Assessment Criteria in FLT

Name: __ ____Gulzari Bakhytzhan __________________________

1. Define the terms ‘testing’ and ‘assessment’ and compare them.

The systematic process of recording and utilizing empirical data about knowledge, skills, attitudes, and
beliefs is known as assessment. Teachers attempt to enhance student learning by completing the exam. This is
a short definition of assessment.

Almost everyone has gone through testing at some point in their lives. tests for a driver's license, grammar,
etc. A test is used to assess someone's level of knowledge in order to ascertain what they already know or have
learnt. It gauges the degree of expertise or knowledge attained. An evaluation tool or method that gathers a
sample of an examinee's behavior in a certain domain and then evaluates and scores it according to a
standardized manner.

Test and assessment are used interchangeably, but they do mean something different. A test is a “product”
that measures a particular behavior or set of objectives. Meanwhile assessment is seen as a procedure instead
of a product. Assessment is used during and after the instruction has taken place. After you’ve received the
results of your assessment, you can interpret the results and in case needed alter the instruction. Tests are done
after the instruction has taken place, it’s a way to complete the instruction and get the results. In contrast to
assessments, test results don't need to be interpreted.

2. Define five different types and purposes of language tests. Which ones do you apply in your class
and why? Give relevant examples.

There are five main types of language assessments — aptitude, diagnostic, placement, achievement, and
proficiency tests.

1. Aptitude Tests
Aptitude refers to a person's capacity for learning something. Language aptitude tests assess a person's
ability to acquire new language skills. Because of the nature of these tests, they are more general than
most other language tests and don't focus on a particular language. Instead, they assess how quickly and
effectively a person is able to learn new language skills.
2. Diagnostic Tests
Diagnostic tests are aimed at diagnosing the state of a person's abilities in a certain area — in this
case, their language abilities. In contrast to achievement and proficiency tests, diagnostic tests are
typically given at the start of a language learning course or program.
On a diagnostic test, most test-takers encounter questions or tasks that are outside the scope of their
abilities and the material they're familiar with. The results of the test reveal the strengths and weaknesses
in one's language abilities. Having a student's diagnostic test results can help teachers formulate lesson
plans that fill the gaps in the student's current capabilities. Students can also use diagnostic tests to
determine which areas they need to work on in order to reach a higher level of proficiency.

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 3. Placement Tests
Placement tests share some similarities with diagnostic tests. They are used for educational purposes
and are administered before a course or program of study begins. In this case, the application is a bit
different. Educators and administrators use placement tests to group language learners into classes or
study groups according to their ability levels.
A university may give a placement test to determine whether a new French major needs to take
introductory French courses or skip over some courses and begin with more advanced classes. Placement
tests are also an important type of test in English language teaching at the university level, since
international students typically come in with different English-learning backgrounds and proficiency
levels.

4. Achievement Tests
An achievement test evaluates a student's language knowledge to show how their learning has
progressed. Unlike diagnostic, aptitude, and placement tests, achievement tests only cover information the
student should have been exposed to in their studies thus far.
Achievement tests are typically given after a class completes a certain chapter or unit or at the
conclusion of the course. A language teacher may give a final exam at the end of the semester to see how
well a student has retained the information they were taught over the course of the semester. Achievement
tests are typically graded and are meant to reflect how well the language tester is performing in their
language learning studies.

5. Proficiency Tests
Proficiency refers to a person's competency in using a particular skill. Language proficiency tests
assess a person's practical language skills. Proficiency tests share some similarities with achievement
tests, but rather than focusing on knowledge, proficiency tests focus on the practical application of that
knowledge. Proficiency tests measure a language user’s comprehension and production against a rating
scale such as the ACTFL, ILR, and CEFR scales.
Whereas most of the tests we've looked at are primarily associated with academic contexts, proficiency
tests are useful in a variety of settings. Anyone can take a language proficiency test, regardless of how
they learned the language and where they believe they are in their level of competency. Proficiency tests
accurately measure the candidate's ability to use a language in real-life contexts.

I apply achievement tests in my class cause they are very vital in evaluating set goals and
accomplishments.

Example 1:
The students of a school have completed their coursebook from units 1 to 6. To evaluate their mastery of
the coursebook the teacher gives them an achievement test. The achievement test given by the teacher is
based on what has been learned in the coursebook.

Example 3:
An achievement test was administered on a group, let’s call them Group D. When the results of their test
were analyzed their mean score was 65. After 4 days the same test was administered on Group D, and
again their mean score is 65.
This implies that the achievement test is providing reliable results.
The good thing about the achievement test is that it gives the educator and the parents the opportunity
to assess how well their word is doing in a field or at school. You should also note that the achievement
test is not only for the students, the academic domain achievement test is used to assess both the student,
the teacher, and the school.

3. What are the principles of assessment? Explain why it is important to follow them.

The principles of assessment are that assessment is Valid, Authentic, Current, Sufficient and Reliable –
known as VACSR.

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  Valid- the assessment process is appropriate to the subject or qualification, assesses only what is meant
to be assessed and the learner’s work is relevant to the assessment criteria
 Authentic – the work has been produced by the learner only
 Current- the work is relevant at the time of assessment (usually within three to six months)
 Sufficient – the work covers all of the assessment criteria and learning outcomes
 Reliable- the work is consistent across all learners, over time and at the required level.

Assessments are extremely important while teaching a concept in a class. Not only does it serve the
students, but it also serves the teachers. Assessments work as an excellent feedback mechanism to let the
student know about their progress.
Assessments serve the students by letting them know what errors they made and how they could correct
those errors. It also helps students to reinforce the content better in the event they don't remember it very
well. It helps the students demonstrate what they've learned and understand the content that the teacher
took weeks preparing, developing, and teaching. The results of such assessments done over a period of
time, then help evaluate student progress. This also helps the students motivate themselves.
Assessments also helps teachers better understand what worked and what didn't in their classes. For
example, if the average score of the class was lower than expected after the test, then the teacher knows
that something didn't click with the students. In such a scenario, it helps the teacher change the way the
content was earlier taught and use other ways to teach the same content. Although learning ought to be
kept learner-centric, it is imperative that the teachers know how they're doing.

4. Define Summative and formative assessment and give your examples. Provide examples from your
own experience as a teacher or as a learner?
Assessment, which can be done in a variety of methods, enables both the teacher and the student to keep track
of how well learning objectives are being met. Formative assessment refers to tools that identify
misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes
effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their
learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning, not apply final marks. It can include
students assessing themselves, peers, or even the instructor, through writing, quizzes, conversation, and more.
In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the
conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost
always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment
can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment, and instructors can
consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches.

5 What are test specifications and why do you need them?

Test specifications are iterative, generative blueprints of test design. They are written at the item level,
and allow test developers or item writers to produce new versions of a test for different test-taking populations.
The specs serve as guidelines so that new versions can be compared to previous versions. Specs may detail the

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 properties of individual items or the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are encoded in specific items. A series
of specs that make up a complete picture of a test are known as a table of specifications. Various models have
been proposed for writing specs.

6. What are the stages of designing listening and reading tests.

Designing tests is an important part of assessing students understanding of course content and their level of
competency in applying what they are learning. Whether you use low-stakes and frequent evaluations–
quizzes–or high-stakes and infrequent evaluations–midterm and final–careful design will help provide more
calibrated results.

The listening process involves four stages:

 Receiving
 Understanding
 Evaluating
 Responding

The reading process involves five stages:

 Prereading
 Reading
 Responding
 Exploring
 Applying

7. Define holistic and analytic scales for assessing productive skills. Discuss advantages and
disadvantages of each scale.

After dealing with the differences between the two methods, I notice that there are many differences between
speaking assessment (as I dealt with it in this research) and writing assessment (as I read about it in the
literature). Most of the researchers claim that the objective assessment (the analytic one) is more reliable when
assessing writing. After dealing with speaking assessment in this research, I concluded that the holistic scale is
more reliable than the analytic one. Thus, we can see that there is a difference between holistic and analytic
assessment of writing, on the one hand, and holistic and analytic assessment of speaking, on the other hand. I
think that making a comparison between these two productive skills in terms of holistic and analytic assessment
is an interesting area of investigation, by which we can have a broader view of the use of these scales and
provide a deeper analysis by setting a comparative design not only to show the differences between holistic and
analytic scales, but also to highlight the discrepancies between speaking and writing.

8. Discuss types of feedback you learned in the classroom. Which ones do you use in your class? Give
relevant examples from your experience.

Feedback can serve a number of purposes and take a number of forms. Feedback can be provided as a single
entity – ie: informal feedback on a student’s grasp of a concept in class – or a combination of multiple entities –
ie: formal, formative, peer feedback on stage one of an assessment task. Each has its place in enhancing and
maximising student learning, thus where possible, courses should provide opportunities for a range of feedback
types.

Informal feedback
Informal feedback can occur at any times as it is something that emerges spontaneously in the moment or
during action. Therefore informal feedback requires the building of rapport with students to effectively
encourage, coach or guide them in daily management and decision-making for learning. This might occur
in the classroom, over the phone, in an online forum or virtual classroom.

