1. Match Test Formats to Classroom Experience Go Beyond Pencil and Paper Tests

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1 1. Match Test Formats to Classroom Experience As all teachers and students well know, assessment is a fact of school life. Students are exposed to many different types of tests in their classrooms and, increasingly, to a range of external standardized tests as well. In addition to considering the factors common to any test, young language learners must understand, think, and display their knowledge in another language. This additional challenge makes it doubly important to craft classroom tests in a manner that reflects how and what students learned in their English class. For example, if a group of students spends their class time doing written grammar exercises, it is unfair to give them a test in which speaking and listening play the most important role. If students always work in pairs and groups doing communicative activities, it is unfair to expect them to suddenly analyze a reading or write an essay on a test. If students have never worked with multiple-choice items before, it is unfair to introduce this new format on their test. When classroom experiences and test formats and tasks don t match, the test results don t accurately reflect what students know and what they can do. 2. Go Beyond Pencil and Paper Tests Traditional pencil-and-paper tests are by far the most popular format for assessment. This is because these tests have several advantages: They measure students knowledge of discrete items such as vocabulary or grammar in isolation. They are practical, as they can be administered to large groups at the same time. They typically take less time to score than other types of assessment instruments. Schools, teachers, and parents readily accept this type of test as a valid way to measure children s knowledge. Finally, since students are exposed to many tests of this type in their other classes, they become more 1

2 familiar, and possibly more comfortable, with this type of evaluation. However, there are disadvantages to using only pencil-andpaper tests. First, many tests of this type require students to simply recognize rather than demonstrate knowledge. For example, when testing vocabulary about places in the community, students may only be asked to match vocabulary to the appropriate places in a picture. Students may not be asked to label the places in the community themselves or use that vocabulary in an appropriate context. Another way that tests are limited is that they only show what students know about the language on the test. The test cannot show us what other language students may know or what other skills they may possess if they are not asked about this on the test. Finally, tests usually do not cover the variety of activities used in many young learner classrooms. Students are usually not asked to demonstrate what they can actually do with the language in real or classroom situations. For these reasons, it is very important to go beyond the exclusive use of pencil-and-paper tests and incorporate other assessment methods to get a more complete picture of what students know and what they can do in the language. 3. Test All Four Skills In today s language classroom, the importance of testing all four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) is widely recognized. Most teachers are comfortable in their knowledge of how to test reading and writing, but some are less comfortable when it comes to testing listening and speaking. Before students are formally tested in listening and speaking, it is important that they have many practice opportunities in class. Activities that work well for practice include information gaps, retelling stories, summarizing, games, and role-plays, as well as the presentation of projects and oral reports, and discussions resulting from envelope activities, in which students in groups draw a slip of paper out of an envelope and talk about the topic written on the slip of paper. 4. Incorporate Performance Assessment The same activities that students use to practice their listening and speaking may be used for informal assessment, also called performance assessment. This can be carried out by involving the students in a variety of oral activities and by circulating 2

3 around the room to listen to them as they work through the activities. For accurate results, it is better that students remain unaware they are being assessed. Many teachers have a pencil and notebook with them, and either discretely take notes or use a rubric or checklist to assign a grade based on what they are hearing. They pause, standing to the side of the student or pairs of students they are evaluating. They may even turn their back on the student they are actually listening to, so that the student remains involved with the task and does not focus attention on them or stop because the teacher is listening. 5. One-on-One Interviews When students are tested in one-on-one oral interviews, they are of course aware that they are being assessed. Though some teachers avoid one-on-one interviews because time management can become an issue, this isn t necessary. Two approaches have proven popular. In the first approach, teachers interview just a few students each day over a period of days. In the second approach, teachers interview all of their students on one day. As they conduct their interviews one-on-one, their other students do work for extra credit, read, or complete homework assignments. 6. Oral Assessment Prompts Some teachers opt for free, open-ended conversation for assessment, but most prefer specific oral assessment prompts to assess listening and speaking targets. These prompts are used in combination with paper-and-pencil tests to determine the full extent of a student s achievement. Typically, the teacher sits alone with each student and uses the prompts to evaluate listening and speaking abilities. The teacher can take short notes or fill out a chart to record results. Some examples of prompts follow. What is your favorite toy? Why? How do you get to school? How do you help around the house? What did you do last weekend? How long have you lived here? If you found $100, how would you spend it? Effective prompts lead to more conversation; yes/no questions tend to cut conversation short. 3

