UNIVERSIDAD MARIANO GALVEZ DE GUATEMALAEscuela de Idiomas

ENGLISH EVALUATION TECHNIQUES

Alternative Assessment

Jaime Emmanuel Gómez Véliz5076-13-10967

Alternative AssessmentAlternative assessment is a way to directly evaluate learners language skills. If paper pencil tests show knowledge about a language, alternative assessment shows learners ability to use the language. There are many reasons to use alternative assessments techniques. This is a list of the most common reasons:

1. Learners make real use of the target language, in our case English, for an actual purpose. 2. Learners demonstrate things learned in class.3. Learners take responsibility for and self-direct some of their own learning. 4. Learners' motivation to learn and use the language may increase.5. Provides an opportunity to directly display students progress to others in a school or

community and to family members.

These are some of the most common types of alternative assessment:

a) Self-Record keeping.

One form of alternative assessment is to have students keep track of their own work. For

example, students can track progress on charts similar to these. Students mark the chart

when they have finished their work and turned in an assignment. Guidelines for student

work can also be posted on the wall. Such guidelines set clear expectations for

assignments and for the tracking process.

b) Peer feedback assessment.

Learners can also correct each other’s work. They can read each other’s writing

assignments and listen to each other's oral assignments. They can give feedback on

content, on work that is in process, and on the end product.  A more proficient student can

help correct the work of a student with less proficiency.  Older students can help correct the

work of younger students.

For peer feedback to be effective, the teacher must give clear guidelines to the students.

They must know exactly what they are looking for and how to give feedback on it.

The teacher’s role is to

To set parameters. To act as timekeeper. To serve as a resource expert, when needed. To circulate quietly around the room as students work.

The students role is to:

Stay on task with his or her partner. To work quietly and courteously. To ask for help from the teacher or from other students nearby as needed.

c) Portfolios.

Portfolios are systematic collections of student work over time. These collections help students and teachers assess student growth and development. It is essential that students develop a sense of ownership about their portfolios so they can understand where they have made progress and where more work is needed.

Portfolio Content

The content of portfolios will vary with the level of the student and will depend on the types of assignments they are given in class. In addition to completed reports, poems, letters, and so forth, portfolios often contain first and second drafts. Reading logs and audiotape recordings can also be included. As portfolios are assembled, it is important that students keep them in a place where they have easy access to them. Students should be encouraged to browse through their portfolios and share them with classmates.

Criteria for Selecting Items for Portfolios

Although almost all work may initially be included, portfolios can quickly become unmanageable if they are too large. Portfolios that will form the basis for assessment can be assembled at the end of each term and at the end of the school year. A specific number of items for inclusion (often five or six) and criteria for selecting them should be agreed to by the teacher and students.

Evaluation of Portfolios

Portfolio evaluation often occurs at three levels: the student, the student's peers, and the teacher. For each piece selected, students may be asked to describe briefly why they chose it, what they learned, and what their future goals are. Students can also be asked to prepare an overall evaluation of their portfolio.

Classmates are frequently enlisted in portfolio evaluation. Their evaluation can focus on what they see as the special strengths of the portfolio, their personal response to some item in the portfolio, and a suggestion of one thing their classmate could work on next.

Portfolio evaluation by the teacher should build on that of the student's and peer's. Although the teacher evaluation may result in a grade, it is important that an opportunity be found for discussion with the student. This discussion should culminate in agreement on future goals.

Although not a part of the formal evaluation process, it is helpful, particularly for elementary school children, for parents to review the portfolios. Portfolios can be sent home or they can be reviewed at the time of the parent-teacher conferences. It is

essential that teachers take steps to help parents understand that their role should be to provide encouragement and that they should focus on the positive and not be critical.

d) Performance assessment.

With performance assessment, the teacher assigns the task (often one that involves the use of multiple language skills). At the same time, the teacher gives the criteria for a good performance. When students perform, the teacher and other students evaluate and, then afterwards, give constructive feedback on strengths and on areas that need improvement. As you watch the following two performances, decide what criteria you and/or your students might use to evaluate the work.

