Assessment

While taking the Assessment class LT549, I was able to see the behind-the-scenes view of what creating a good test meant and how that relates to language learning or learning as a whole. When teaching in a classroom, one often might want to focus on goals or objectives for the learners to grasp in the lesson, but when it comes to taking a test, oftentimes the dynamics change for the students and the stakes are raised. This course allowed me to identify the areas in which test taking can either help or hinder the learner in their process as well as how to design a test that is practical and valid and also allows room for helpful feedback to the learner in order to help them grow as a student. I was able to create tests with certain criteria that allowed for the test-taker to feel confident in what they were answering with low enough stakes that would reduce test-taking anxiety. The 5 criteria in creating an assessment were: practicality (time and resources in developing and scoring an assessment), reliability (how consistent are assessment scores (across versions of the assessment, raters, student backgrounds, etc.), authenticity (to what degree do assessment task mirror real-life tasks (or require similar linguistic features as real-life tasks), washback (what are the consequences of assessments on teaching and learning (does teaching for the assessment align with course/curriculum goals), and validity (how well does an assessment do the job it was intended to do?). (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2019).

I was also able to look at examples of many different types of tests from around the world, including ones that my future students would be taking such as the EIKEN test. This course taught me to look at the test from an evaluator’s point of view and noticed aspects of the test that may have an impact on the test takers, and therefore the results that came from the test. For example, many of the English tests for Japanese English learners are extremely long (3 or more hours) and are largely online and multiple choice with little to no human interaction. While this may be the standard for many tests, this doesn’t mean that it is the most practical method for language testing. Some tests may not accurately address the knowledge the learner has of the target language or may be so irrelevant that they wouldn’t normally use the content in everyday life. (Bachman & Damböck, 2017). That said, in this course I created tests that would be relevant and useful in day to day life while also being low-stakes and interesting enough to increase the learners motivation and interest in the target language. These tests included reading a map to identify local and important landmarks, role-play scenarios with dialogue that reflect a real-life situation that one may find themselves in, writing assignments that are more student-interest focused rather than writing about a topic they are unfamiliar with or don’t care much about (in order to build motivation and be able to make personal connections and express feeling), and listening tests that involves native speakers using the target language as it would be in an everyday situation. 

The artifacts that I chose for this area of proficiency are activity creations that I created in the LT 549 Assessment course. In total, there are five activities in order to assess five modes of language which are, reading, writing, listening, speaking, and pragmatics. These activity creations include information in regards to the 5 criteria listed above (practicality, reliability, authenticity, washback, and validity) and reflect how each activity demonstrates each criteria. My intended audience for the lessons that were in the activity creation were intended for English language learners in Japan. The idea was to present authentic and practical material to learners that also allows for washback as well as feedback. In the activity creation for pragmatics, there was an emphasis on the IPIC model (AELRC, 2020) that included feedback in the areas of knowledge, subjectivity, awareness, and the ability to analyze the context of the situation. This was all done with the intention to have the learner focus on the deeper meaning behind what is being said and what really is being intended by an utterance. I chose to include an activity in this assignment that states implicit and explicit phrases with multiple choice answers that require the learner and test-taker to think deeply about a language system. 

Another artifact that I chose from the LT 549 Assessment class was the activity creation for listening. This activity and assessment was very relevant to my teaching context because it focused on common issues that Japanese learners of English might have due to the phonetic differences in the two languages. I incorporated the use of distinguishing minimal pairs through listening and writing via the input of a native speaker of English using recorded speech. By listening, seeing what is being said, writing it down, and saying it out loud, this involves many different aspects of language use and assesses a multitude of dynamics that a learner of language uses. This can be applicable to obtaining more accurate and useful results when taking a test and allows a good opportunity for feedback so that the learners can understand the content of the lesson more clearly (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2019).

The proficiency area of Assessment has taught me to consider the quality of an assessment or test and ask myself if it accurately is testing for what the learner objectives or desired outcomes of the course are. In addition, it allowed me to emphasize creating a course that would better prepare students for an assessment such as a national English language exam that many of my learners will be or have taken. This area of proficiency also allowed me to practice the skill of applying tests and quizzes to my own courses that test for the competency of the learners in many different aspects of language learning. I learned the importance of preparing learners for tests they may take in the future, creating tests and assessments that accurately assess several modes of communication, and how to tell if a test or an assessment is accurately achieving what it was intended for which would demonstrate its validity. I intend to use what I learned in this area of proficiency to better assess my learners and prepare them for test-taking situations that they may be facing.

References

AELRC (2020). Intercultural, Pragmatic, and Interactional (IPIC) Measure. Georgetown University. https://aelrc.georgetown.edu/resources/ressearch-briefs/ipic-research-brief/

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 (3rd ed.). Pearson Education.