what you want to address? • Does your overall grade represent students’ language ability? • What will your grade system be?
- 19. ISSUES • Face validity – Does it measure what it is supposed to? • Predictive validity – Does it produce accurate predictions about students? • Concurrent validity – Two tests about the same skill should yield similar scores • A test may be valid for some audiences and not others • Use multiple assessments to increase validity of results
- 20. AUTHENTICITY AND WASHBACK • Language tests should determine whether learners can use the language in the context they are studying • Because of this, language tests should mirror real-life (in theory) • Washback – the effect that assessments have on learning and teaching • If you want students to be able to do something, make sure to measure it
- 21. TESTING APPROACHES • Integrative • Oral interviews/compositions • High validity • Perhaps not a reliable • Nonintegrative/discrete-point • Focus on one unit of language at a time • Highly reliable • Does “knowing” the answer have to do with the ability to use it in conversation?
- 22. TESTING APPROACHES • Dictations • Elicited imitation • Grammaticality judgments (DOL) • Cloze tests • Indirect tests – sub skills • Direct tests – actual skills
- 23. PORTFOLIOS • Purposeful selection of student work chosen by student and teacher • Eg., an assignment a student is proud of, a test, a written piece selected by a teacher, and an oral recording (link, etc.) • Students must be involved in self-assessment to foster learner autonomy