elsa o’Brien López

Assessment can be a barrier or a tool to bring learning forward. The right kind of assessment will come with feedback, opportunities for improvement and will adapt to out students’ needs.

When learning a language students have to develop a communicative competence so practice is essential. Unlike other subjects where a memory based methodology may be justified at times, in a language classroom learners must have regular opportunities to practice in order to develop their communicative competence.

In order to be able to move forward, learners must know where they stand, what the success criteria are, and how to achieve them.

This is where assessment comes into place. Teachers can measure to what extent learners are meeting the success criteria and learning objectives by applying different assessment techniques. However, inclusive assessment techniques are more suited for assessing and developing communicative competence.

Assessment of learning has been traditionally used in most educational settings, generally in the form of exams. This type of assessment is:

• carried out by the teachers,

• usually at the end of the term or the academic year,

• with the main purpose of obtaining an exit grade (or a pass/fail distinction).

What makes this type of assessment less inclusive than others is the fact that its main objective is to measure success (or the lack of it) but it doesn’t generally give students any useful information on how to move forward. 

Additionally, it doesn’t grant students an opportunity to improve their performance in the short term. And, even if learners did have a second go, this opportunity wouldn’t be much use if it didn’t come with the right kind of feedback on how to do better.

On the other hand, assessment for learning is carried out with the objective of obtaining a snapshot of the students’ performance in order to plan the next steps in the learning process.

Moreover, having this kind of information at hand will allow teachers to plan any support that might be necessary to help learners meet their learning objectives.

Assessment for learning needs to be carried out at different stages of the learning process. 

• If used at the beginning of a lesson: it can help the teacher identify gaps in the knowledge in order to teach more effectively.

• If carried out during the lesson it can provide information about how quickly the learners are acquiring the new knowledge and how much more revision and practice is needed.

• Teachers can use assessment for learning at the end of the lesson to evaluate how many learners have met the success criteria, and to what extent, in order to better plan for their next lesson and to implement any support strategies if needed.

What are some examples of assessment for learning?

Teachers can use different activities to obtain information on their learners’ understanding and acquisition throughout the class. In order to choose the best type of assessment activity, teachers can consider what kind and how much information they want to obtain and how much time they have to do so. 

These are some of the easiest to implement assessment techniques described in an article in TeachingEnglish.co.uk:

Observing

Observe a few learners every lesson and make notes.

Draw a face

At the end of an activity or lesson, ask learners to draw a face (smile, neutral, sad) to show how confident they are about the topic.

Summary sentence

To know what learners know about a topic at the beginning or end of a lesson, ask them to write one sentence to summarise what they know about it.

Pair share

At the end of a lesson learners share with their partner:

• Three new things they have learnt.
• What they found easy.
• What they found difficult.
• Something they would like to learn in the future.

Traffic lights

Give learners red, yellow and green cards (or they can use markers or crayons). At different points during the lesson, ask them to choose a card and put it on their desk to show how much they understand (red = don’t understand, yellow = partly understand, green = totally understand).

Post-its

Use post-it notes to evaluate learning. Give to groups, pairs or individuals and ask them to answer questions. For example:

• What have I learnt?
• What have I found easy?
• What have I found difficult?
• What do I want to know now?

Not clear

At the end of an activity or lesson or unit, ask learners to write one or two points that are not clear to them. The teacher and class discuss these points and work together to make them clear. This is a great way of making sure that we get a point to work on from every learner.

KWL

At the beginning of a topic learners create a grid with three columns – what they know; what they want to know; what they have learned. They start by brainstorming and filling in the first two columns and then return to the third at the end of the unit.

Mini-whiteboards

Ask learners to write their answers on mini-whiteboards or pieces of paper and show it to you. This way the teacher can get a reading of the level of understanding at a glance.

Plickers

It’s an easy to use online formative assessment tool. Teachers will have to create an account on get.plickers.com and prepare a set of questions they want to assess their learners on. Then download and print a set of QR codes (one for each learner).  The QR codes will have the letters A, B, C, D printed on each side of the square. When it’s time to assess, the teacher will show the questions on the interactive board and the learners will hold up the QR code card with the letter they think corresponds with  the right answer facing up. The teacher will have to download the app and swipe their phone or tablet across the classroom getting the answers right away. Only the teacher will have access to the individual results so the answers will remain anonymous and learners won’t be discouraged from participating. You can find videos with examples of how to use it on the Plickers website.

Pride and Prejudice & Plickers in the classroom is a hit with my freshies! @CaptGrizzly pic.twitter.com/v3eVpu7mFQ

— Ms. Visconti (@MsVLosOsos) February 7, 2018

Effective feedback to ensure inclusive assessment.

Feedback time should be built into the lesson time so as not to be overridden by other more urgent tasks when we are pressed for time. 

It’s very important that feedback is always based on a set of success criteria (‘This is what you need to do to do well’) that students are aware of before starting a task. Reminding students of the success criteria, making them visible on the board, showing a model of the final outcome and using visuals to explain, are ways in which we can help students with low attention spans, a low level of the language or short working memory remember the criteria.

It’s also key that the learners are granted the time to use the feedback in order to try and improve their work.

Depending on who provides it, feedback can be:

• Teacher to learner feedback.

• Peer feedback.

• Self-assessment.

Teachers can choose what type of feedback to use depending on the type of lesson, on the difficulty of the tasks, on the students’ individual needs and on the time available. Read more on effective feedback here.

Overall, assessment for learning will be a more inclusive tool as:

• It’s learner centred so the learning process can be easily adapted to fit different needs.

• It’s flexible and can be used in different ways.

• It’s also structured if we clearly convey  the success criteria. This will benefit learners who need predictability.

• It allows for repetition for those learners who need it.