assessing language learning

• 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

• 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

WHEN DOES ASSESSMENT TAKE PLACE?

Pre-assessment and adjustment (differentiated instruction)Instruction and formative assessment

Assessment and reteaching/relearning

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

DEFINITIONS

• Multiple choice

• True/False

• Matching

• Short answer (constructed response)

• Essay (extended constructed response)

• Oral interview

• PresentationSources: University of Waterloo, Northern Illinois University

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT - DIAGNOSTIC

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

STANDARDS

• Standards give us a vision of what students ultimately need to be able to do with the language

• ACTFL and state

• European Framework

ACTFL STANDARDS

• 5 goal areas known as the 5 C’s• 11 total standards

Communication

Cultures

Connections Comparisons

Communities

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

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?

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

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

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?

TESTING APPROACHES

• Dictations

• Elicited imitation

• Grammaticality judgments (DOL)

• Cloze tests

• Indirect tests – sub skills

• Direct tests – actual skills

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

PERFORMANCE TASKS

PERFORMANCE TASKS

PERFORMANCE TASKS

PERFORMANCE TASKS