JALT Testing & Evaluation SIG Newsletter Vol. 3 No. 1 Apr. 1999 (p. 2 - 9) [ISSN 1881-5537]

Practicalities of Ongoing Assessment (Part 2)


Peer & Self Assessment

Peer assessment promotes healthy competition and students are very good at providing friendly criticism and feedback on performance. Self assessment encourages students to take responsibility for the learning process in addition to evaluating their own achievements.

Suggestions:
  1. Students should use a checklist or rating scale, preferably the same one used by the teacher during formal assessment as in Table 3 to assess each other during speaking or communicative activities.
  2. Students should edit and comment on other students' written work i.e. paragraphs, essays, etc.
  3. Journals can be used as a means of an ongoing classroom dialogue between either two students or a small group of students, each student responding to what the other student/s have written.
  4. Students should keep a progress card throughout a course of study as in Table 4.
  5. Students should answer questionnaires about their study habits at regular intervals throughout the course.
  6. Students should complete a checklist at the end of each lesson regarding their effort, participation and commitment to the class. The scores obtained on such a list can be used as the basis of a 'participation grade' as in Table 5.

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Weekly Tests

Weekly tests are perhaps the most recognisable of activities used for ongoing assessment. They are also the most traditional and are particularly useful for recording quantitative performance results.

Suggestions:
  1. Quick five minute tests to focus on a particular form or structure such as spelling, vocabulary, etc.
  2. Dictation done at a so-called "native speaker speed" (over 100 WPM) to focus on the use of communication strategies such as clarification questions, etc. ("Please repeat that." or "Could you speak more slowly, please."

Criteria Determination

Formative or ongoing assessment is effective because it is provides the teacher and student with continual information about the teaching and learning processes. Summative assessment, because it comes at the end, is too late. The processes have already stopped and neither teacher nor student can gain any benefit. As Rea-Dickens and Germaine (1992) note:
The advantage of learner involvement is that the feedback is both immediate and qualitative. Course appraisal is largely formative, pedagogic, diagnostic, and process-oriented where outcomes will be qualitative and descriptive. This contrasts with summative tests that grade learners, where the tests are formal, largely external to teaching and learning, and product-oriented. (p. 45)
Although norm-referenced tests can be utilised as OA, criteria-referenced tests have the benefit of providing teachers and students with the kind of qualitative information meaningful for future use. Students need to know why grades were awarded or not. That is, an explanation as to what performance was good and what was inadequate. Criteria-referenced profiles (Table 6) and analytical marking schemes (Table 3) can provide this information.

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For the purposes of reliability and validity any assessment, including Ongoing Assessment, needs to relate specifically to the class/course goals and objectives. The accompanying article by Robert Croker discusses the concerns of reliability and validity in more detail. The benefits of OA is that the teacher can determine these goals and objectives either herself on in conference with the students. This allows teachers to set realistic assessment criteria that are relevant to the class context in which they are teaching.

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Classroom Realities

The constraints of time, class size, syllabus and school administration, just to name a few, can be so restrictive that the incorporation of a systematic process of ongoing assessment appears be both impractical and impossible. However, as Table 1 illustrates, activities that can be used as OA are already being used in many classrooms. For the most part OA activities are qualitative and informal and it is these principles which make OA practical for the classroom. It merely needs to be consistent and incorporate a system of recording to elicit its full value.

Suggestions for Implementation:
  1. Keep a lesson log. This does not need to include a detailed lesson plan but merely information regarding the date and the class, a brief description of the activity/ies and space for observations and reflections.
  2. Summarise student responses on formal questionnaires and feedback forms.
  3. Collect and collate samples of interesting and insightful student journal entries when specific to a particular lesson or learning process.
  4. Keep a record of activities completed such as homework, tests, in-class activities, etc. to use for the end of semester 'Participation' grade.
  5. Criteria or analytical marking schemes (Table 3) can be created for specific goals and objectives relevant to individual classes or assessment activities. Once prepared they can be re-used thus reducing future workloads.


Conclusion

Ongoing Assessment can be practical to implement in a systematic way with limited adaptations to classroom administration on the part of the teacher. If teachers raise their consciousness of classroom practices and formalise the assessment they use, then OA can be effective and lead to innovation in educational practices - always a part of good teaching. Thus, OA transcends mere assessment practices and incorporates educational evaluation which facilitates the ongoing evaluation of not just the learner, but the teacher, the syllabus and the materials. We conclude with this advice by Rea-Dickens and Germaine (1992):
Evaluation of our educational practices is varied and covers a wide range of issues. Focusing merely on learner performance does not provide an explanation as to why something works or why something does not. We should also evaluate the process of teaching in order to develop insights into ways in which aspects of teaching can be improved. Using evaluation activities we can also confirm the validity of what we do in the classroom and develop ways in which we can seek to understand better the processes, for example, types of materials, particular methods, or learner involvement, which lead to successful teaching and learning. (p. 22)

References

Genesee, F. & Upshur, J. A. (1996). Classroom-based Evaluation in Second Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Griffee, D. T. & Nunan, D. eds. (1997). Classroom Teachers and Classroom Research. Tokyo: JALT.

Heaton, J. B. (1988). Writing English Language Tests. London: Longman Group UK Limited.

Henning, G. (1987). A Guide to Language Testing: Development, Evaluation, Research. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Lawton, D. & Gordon, P. (1993). Dictionary of Education. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Rea-Dickens, P. & Germaine, K. (1992). Evaluation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vale, D., Scarino, A. & Penny McK. (1991). Pocket All: A User's Guide to the Teaching of Languages and ESL. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

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