Before coming to the LTS program I was biased toward assessment as I saw it as only standardized tests where there is little to no feedback to students. Now I can say that assessment comes in various forms. It is important to measure the language ability of our students to get a picture of their progress and the way the instructors teach classes. Based on my experience, every student wants to see the results of their learning. By results, I mean something measurable and observable and usually instant. The assessment serves as a milestone in learning where students can see how they grow in their language skills. In the program, I have had the opportunity to create an assessment plan for not only measuring students’ learning but also evaluating the course — both are crucial elements of successful learning.
ACAs Reading and Writing.pdfIn the LT 549 Measuring Language Ability class, I designed assessment creation activities with the skills of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and vocabulary. When creating the activities I followed the five principles of assessment: practicality (Mousavi, 2009), reliability (Carr, 2011), validity (Messick, 1989), authenticity (Bachman & Palmer, 1996), and washback (Alderson & Wall, 1993). In the LT 549 class, I created the assessment activities for the NavigateUSA Integration ESL course that I previously developed in the LT 548 Curriculum & Materials Development class as I wanted to improve my assessment creation skills in the context of community ESL programs. I am particularly proud of my assessment creation activities (ACAs) for the skills of reading and writing. In the context of community ESL programs, there is a tendency to use formative assessments (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2019) with mainly informal tasks since the grades are not assigned in this class type. The stakeholders, however, would still like to see the results and efficacy of the program, and community ESL class instructors rely on the Scope & Sequence chart when developing assessments. The goal of the ACAs in reading and writing is to help students develop the necessary skills to be able to navigate public services in the United States, i.e., filling out forms, replying to emails and physical mail, and reading official documents. These skills are also often indicated by students in the needs analyses for community ESL programs by both students and stakeholders. The activities are authentic-like and measure what students are learning in class.
In LT 539 Design for Language Learning Pronunciation class, I developed a formative assessment called Bees and Snakes for teaching pronunciation of the voiced and voiceless th sounds for ACTFL Novice-Low—Novice-Mid levels of learners who are students in the NavigateUSA Integration ESL course. This assessment activity was developed to see students’ ability to distinguish voiced and voiceless th sounds. Students receive two cards — one with a picture of a snake that represents a voiceless th sound and another one with a picture of a bee that represents a voiced th sound. Students can work in groups or individually and demonstrate the appropriate card (so only I can see it) when I say words such as mother and thanks. This activity serves as a quick check-in on what students remember about the sounds and if they can hear the difference between these two sounds. As an extension to this activity as an opportunity to receive feedback, I can go over the words again and ask students to read the words that I had for this activity while focusing on the distinction of these two sounds. This activity can work with other pronunciation features and is relatively easy to administer in terms of practicality. However, outside factors such as stress and fear of competition can hamper the results of this assessment technique. I was able to use this activity as part of my teaching demonstration in LT 539 Design for Language Learning Pronunciation and it worked well with peer students. On reflection, I would make this activity an individual activity to better track each learner’s progress.
LP1 LT 539 A_Kotov Revised New.pdfReferences
Alderson, J. C., & Wall, D. (1993). Does Washback Exist? Applied Linguistics, 14(2), 115-129.
Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (1996). Language testing in practice: designing and developing useful language tests. Oxford University Press.
Brown, H. D., & Abeywickrama, P. (2019). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices (Third edition.). Pearson Education.
Carr, N. T. (2011). Designing and analyzing language tests. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Educational measurement (3rd ed., pp. 13-104). New York, NY: American Council on Education and Macmillan.
Mousavi, S. A. (2009). An encyclopedic dictionary of language testing. 4th ed. Tehran, Iran: Rahnama Press.