Assessing Listening

According to the reading, it can be said that listening and speaking are closely interrelated; as it is said by Brown, “It is rare to find just a listening test because listening is often implied as a component of speaking”. Then, in the text there’s a question that calls my attention which is “How could you speak a language without listening?” I think that listening is a good way to widen a foreign language due to the fact that through listening you can learn many things such as vocabulary, intonation, and even by listening to songs and watching movies without subtitles you can develop your own listening skill and your speaking fluency.

Another Brown’s statement that called my attention is the part that says “To determine if someone is a proficient user of the language, people customarily ask, Do you speak Spanish? But rarely Do you understand and speak Spanish? I think that this statement is true because in some situations people have said that if a person is able to speak well another language, it is not necessary to have a good listening skill or it doesn’t matter if you are not able to listen or not.  Maybe this occurs because they don’t are aware of  the relationship between listening and speaking, maybe they don’t realize that in many cases if there’s not enough understanding of the language, then the speaking performance will be poor or limited.

As a conclusion it is important to say that it is necessary to pay more attention to the practice and development of the listening skill because it can be a great help for our students to have a good second language learning process.

Language testing in Colombia

After reading this study, I have realized that as future teachers we need to be well trained and well prepared to play a real language teacher’s role. A part that caught my attention was the one that cites the teacher’s perceptions towards assessment because there are many differences between those teachers who have had formal training in language assessment and those teachers who have not.   In this article, it is said that trained teachers take the assessment as an integral part to lead students in the learning process  because they think that assessment is a tool to monitor the learning process and to encourage students to learn;  on the other hand teachers with no training in language assessment  tend to have a negative perception of it because they don’t take assessment as a strategy to encourage learning, they just do it because it is an easy way to grade students, or because they have to do the assessment as a requirement of any institution.  As it is said bay the author, Classroom assessment is an important tool to collect information to know how well students are experiencing in the learning process.

But there`s a concern related to language assessment, Colombia is not an exception to this problem because there are only two public universities that offer assessment training to undergraduate programs and taking this into account it can be said that if this situation does not change, our country will not have a real development in the field of education. The fact here is that many teachers don’t use other assessment tools, the majority of them only use tests, and those tests are used for wrong purposes giving as a result an incomplete and wrong language learning process. This has a negative influence in the Colombian educational system. 

In my opinion, I think that every teacher should have an active role in the assessment process, because it changes in many ways how we teach, the way we provide feedback, the way we prepare our classes and even our student’s perceptions and conception related to education.

Choosing and devising test tasks

     As teachers sometimes we have to design tests and when this happens we realize that it is not an easy thing to do. When it comes to test and task designing there are many factors that must be taken into account such as the instructional objectives, which is related to the process of selecting tasks that focus on the same kinds of skills described in the objectives as well as the range and standards of performance expected of the students.  In the case of close-ended tasks it permits the examiner to assess precise language skills and the responses are controlled by the examiner. On the other hand, open-ended tasks do not control the students’ specific responses; as a result they respond using very different ways as the ones expected by the examiner.

     Another factor to talk about is the students’ level of proficiency.  In here, close-ended and limited-response tasks are suitable for assessing skills for beginners in second language learning; in comparison, open-ended tasks are suitable for assessing advanced students’ skills taking into account the exact content of the item in the test.  Also, instructional activities should be taken into account in test tasks in order to know if students are familiar and understand the response demands of the task. Finally testing resources refer to how practical test tasks are. Some of the resources that should be taken into account when testing and scoring are time and physical resources such as the space for both open and close-ended tasks and limited response test tasks.

 

     When making closed-ended test tasks it is important to take into account that they can be particularly suitable for beginners because they don’t require language production, though they are also used for advance students. They involve comprehension skills and do not require the test take to produce or generate response. They also have the options of multiple choice and matching tasks attempting that the examiner can control precisely the response required to perform the task. Closed-ended test tasks provide advantages in terms of response alternatives and time, although this kind of test requires preparation.