Teacher and student roles, along with evaluation criteria will differ depending on the task, students’ age, language level, and so on. However, some criteria for evaluation might include:

How well the students prepared for the task or performance. Feedback on specific language skills (for example, pronunciation, fluency, writing

of the notes or script, and so on). How well the performers delivered the report or play in terms of clarity, loudness,

speed, eye contact, body language, and opening and closing statements.

There are others forms of alternative assessment such as:

Observations:

Checklists

Checklists can be completed by both readers and students. For example, a checklist can be used by a teacher to assess word and letter knowledge. The first step is to develop a list of the concepts to be tested. The student is then asked to demonstrate understanding of these concepts using a real book.

The teacher uses the checklist to identify those concepts that have been mastered and those that need further work. Students can use checklists to review their own work. Teachers and students can prepare a list of specific skills that need to be worked on (for example, a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence), and students can then use this list to check their own work.

Conferencing:

Retellings

After students read a story or have one read to them, ask them to retell it as if they were telling it to a friend who never heard it before. It is important to let students know in advance that they will be asked to do this. To analyze the retelling quantitatively, use a checklist of important elements in the story (setting, plot, resolution, etc.) and assign a score for each.

Qualitative evaluation focuses on students' deeper understanding of the story and ability to generalize and interpret its meaning. This type of evaluation can be noted in the form of comments at the bottom of the checklist. Retellings can be done individually or in groups. Teacher prompts may be required to help lead some students through the story.

Dialogue or learning journals:

Reading Logs

Have students keep a log of all their independent reading at school and at home. The log should include works completed and works started but not completed. In addition to the name of the book (article, etc.) and author, the log should include personal reactions to the selection. Periodic discussions of these logs will provide insight on how the student is developing as an independent reader and suggest ways in which the teacher can give added encouragement. These logs can be placed in students' portfolios.

RubricsWhereas a checklist simply provides an indication of whether a specific criterion, characteristic, or behavior is present, a rubric provides a measure of quality of performance on the basis of established criteria. Rubrics are often used with benchmarks or samples that serve as standards against which student performance is judged.

Rubrics are primarily used for language tasks that involve some kind of oral or written production on the part of the student. It is possible to create a generic rubric that can be used with multiple speaking or writing tasks, but assessment is more accurate when the instructor uses rubrics that are fitted to the task and the goals of instruction.

There are four main types of rubrics.

1. Holistic rubrics

Holistic scales or rubrics respond to language performance as a whole. Each score on a holistic scale represents an overall impression; one integrated score is assigned to a performance. The emphasis in holistic scoring is on what a student does well.

Holistic rubrics commonly have four or six points. The popup window shows a sample four-point holistic scale created for the purposes of assessing writing performance.

A well-known example of a holistic scale is the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines(1986). However, the ACTFL guidelines are not appropriate for classroom use, because they are intended for large-scale assessment of overall proficiency and are not designed necessarily to align with curricular objectives or classroom instruction.

Holistic scoring is primarily used for large-scale assessment when a relatively quick yet consistent approach to scoring is necessary. It is less useful for classroom purposes because it provides little information to students about their performance.

2. Analytic rubrics

Analytic scales are divided into separate categories representing different aspects or dimensions of performance. For example, dimensions for writing performance might include content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. Each dimension is scored separately, then dimension scores are added to determine an overall score.

Analytic rubrics have two advantages:

The instructor can give different weights to different dimensions. This allows the instructor to give more credit for dimensions that are more important to the overall success of the communication task. For example, in a writing rubric, the dimension of content might have a total point range of 30, whereas the range for mechanics might be only 10.

They provide more information to students about the strengths and weaknesses of various aspects of their language performance.

However, analytic scoring has also been criticized because the parts do not necessarily add up to the whole. Providing separate scores for different dimensions of a student's writing or speaking performance does not give the teacher or the student a good assessment of the whole of a performance. 

ConclusionAlternative assessment is a way teachers have to really understand how much their students have learned or how much their students need to learn. Through different ways a teacher may be able to help students practice in meaningful situations how to communicate through the target language. It is much easier on the student because they can focus on the task and not on memorizing. Although objective assessment is still needed at some point, alternative assessment is a very important way to help students learn and also help teachers improve the students level.

E-graphy

https://www.teachervision.com/educational-testing/teaching-methods/6378.html?page=1

http://oelp.uoregon.edu/shaping/video-transcripts/module-10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkK06hpQmt4

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm