On how assessment has evolved

Assesment has evolved from the old times when we got a test back with a grade which we would never know where it came from.

I will concentrate on a particular assesment I did to evaluate my latest student´s ability to communicate with a native speaker.  Pressed for time since I only had two months to get her ready to establish meaningful interactions with strangers in English, I came up with the idea to set up a virtual meeting via Skype with my good friend David Karnorcak. (I blogged about this meeting in my last entry)

In my teacher training college years I would not have dreamed of having a student assesed in the way I will describe below.  I am happy to be a teacher today because technology enables us to strech our brains as to how to make assessment more meaningful and less stressful for our students.

The following is part of an assignment for the LTMOOC I´m doing these days.

     What are the outcomes to be assessed?
I wanted to check if she was able to communicate in English, given the fact that she said she didn´t know a word in English.  I knew this was not true.  

      What are the capabilities/skills (implicit or explicit) in the outcomes?

The skill was oral communication

      Is the method of assessment chosen consonant with the outcomes and skills?

The method was chosen because the social interactions that she wanted to do would share the same nature.

      Is the method relatively efficient in terms of student time and staff time?

The method was efficient in that it gave the student the chance to experience what social interactions during her trip would imply. 

     What alternatives are there? What are their advantages and disadvantages?

The "safe" alternative would have been to play a CD with a listening activity for her to do a given excersise from a book, in a highly artificial environment, and with vocabulary which she would probably not encounter later on.  The disadvantage was that she was angry with me for putting her in the position to talk to a stranger , which implied taking her out of her comfort zone. (This lasted just a few minutes) 
  

      Does the specific assessment task match the outcomes and skills?

The assessment was not only a sample of what she would encounter, it was useful in order to determine the weaker points to be dealt with in future classes.

     Are the marking schemes or criteria appropriate?

There was no marking scheme.  After the chat the class was based on how to improve the communicative skills providing vocabulary and structures.

    Who should make judgements about student learning – the teacher, the student, the student’s peers or others?

In this case we received the feedback of the interlocutor who provided ideas as to what she could say and how and also praised her on her performance.  This made a major positive impact on my student´s self esteem. The re-listening of the recorded version of the interview from the part of the student allowed her to focus on what she would like to be able to say better. The teacher highlighted language for later practice.