     On the other hand, in open-ended test tasks, examiners should bear in mind that this kind of test task do not control in a precise way the specific responses to be made by the test taker and that they are free to respond in whatever way they choose. However, test tasks should have and follow a structure to be scored correctly. Open-ended test tasks are suitable to assess language proficiency and the way authentic language is used. An advantage of this kind of test is that they are easy to device but the scoring is much more demanding because each student’s response can be different. Open-ended task tests must take in to account the understandability of task topic, task feasibility and the appropriateness of the task.

     After analyzing some of the aspects of choosing and devising test tasks it can be concluded that there are many ways and tools for assessing but as teachers and examiners it is necessary for us to look for a well-designed test that give us the certainty of students’ achievement and the fact that our students will feel comfortable with a test that fits their knowledge and needs.

     

Journals, interviews and questionnaires

     Sometimes teachers need to gather necessary information about their students to know more about them; there are ways and tools in which info can be gathered, such as journals, interviews and questionnaires.  As it is said by the author, the primary use of journals, interviews and questionnaires is in the collection of information about students’ backgrounds and about teaching and learning processes; also these methods can also be used to collect info about second language proficiency. 

Journals (also referred to as interactive diaries or dialogue journals) are written conversations between students and teachers.  Because of their personal-centered nature, journals provide opportunities for students to provide feedback about their learning experiences, and allow students opportunities to express themselves personally about their interests, goals, and desires using the second language.  Some of the benefits that dialogue journals have are:

• ·  They provide useful info for individualizing instruction such as writing skills, writing strategies, students’ experiences in and outside of school, learning processes, interests, expectations, goals, etc.
• ·       They increase opportunities for functional communication between students and teachers.
• ·  They give students opportunities to use language for genuine communication and personalized reading.
• ·   They permit teachers to individualize language teaching by modeling writing skills in their responses to student journals.
• ·         Promote the development of certain writing skills and
• ·         Enhance student involvement in and ownership of learning.

Some guidelines are suggested for using journals, as for example:

• ·         Have separate book for journal writing.
• ·        Set aside regular times, as for example at the end of the class or at the beginning or end of the day.
• ·         Collect students’ journal on a regular basis and read them carefully before returning them.
• ·         Provide direction to students in order to know what you are looking for.
• ·   Allow students time to develop confidence in the process of sharing their personal impressions.
• ·         Help students interpret their own feedback. Among others.

    On the other hand, Interviews and questionnaires are very similar due to the fact that both consist of a set of questions or statements the student is expected to respond to.  It also can be said that both are structural and formal and they are more useful with older learners with more than beginning levels of L₂ proficiency.  The organization of interviews and questionnaires can be a) Linear when all students respond to all questions in the same sequence and b) nonlinear when students may skip certain questions or may asked to respond additional questions.  When constructing Interviews and questionnaires it is important to take into account the amount of thought and time that in put into them, for doing so a general procedure is suggested for the planning and construction of those tools:

• ·         Identify what you want to make and use the information that will be collected.
• ·         Draft questions pertaining to the information you are seeking.
• ·         Organize the questions according to some logical order and revise it.
• ·         Prepare a set of instructions in order to explain the purpose of the questionnaire.
• ·    Ask colleagues who are familiar with these tools to review the questionnaire, among others.

     In conclusion, it can be said that all these tools are useful and important not only for teachers but also for students because it’s a different way to express ideas, expectations, feelings and opinions.  Also, those tools allow teachers to give the necessary assessment based on the known students’ weakness and strengths and needs.

Observation in the Classroom

Every day our classroom environments include big experiences when we start a lesson. Sometimes what students expect in the English class changes; sometimes it grows or sometimes it reduces in certain way, and because of that we have to deal with different attitudes, reactions, thoughts and feelings in the day-to-day classroom practice. It can be said that observation is an important part in the everyday teaching and learning process.  As teachers, we always try to observe what our students do, how they react towards certain topics, how they use the material provided, how they interact during the group work, etc.  Also, it is important to say that Teachers assess what students have and have not learned, they assess the effectiveness of particular teaching strategies, they determine which materials and activities students enjoy.

 Class observation is necessary in the teaching-learning process  due to the fact that “it provides a basis to know and understand what is happening in the classroom and is a guide to know what should follow, it is important for planning instruction of a unit, lesson, or course in the future.” (Genesee and Upshur).  Classroom Teachers, unlike many other people, are engaged not only in teaching and classroom management but also in trying to observe and make sense of their students’ learning process and what it encompasses.  Classroom observation should be concerned primarily with those language skills and language objectives.  It is important to identify the aim of our observations, some of the reasons for doing so are: a) To determine whether students are progressing as planned and are ready to move to the next unit, b) To identify difficulties that particular students are having so that appropriate instruction can be planned for them, c) To assess the appropriateness and usefulness of a textbook, among others.

One to the many tasks that a teacher needs to do is deciding how to record the observations of their students in the learning process and in the classroom.  Like information collection itself is an ongoing process, some record techniques are necessary for the information to be useful such as a) Anecdotal Records, which is a good way to record observations about instruction and students all times of the day, even during recess or lunch time; those anecdotal records can be made on file cards, adhesive labels or clipboards with note paper, etc; and b) checklists and rating scales,  which are relatively structured formats  or lists of items that describe specific aspects of learning and teaching with predesignated categories for recording observations.

To sum up, classroom observation is important to all forms of evaluation and is part of the everyday routine of a teacher.  What is really challenging is to plan a relevant and useful  observation and recording keeping to benefit  the instruction process and the student learning process.

Collecting Information

When a second language is taught, it is important to take into account many factors, especially when instructing, evaluating and assessing.  In order to do this correctly not only is necessary to gather information but also to make an analysis and an interpretation of it (qualitative and quantitative information).  It is necessary to mention that for ESL Teachers it is important to be aware enough about collecting the necessary/ specific information and its possible implications when assessing and making decisions.  As it is said by Genesee & Upshur, all information whether qualitative or quantitative, refers to characteristics of something: students or teachers, textbooks or videotapes, texts or realia, blackboards or ministries of education.  We need to be clear about our information in order to avoid misunderstandings.  For doing so, it is relevant to highlight three principles: Practicality, Reliability and Validity.

When talking about Practicality it is necessary to mention the cost and time of the tools we are using.  Some procedures, such as standardized tests, can be very expensive and therefore their use is limited.  On the other hand, time or administration time can be important especially in schools with fixed class periods.  Trying to schedule questionnaires, tests, activities, etc., that require more time than a single class can cause more problems. (Genesee & Upshur).  Some other attributes to mention when talking about practicality are Compilation Time which is related to the time to score and interpret the information gathered; Administrator Qualifications which is related to how teachers are qualified to use the information collection method and Acceptability which is related to how acceptable is the collected information to students, parents and the community.

As it is said by Genesee & Upshur before, reliability is concerned with freedom from nonsystematic fluctuation.  It can be divided in a) Assessor/rater -related Reliability which has to do with the instability among the people collecting the information; b) Object/ person-related Reliability which concerns the person about whom information is being collected, it can be enhanced by assessing, especially when human abilities or qualities are the object of assessment in second language; and c) Instrument-related Reliability which resides in the procedures used for collecting information, can be improved by using a variety of methods of information collection.  In this way the inaccuracy resulting from the use of one method will be offset by other methods.

Taking into account that Validity refers to the extent to which the information gathered is the information needed, it can be said that in some cases it is difficult to know which information is relevant and wanted; when talking about a second language learning process it is even more difficult because due to the fact that validity can only be valid when is reliable.

Principles of Language Assessment

     H. Douglas Brown, shows us in this chapter how principles of Language Assessment can and should be applied to formal, previously published or created tests and assessments of all kinds.  According to the author, there are five important principles for “testing a test” which are practicality, reliability, authenticity, and washback.  When Practicality is mentioned in the field of evaluating, it means that tests need to be practical. In here a practical test encompasses some characteristics such as a) not being extensive, b) stay in the appropriate time constraints, c) easy to administer and, d) have a specific and time-efficient scoring procedure.

     A second principle is Reliability; it is important to say that when a test is reliable it needs to be consistent and dependable. But tests don’t have it all the time; there are many factors that contribute to the unreliability of a test such as a) Student-related reliability; b) Rater reliability c) Test administration reliability and d) Test reliability.  As a third principle Validity encompasses the extent to which inferences made from assessment results are meaningful and useful for the purpose of the assessment (Gronlund, 1998. P. 226). There are some types of evidence that need to be taken into account when talking about validity which are a) Content-related evidence, b) Criterion-related evidence, c) Construct-related evidence, d) Consequential validity and e) Face validity.

