Assessing Writing

Writing is probably one of the most difficult skills to develop during the learning process. Sometimes we find it difficult to put in written word what we have in our mind. That is one more of our challenges as language teachers; whether we teach a mother tongue or a second language, improving students’ writing skills is a complex process that lasts several years. How can we, as teachers, help students to reach an appropriate level in writing skill?

To get a superior level in writing it is necessary to have the guidance of a teacher who knows the different micro and macro-skills to develop; having a clear idea about that, the teacher could create activities, materials, and tasks appropriate to achieve the goals of the course. Those micro and macro skills are well explained in Brown (2004) as well as the types of writing performance (imitative, intensive, extensive, and responsive writing) that every language teacher must take into account before planning their activities and tasks related to writing skill.

Many different tasks can be created according to the level of the students and the type of writing performance. However, to know whether the task is the appropriate one for our students we should assess our students constantly, not only to give them the corresponding feedback, but also to determine if the methodology used in our classes is the suitable one.

We must remember that assessing is not just to assign a grade to the students’ performance, but to enhance their learning process and our teaching effectiveness. Assessment is useless if it does not lead to make decisions about how to teach better and how to improve students understanding.

I would like to share with you and interesting video by Dr. Andrew Johnson, who talks about the importance of authentic assessment in assessing writing and the usage of rubrics for that purpose.

REFERENCES:

Brown. H. D. (2004). Language  Assessment. Principles and  Classroom Practices.

Pearson Longman. Chapter 9.

Integrating Listening and Speaking Skills in Classroom Assessment

Assessing skills is a complex issue especially when it has to do with the receptive skills. Performance of the receptive skills cannot be observed neither during the process, nor during the product unless you have a special device that scan student’s brain in order to show is using his/her receptive competences. For that reason, I think integrating them with a productive skill is necessary to create not only a communicative environment –the appropriate one for learning a foreign language–, but also a pertinent assessment method for measuring listening competence by observing speaking (or writing) actual performance.

Taking into account that it is difficult to assess competence because what you can observe is performance, and that performance does not give us a reliable measure of true competence, we must trust in the teacher’s criterion. Of course, it implies a subjective point of view from the teacher that should make that subjectivity as positive as possible in order to enhance students’ learning process.

To assess oral production, there are several kinds of tasks that can be created according to the type of speaking (imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, and intensive). Maybe all of the tasks designed to assess those types of speaking are useful at different levels of English learning and that can be integrated with a receptive skill. Let’s talk about listening to complement the previous post. The test-taker listens to a spoken stimulus and has to understand it as much as possible to perform well in oral production.

It sounds interesting but there are many problems that can rise. How to be accurate when assessing listening and speaking if, for instance, a student understands what he/she heard but the shyness as high as to make him make many mistakes when speaking? On the other hand, how can you measure students speaking performance if they do not understand well the spoken stimulus? Probably some students are good at speaking but if they do not understood the spoken stimulus they will not participate because the lack of information about the topic.

Nevertheless, we, as teachers, must to create activities in which students have to use their receptive skills to understand some information provided by spoken (or reading) stimulus and then give their opinions about the topic. Giving them the opportunity to ask for repetition when they cannot understand fully the spoken input, and letting them to work in smalls groups to avoid shyness.

I think discussions are an appropriate activity for measuring students’ actual performance in listening and speaking. The teacher should guide the process, of course, but give students the opportunity of share their thoughts freely and choosing some advanced students as moderators of the discussions. Remember that it is important to triangulate students’ measurements to get a more reliable assessment. So, do not trust only in a final exam that can be affected by students-related reliability factors. It is important not to generate a grade from the activities, but a set of goals that can be related to the micro and macro skills established by Brown (2003).

Let’s have a look of the following video as guidance for creating discussion activities in a classroom. Changing the goals of the activitiy to assess listening and speaking competence, and making some modifications we can create a good exercise for intermediate and advance learners. 

Testing, Assessing, and Teaching

How are related the terms testing, assessing, and teaching? If we make a survey with Colombian teachers maybe the majority of them could say that testing is a way of assessing students, and that it is important in teaching to determine whether the student passes or fails the course. I´m just guessing the answer because that is what is commonly said by teachers and, actually, that was what I thought before starting reading the interesting book “Language Assessment – Principles and Classroom Practice” by Brown (2000).

As it was explained in the previous post, there are different kinds of assessment, but it depends primarily in the teachers to choose the appropriate one for enhance students learning. The easy way is not the suitable one when we talk about assessment. Teachers must be active, inquiring, and dynamic in order to create a better environment for learners. This means assessing them without them realising it. But, what is the purpose of this?

Testing is, without have a look of the statistics, the most used way of evaluating students in Colombian schools. A Test is defined by Brown (2000) as “a method of measuring a person’s ability, knowledge, or performance in a given domain”. Tests produce anxiety and fear from some students that only study for the exam and then forget everything because their objective is to pass it –maybe because we are got into the bad habit of compete for a grade and not to learn; which is the main purpose of going to an academic institution–.

When students think they are not being judged by the teacher, they do not care about making mistakes and do a better job. If teachers can create a way in which they assess students while they do not realise it, they will perform freely and the results could be more accurate when evaluating. Therefore, taking into account what was said in the previous post and this one, I would say that assessment should be formal and formative in order to collect information from different sources –not just by testing– and to provide reliable feedback. This will help you to make better decisions to improve your teaching and, at the same time, it will enhance your students’ learning process.

However, it does not mean that testing is bad at all. As Brown (2000) himself said, tests can bring out the best of students and it will be a good instrument to measure students ability in a particular domain. After using assessment to improve students learning you, probably, will want to measure whether your teaching methods were appropriate for them and have a look of students understanding. That is when tests are useful for teachers to evaluate not only their students, but themselves as well. Despite some students suffer from test-phobia, it is important to evaluate your teaching method in such a way in order to make decisions from the results obtained.

Now, the discussion will be about how to assess and evaluate students in terms of language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Should we assess and evaluate them separately? Or should we integrate all of them?

What is Assessment?

Assessment is a common word used in classroom environments. However, it is wrongly related to giving the students a  test and grade it; as said by Scanlan (2012) "this conception of assessment is not only limited, but also limiting. it fails to take into account both the utility of assessment and its importance in the teaching/learning process". It is more about "making a judgment or measurement of worth of an entity" and "grading could be considered a component of assessment".

Genesee and Upshur (1996) use some situations to illustrate the necessity of assessment in ESL learning process. Those are common situations that second language teachers and school directors have to deal with frequently: placement of students in particular levels of instruction; planning new units instruction and revising units that have been used before; determining which textbook is the appropriate one for a group of students, etc.

It is important to know that assessment not only takes into account student achievement, as said by Genesee and Upshur (1996), there are other aspects involved in teaching and learning such as "behaviour in class, attitude towards school or themselves, their goals and needs concerning the outcomes of SL learning, and their works habits, learning styles, and strategies". But, what should teachers assess students in their learning process? What is the purpose of assess students?

The main purpose of assessment is not to decide whether the student passes or fails a subject, but to make decisions about what is next or what to change or improve, or in other words to help teachers enhance their students learning. Educational assessment, as Scanlan (2012) asserts, is designed for different purposes such as motivating and directing learning, providing feedback to students on their performance; on instruction and/or the curriculum, ensuring standards of progression, and so on.

Scanlan (2012) also makes a classification or distintion between the different types and approaches to assessment. Comparing one type of assessment with  the opposite one and making a distinction between their characteristics. For instance, formative vs summative assessment. The first one consists in "providing feedback to the learner to identify strenghts and weakness and hence improve future performance". On the other hand, summative assessment is "used primarily to make decisions for grading or determine readiness for progression.

Other types of assessment are mentioned by Scanlan (2012). Informal assessment, in which "judgment are integrated with other tasks", are compared with formal assessment, that "occurs when students are aware that the task that they are doing is for assessment purposes. There is annother classification of assessment according to when it takes place; if it takes place throughout a learning process it is called continuous, and if it takes place only at the end of a learning activity is called final.

According to the approach, assessment could process-oriented, which focuses on the steps or procedures, or product oriented, which focuses on evaluating the result or outcome of a process. Also, there is another classification for assessment: divergent, that "are those for which a range of answers or solutions might be considered correct. While in convergent assessment there is only one correct response.

To conclude, what assessment is related to is the way teachers can improve their students learning, taking into account all the aspects that can influence a learning process. It is important for teachers to achieve good evaluation skills in order to enhance students learning; the better evaluation skills a teacher has, the best learning students will have.