Assessing English Language Learners


Introduction

*What is the meaning of  evaluation assessment, and testing? Evaluation refers to the whole process of teaching-learning. It involves course syllabus, activities and testing. Assessment refers to the possible activities and instruments that a teacher selects in order to check the progress of the students in the learning process.  Finally, testing is a category of the assessment and it’s “a procedure” to obtain measurable results from the teaching-learning process.

Chapter I

*Assessment tasks are designed for that purpose, and the teacher must select the ones that best fulfills the needs according to the context: placement, aptitude, diagnostic, progress, achievement and proficiency tests are the most common categories. However, there are other categorizations such as: objective versus subjective tests, Criterion-Referenced versus Standardized tests, Summative versus formative, High stakes versus low stakes tests. There are nine principles that heads good test design: usefulness (intended use), validity (content, construct and face), reliability (application time-score relation), practicality, wash back (effect of testing), Authenticity, Transparency (accurate info) and Security.

Chapter II

*The process of developing assessment starts with planning, development, administration, analysis, feedback and reflection. It is very important to work in the specifications and students’ preparation. The techniques for testing includes the type of items that are going to be taken in to account when designing a test. It also involves common violations teachers do: grammar mistakes, ambiguous answers and double answer key are very common.