Assessment

While the effective design and incorporation of lesson plans is critical to language teaching, it is only representative of part of the entire process. The ability to carefully design means for evaluating language skills, understand the consequences of assessment and incorporate findings in the form of washback are all valuable skills that pertain to the appraisal of student language ability and assessment. It is important not to overemphasize the importance of one of these over the other, but rather, to highlight the significance of allowing the two to work together to create a well-rounded and comprehensive approach to language learning. To best display my knowledge of language assessment and emphasize its importance in my teaching, I am including three artifacts from my time in the Language Teaching Studies program. These artifacts include: a sample writing assessment, a sample speaking assessment, and a lesson plan that I had created for a sample curriculum design project. Through the creation of these first two artifacts, I was able to confront the challenges faced when designing basic methods for language assessment and brainstorm ways for the assessment process to ultimately benefit the student learning experience. While my third artifact does not include much of an assessment process itself due to the sequencing of courses in the LTS program, I will focus on ways I could incorporate assessment if I were to further develop the given curriculum to best showcase my knowledge.

In the Measuring Language Ability course (LT 549), I designed many sample assessments each aimed at gauging a specific feature of language. One focused on evaluating writing skills, while another emphasized speaking skills. During the brainstorming and design phase of these artifacts, was much to consider since this was truly my first time thinking of assessment outside the realm of being a student, and therefore, a new set of challenges was posed. For example, when taking into consideration my future imagined teaching context(s), the concept of standards as well as justification became widely apparent and important to consider. When considering standards, I found it important to reflect on the benefits and drawbacks of designing assessments around pre-existing standards, such as CEFR and TOEFL, to ensure assessment validity and reliability (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2019). However, that is not to state that standards should always form the basis  of every assessment and subsequent analysis. The concept of justification and having a purpose for each of the steps taken during the assessment procedure was also a highly salient principle that was considered throughout the creation of the artifacts, particularly, in both my assessment designed to measure writing and the one to measure speaking. In order for an assessment to “work”, in the sense that it accurately measures the variable it is intended to, having to justify choices and analyze potential consequences was critical. This knowledge is displayed prominently throughout both of my Assessment Creation artifacts, where the choices made in the design phase of each are explained and their perceived benefits and drawbacks on the assessment procedure are further discussed. Overall, these artifacts serve as examples of my ability to not only determine ways in which language skills can be measured, but also the ability to anticipate ways in which they impact the process as a whole, for better or worse.

Finally, within the context of my final lesson plan created for the Curriculum and Materials Development course (LT 548), I demonstrate a capacity to grow in my ability to further incorporate assessments and the assessment procedure around a given target-language use (TLU) task (Bachman & Damböck, 2017). Given that this lesson plan was designed before any formal instruction in assessment, if I were to redevelop this artifact, I would largely structure the format of its assessment around the TLUs. Before having any knowledge as to the design of assessment itself, I was more concerned with assessment in a performative sense, ensuring whether students can or cannot do a certain skill. However, after having been exposed to different principles of assessment design, I believe structuring future assessments around the use of a TLU is critical. The benefit in incorporating TLUs into the assessment process is the structure it affords. For example, by restructuring my sample lesson plan around a specific TLU, I would be able to more accurately isolate and assess a targeted skill that I am interested in.

As a concluding thought, the process of assessment design, analysis and integration of feedback into the revision process provided a new and unique aspect for me to consider in language teaching. In many ways, the assessment process comprises a part of the overall language learning experience that could be seen as equally as important to the ways we go about teaching the target language itself. Ultimately, it is my responsibility as a language educator to ensure that the assessment of language skills in students is not only holistic and truly representative of their skill, but also is informative in guiding the future direction of the course to best meet student needs.

Bachman, L. & Damböck, B. (2017). Language assessment for classroom teachers. Oxford University Press.

Brown, H. D & Abeywickrama, P. (2019). Language Assessment : Principles and Classroom Practices (3). New York: Pearson Education.