Assessment

As a language educator navigating the complexities of teaching language, one of the responsibilities is to track students’ language progress. This commitment to monitoring development was demonstrated in my first artifact titled “Assessment Creation Activity for Listening (ACAL)” in the Measuring Language Ability course (LT549). My ACAL was designed as a formative and informal assessment to measure achievement. The task includes playing an audio recording of a dialogue between friends to the entire class. Students receive a handout with four multiple-choice questions related to key points in the dialogue. Before listening, students review these questions to focus their listening comprehension (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2018). During the assessment, the audio is played twice, allowing students to answer the questions. They then discuss their answers with peers, compare responses, and receive a copy of the audio to verify their answers, ensuring engagement and immediate feedback on their listening comprehension skills (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2018). Additionally, to ensure quality and effectiveness, I incorporated a discussion of assessment principles and an analysis of benefits and drawbacks, including reliability, validity, and practicality (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). The multiple-choice format ensures consistent and objective grading, despite the potential for students to guess based on the answer choices, which illustrates the reliability aspect. Furthermore, the format enhances validity through familiarity. However, some students may require additional listening opportunities beyond the two plays. Nonetheless, the assessment supports my learner-centered approach and offers flexibility. 

Similarly, the second artifact is an Assessment Creation Activity for Reading from the same LT549 course. This assessment follows a format similar to the previous one but with some distinctions. It involves a paragraph from an article discussing the history of domesticating cats. The task includes three questions in total: two multiple-choice questions and one short-answer follow-up to the first question. The assessment aims to measure achievement through a formal and summative approach. Students will read independently and answer questions without sharing answers with peers, reflecting its formal nature. Moreover, the assessment’s reliability may be influenced by student motivation and subjective scoring in the multiple-choice and short-answer sections. However, the clear criteria outlined in the task can mitigate these potential issues Content validity is supported by students’ familiarity with the format (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2018). This straightforward design, consisting of a reading passage and three questions, allows for quick completion but may vary in difficulty from student to student. This approach aligns with my teaching philosophy by integrating both structure and challenge into assessments.

In the final artifact for this section, I demonstrate my application of knowledge in measuring language ability through a diagnostic interview conducted with a student I tutored alongside my peer, Mary Kate McBride. This tutoring allowed McBride and I to apply our knowledge of assessing language ability and was completed for our Teaching Pronunciation class (LT539). Drawing from Celce-Murcia et al.’s (2010) method for diagnosing a learner’s current language ability, McBride and I designed an interview. This interview was recorded with the student’s permission and incorporated a list of eight questions to elicit natural speech. It also included a reading passage to assess the student’s pronunciation in reading an academic-style text out loud. The recording and notes taken during the interview served as valuable tools for identifying the areas to focus on in the next two tutoring sessions, where we provided targeted instruction to the student.

Overall, the artifacts I selected for this fourth competency area demonstrate my comprehensive understanding and application of measuring language ability and language assessment principles in various contexts. By including approaches and principles learned throughout the LTS program, not only will it benefit my future learners and their individual growth as they immerse themselves in authentic language experiences and receive targeted feedback, but it will also enhance my ability to create meaningful, learner-centered experiences.