     A fourth major principle of language testing is Authenticity.  Bachman and Palmer (1996, p. 23) define it as the degree of correspondence of the characteristics o a given language test task to the features of a target language task.  In the test, it can be present in the following ways a) the language is as natural as possible; b) there are contextualized items; c) there are meaningful topics and d) items are thematically organized.  Finally a fifth principle of testing is Washback; it includes the effects of an assessment on teaching and learning prior to the assessment itself, that is, on preparation for the assessment.  I large-scale assessment, it refers to the effect that tests have on instruction of how students prepare for the test.

To sum up I can say that I didn’t know anything about all those concepts but now that I’m aware of its meaning and importance it is necessary for me to say that it’ll be a big challenge to be able to design a “real test” taking into account the previous principles.

The context of Second Language Evaluation

      In order to talk about Evaluation in the Second Language, it is necessary to define some important aspects of teaching and learning.  It is important to mention the notions of Instructional purposes, plans, practices and input factors. First of all  Instruction consists of three components: a) the Why, in which the purpose identify the objectives of instruction; b) the How, in which the plans describe the means of attaining those objective and c) the What, in which the practices are what actually take place in the classroom.  It is also necessary to mention other factors or “input factors”.

     Instructional Objectives describe the goals and aims that the teacher sets when teaching; they provide direction for planning appropriate instruction and criteria for assessing the outcomes of the teaching process.  Some types of objectives guide classroom instruction such as: a) Strategic objectives, in which Learning Strategies are conscious processes and techniques that facilitate the comprehension, acquisition and retention of new skills and concepts; b) Language Objectives, which refer to the language skills that learners are expected to acquire and develop in the classroom; c) Socioaffective which refers to the changes in learners’ attitudes and social behaviors resulting from the classroom instruction, d) Philosophical, which refer to the changes in attitudes, and values of a more general natural than those associated with the Socioaffective objectives.; and  e) Methods or process objectives which refer to opportunities or experiences that learners are expected to have in the course of instruction. 

On the other hand Instructional Plans specify what should be taught, and when and how it should be taught.  These instructional plans are necessary to achieve course objectives.  Some of the aspects that are considered in the instructional plans are: Content; b) Organization, c) Material and Equipment and d) Activities and roles.

     There are also Instructional Practices, which include strategies, activities, materials and tasks used by the teacher and students in the classroom. In here it is necessary to take into account some facts such as: a) that classroom practices are separate from plans due to the fact that what is planned not always occur in the classroom.  In other words, classroom practice may not proceed as planned because the students’ reactions cannot be the expected ones; b) when evaluating, it is important to take into account what happens in class rather than what is supposed to happen in order to have real and precise results; and c) It is necessary to compare instructional practices with instructional plans in order to know if things are going as planned in class and to know and decide what changes are needed.  On the other hand, it is also necessary to mention “Input factors” which are those that don’t belong to the classroom instruction itself but can have an important influence in Second Language Teaching and Learning.  Those factors cannot be change, so, it is necessary that instructional objectives, plans and practices should be compatible or alter what is necessary to reach a greater level of compatibility.

Introduction to Evaluation

     Evaluation is mainly about making decisions of instructions in order to improve and enhance the teaching and learning of a second language.  Some types of decisions that can be found  are: decisions about the placement of individual students in particular streams, levels, or courses of instruction; about planning new units of instructions; about ongoing instruction; about textbooks; objectives and plans among others.   In order to make good decisions in evaluation, some important components are presented which are: purpose of evaluation, collecting information, interpretation of the information and decision making.

     In Second Language Evaluation we can also find some kind of participants such as Parents, noninstructional educational professionals, students themselves and teachers.  It is important to say that teachers, more than anyone else, are involved in evaluation due to the fact that they can provide activities in order to help students develop and asses their own progress and  take part of the decision making, collaboration and consultation not only with parents of learners but also with specialists and even school principals.

     Other factors can also be important in the Evaluation process such as the student learning style and strategies, their work habits, their behavior in class, their attitude towards school or themselves and their goals related to the second language learning process.