Formal feedback

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 Formal feedback is planned and systematically scheduled into the process. Usually associated with
assessment tasks, formal feedback includes the likes of marking criteria, competencies or achievement of
standards, and is recorded for both the student and organisation as evidence.

Formative feedback
The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be
used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. Therefore
formative feedback is best given early in the course, and prior to summative assessments. Formative
feedback helps students to improve and prevent them from making the same mistakes again. In some
cases, feedback is required before students can progress, or feel capable of progressing, to the next stage
of the assessment.

Summative feedback
The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by
comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Therefore summative feedback consists of detailed
comments that are related to specific aspects of their work, clearly explains how the mark was derived
from the criteria provided and additional constructive comments on how the work could be improved.

Student peer feedback

There is no longer need for teachers to be the only experts within a course. With basic instruction and
ongoing support, students can learn to give quality feedback, which is highly valued by peers. Providing
students with regular opportunities to give and receive peer feedback enriches their learning experiences
and develops their professional skill set.

Student self feedback

This is the ultimate goal of feedback for learning. During the provision of feedback, teachers have the
opportunity not only to provide direction for the students, but to teach them, through explicit modelling
and instruction, the skills of self-assessment and goal setting, leading them to become more independent.
To help students reach autonomy teachers can explicitly identify, share, and clarify learning goals and
success criteria; model the application of criteria using samples; provide guided opportunities for self-
feedback.

Constructive feedback
This type of feedback is specific, issue-focused and based on observations. There are four types of
constructive feedback:
Negative feedback – corrective comments about past behaviour. Focuses on behaviour that wasn’t
successful and shouldn’t be repeated.
Positive feedback – affirming comments about past behaviour. Focuses on behaviour that was successful
and should be continued.
Negative feed-forward – corrective comments about future performance. Focuses on behaviour that
should be avoided in the future.
Positive feed-forward – affirming comments about future behaviour. Focused on behaviour that will
improve performance in the future.

9. The following writing task was given to year 1 business students at a university.

These days many people prefer to online dating to traditional face-to-face one. What’s your view?
Which one do you prefer?

Write an essay.

What do you think of the task? Explain your view drawing on your reading. Would you set this task as it
is or would you modify? Why?

The best way to master your Business English speaking skills is through role plays. This method works great
when it comes to improving speaking skills, learning situation-specific vocabulary, and finding out more about
cultural behaviors.

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Just place yourself in a real-life situation and role. You can play role-play games with your friends or ask your
personal tutors to add some of the following activities to your business English lessons. No doubt, you’ll have a
lot of fun whether you’re playing a script or acting on an impromptu basis.

10. A foreign translation company has entered the Kazakhstani market. They would like to hire 10
employees. They have asked you, as a language expert, to help them with examining their candidates’
English languages skills.

Explain what sort of assessment tasks (Type of test) you would set to assess candidates’ English language
skills. Provide examples of the tasks.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL for short, is a large-scale language assessment. It
is, “arguably the most well-known and widely used large-scale language assessment in the world”
(Kunnan, 2008, p. 140). It was first developed in 1963 in the United States to help in the assessment
of the language competence of non-native speakers. As a test type, it is a standardized test of English
proficiency administered by the Educational Testing Service, Princeton. It is widely used to measure
the English-language proficiency of foreign students wishing to enter American colleges and
universities. According to Taylor and Angelis (cited in Kunnan, 2008) the first TOEFL was administered
in 1964 at 57 test centres to 920 test candidates. Recently, the TOEFL has widely been recognized as
a model test and have-take-test for our students, graduate and postgraduate, as well as our teachers
and researchers in universities and higher education institutions wishing to read for higher degrees
and develop further their research potential in North American universities5 . Kunnan (2008, p. 141)
notes that, “Over the years, the TOEFL became mandatory for non-American and non-Canadian
native speakers of English applicants to undergraduate and graduate programs in U.S. and Canadian
English-medium universities”. One of the most important realizations in the TOEFL enterprise was the
launching of a more innovative test, the iBTOEFL, internet-based TOEFL, in 2005. This iBTOEFL is
regarded as a significant development over the previous TOEFL forms and the TOEFL CBT, Computer-
Based Test, launched in 1996. The novel features of the iBTOEFL are a speaking section consisting of
independent and integrated skills tasks, a listening section with longer lectures and conversations
with note-taking, a reading section made up of questions that ask test-takers to categorize
information and fill in a chart or complete a summary and a writing section that has both an
independent and integrated task.