Practical 15

PRACTICAL 15:
Testing, assessment, evaluation.
PRACTICE II.
DIDACTICS OF ELT.
PROF. ADJUNTO REGULAR: Estela N. Braun.
TEACHER ASSISTANTS: Prof. Vanesa Cabral
and Prof. Luján Ramos.
STUDENTS’ NAMES: Balari Centeno Oriana
and Martínez Rocío.

Assessment and Testing (Unit 88):
1. For questions 1-7, choose the best option (A, B or C) to complete each statement.
1. If we only want to find out how well our students have done, we use
__summative__ assessment.
a. Formative.
b. Informal.
c. Summative.
2. If we want to evaluate people so we can decide how to help them in the future, we
use __formative__ assessment.
a. Formative.
b. Informal.
c. Summative.
3. An entrance test (to decide what level class a student should go into) is
__a_diagnostic__ test.
a. An achievement.
b. A diagnostic.
c. A proficiency.
4. When we want to see if students have learnt what we have been teaching them in
the last to weeks or a month, etc., we give them __an_achievement__ test.
a. An achievement.
b. A diagnostic.
c. A proficiency.
5. When students take an exam to see if they are at a particular level (often in a
public exam) we call it __a_proficiency__ test.
a. An achievement.
b. A diagnostic.
c. A proficiency.
6. When we get students to collect examples of their work over a period of time and
use that for evaluation, we call it __portfilio__ assessment.
a. Formative.
b. Portfolio.
c. Placement.
7. If a test item tests things that the students are not supposed to know because they
are not on the syllabus they have been studying, we say that item is not
__reliable__.
a. Reliable.
b. Continuous.
c. Valid.
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2. Talk to the teachers and find out the following information:
1. How many tests their students do in a semester/year?
2. Who sets the tests and who grades them?
3. What happens to students if they fail the test?
We talked to Adriana Flecha, the teacher in charge of the course we were assigned
to, and she told us that the students have not had any English exam yet, and that she
was not planning to test them formally, either. She said it’s a complicated group, in
the sense that they are really dependant on the teacher and many of them need help,
even to solve a matching activity. For this reason, she said the evaluation is class by
class and it’s based on what each student is able to do and on their participation
during the lesson.
3. We both prefer to be graded on an ‘all or nothing’ final test because we do things
better when we are under pressure and to be graded using continuous assessment
does not help us at all, at least at this moment because we have lots of
responsibilities. However, we are aware that the methodology we prefer has many
weaknesses such as being tested on a day in which you’re not feeling well or not
being able to complete the test because of lack of time, etc.
As future teachers, we realize that the best way to keep track of our students’
improvement is to test them in a formative way through continuous assessment. In
this way, we avoid giving unfair marks based on a one-day situation.
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Assessing Young Learners (Unit 101):
1. For questions 1-9, match the descriptions with what they are describing A-J. There is
one extra option that you do not need to use.
A. Can-do statements.
B. Continuous assessment.
C. Fill in.
D. Formative assessment.
E. Information-gap activities.
F. Learner language profile.
G. Portfolio assessment.
H. Proficiency test.
I. ‘Sudden death’ test.
J. Summative assessment.
1. These help students (and teachers) to describe their ability to use the language.
2. This is a kind of test item where students have to write words where there is a
blank in a sentence or paragraph.
3. This is the kind of evaluation which tells us how good a student is, and whether
they match a certain pre-decided level.
4. This is the name for a kind of test where 100% of a student’s final grade depends
on one exam.
5. This is the kind of testing that takes place bit by bit over a semester or a year.
6. This is the kind of testing we do when we want to see how the students are getting
on so we can help them to do better.
7. This is the kind of testing we do when we want to see what the students have
achieved.
8. This is the kind of testing where we look at examples of work that the students
have been collecting over a semester or a year.
9. This is where we describe a student’s ability in detail.
Answers:
1 - A
2 - C
3 - H
4 - I
5 - B
6 - D
7 - J
8 - G
9 - F
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2.
In this example, the teacher is testing spelling of numbers, present simple and continuous,
adjectives and short answers.
In activity 1, for example, the students are asked to write the number that is between
brackets in ordinary spelling. We can see that in many cases the teacher corrects and
punishes mistakes regarding spelling which are not very significant (e.g. FOURTY EHIGT -
FORTY EIGHT). We believe these kind of activities are not relevant at this level (3rd grade)
because we are working with children who, in some cases, don’t even know how to write
properly in their L1.
In activity 2, they have to fill in the gaps with the options provided in the box. We consider
this exercise to be really difficult because it doesn’t have any image for the students to
realize whether the statements are talking about men or women. Thus, this activity is not
reliable.
The activity three is more reliable in the sense that there are images, so it’s not as abstract
as the one in activity 2 and because there is only one correct answer.
And finally, in exercise 4, the children have to match the questions with the correct answer.
This activity is not reliable either because of the fact that at least for one of the questions
there are more than one possible answer. Also, it is really difficult because it is too abstract
and it has no context.
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In this other example, the teacher is testing present continuous, numbers and spelling, the
students’ ability to count, yes/no questions, and the difference between ‘who’ and ‘what’.
In activity 1, the students have to write what’s happening in the different pictures but the
teacher is being really severe with spelling mistakes (he/she gave one less point to the child
only because he/she wrote PLEYING instead of PLAYING).
Activity 2 is too difficult and not reliable because the students have to do too many things all
together in only one exercise. They have to count and write the resulting number in ordinary
spelling.
The third one is a matching activity in which they have to match the number in ordinary
spelling with the grapheme. This is an exercise which is more appropriate for the students’
age and level because there is only one thing to do and the spelling is already provided by
the teacher.
Finally, in activity 4 the students have to choose one of the two answers provided for the
different questions. What makes this exercise difficult is that there are no images so as to
provide the students with some context. For example, the students may not know that Eric is
a boy or whether he is playing the computer or not.
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3. We believe that testing is an important part of teaching since it helps teachers know how
their students are doing and what they need to improve. Also, at the moment teachers have
to decide a final grade, as demanded by the education policies, the mark cannot be arbitrary
or vague but it must be grounded on formal assessment. However, there must be a
combination between testing and teaching since our students need time to process the new
information and apprehend it.
The task says that young learners are tested too much at some schools. In our opinion, it
would only be a bad aspect if the assessment is summative and the teachers base the final
grade on the marks got in the exams. However, if the purpose of the frequent testing is to
know what the students still need to work with, as in the case of continuous assessment, we
believe that in this case the frequent testing will help the teacher to keep record of the
students’ achievements. It will also allow her/him to know which contents are already
acquired and which ones need more practice.
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