4 7. Prompt Feedback for Students Teachers owe students prompt feedback on their test performance. The most common form of feedback is a test grade given by the teacher, usually expressed as a letter of the alphabet or as a number percentage. While some learners are satisfied with this alone, it is much more beneficial to students to read written comments or hear comments directly from the teacher regarding specific aspects of their performance. Children need to understand why they received a certain grade, why their errors were in fact errors, and how to correct them in the future. (A general comment such as Good job is momentarily satisfying but not really informative. Students need to know exactly what they did well and why, and more importantly, what they did not do well and why. Work harder is not a useful comment; See me to talk about present and past verb endings is a specific and useful comment that will help the student be more successful next time.) For more detailed assessment, teachers may use charts, checklists, or skill-specific rubrics. 8. Rubrics Rubrics are effective ways to keep track of students performance. Rubrics are sets of descriptions of criteria used for assessment, together with a rating appropriate for each description, presented in chart form. Rubrics are more descriptive than simple letter or number grades, and serve as feedback for students (and their parents). Using the rating scale for each rubric, students can keep track of their own progress in listening and speaking, reading, writing, and vocabulary and grammar. An example of a rubric for listening and speaking follows. Listening and Speaking Level 0 Listening: student cannot understand spoken instructions or prompts Speaking: student cannot produce intelligible responses Level 1 Listening: student understands little of spoken instructions or prompts, and asks for translation; requires a very slow rate of speech, or many repetitions Speaking: student produces few intelligible utterances, with many stops due to lack of vocabulary, misuse of grammar; often inserts words in native language into conversation; 4

5 pronunciation difficulties Level 2 Listening: student understands a moderate amount of spoken instructions or prompts when helped by slow speech and several repetitions Speaking: student produces a moderate number of intelligible utterances, but often pauses for recall of vocabulary items or grammar; often misuses words; sometimes inserts words in native language into conversation; pronunciation difficulties Level 3 Listening: student understands most spoken instructions or prompts; requires occasional slowed rate of speech or repetitions Speaking: student produces mostly intelligible utterances, with occasional pauses for recall of vocabulary or grammar; occasional misuse of words; rarely inserts words in native language; some pronunciation difficulties but understandable Level 4 Listening: student understands almost all spoken instructions or prompts; comfortable with a normal rate of speech; rarely requires a second repetition Speaking: student produces intelligible utterances with largely appropriate use of vocabulary and grammar; little disrupted speech; uses strategies such as circumlocution or synonyms rather than insert words in native language into conversation; few pronunciation difficulties 9. Build Student Success It is important to build student success into assessment, and several factors need to be taken into consideration to help achieve it. One important factor is teacher expectations. Teachers should have high but reasonable expectations for student performance. Students who sense a teacher doesn t have high expectations for them or confidence in their ability to learn often lose interest and motivation. There is no long-term sense of satisfaction in dealing with tasks and tests that hold no challenge. In contrast, students who believe a teacher s expectations are too challenging and unrealistic soon begin to give up the struggle. Testing becomes a scary and anxiety-laden experience that reduces their confidence and motivation to learn. In setting and communicating expectations for students, it is important to consider the age of the learners, their level of cognitive development, and the number of contact hours they have every 5

6 week. Young learners should never be expected to perform at a higher level in English than they would in their native language. Another factor in student success is pre-test review and test-day warm-up. The day before a test, leading students in a review of unit content presented as a game or team contest provides practice for the coming test without causing anxiety. The day of the test, taking a little time to lead students in a warm-up activity that allows them to switch from thinking in their native language to thinking in English is beneficial. In addition, teachers may want to have students sing a favorite song or do a chant to help them relax. The amount of information students have about a test beforehand can also affect their success. Students should be told the content and skills the test will cover, how long the test will be, and how many points each section or item will be worth (if applicable). For very young students, it is helpful to provide examples of the test item formats beforehand, such as drawing a circle around one of two words, matching, true/false, and choosing a word from a word list to fill in a blank. Students should never be tested using formats they have not worked with before, nor should students have to read test instructions in language they have not seen before. Keep formats and instructions simple and similar to those in their textbooks. 10. Peer and Self-Assessment Depending on the age of the learner, peer and self-assessment are additional, useful forms of feedback. In peer assessment, students are trained to give constructive feedback on other students class work or homework assignments. Generally, students first give a positive comment or two about something they liked about the other s work, followed by questions about something they found confusing or incorrect, followed by an offer to brainstorm and problem-solve the items together. Self-assessment, as the name indicates, involves the student in evaluating his own performance and progress. Very young children can color or draw a happy face, neutral face, or sad face to indicate their feelings about their work; older children can check off descriptive sentences on a chart, or track their own progress using a bar or line graph. 6