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ABSTRACT
An English Teacher's curriculum planning, choice of classroom methodology, and means to assess student learning are inextricably linked. Assessment may be closely interlinked with the process of learning and its outcomes. In most of the Indian English class rooms, the existing form of Assessment is on the memory-based knowledge. It attempts to make students reveal all they know about the subject but cannot challenge them to learn more. Thus, teachers and researchers are proposing alternative assessment models that supplement the existing assessments to improve teaching and learning of English. English for Engineers is now become a need rather than a subject to study. It is now more important not only for their scholastic life but also for their prospective career. So the assessments for these students should have an edge to fulfill the needs like readiness for the job opportunities, writing academic reports, building confidence etc., Hence, the present paper will highlight the importance of alternative assessments to improve English for Engineers. It also discusses different ways that the researcher follows among his students to improve the need based communications skills through various certificate courses like Cambridge’s Business English Certificate Course (BEC) and Qualifications and Assessments International (QAI), UK’s Global English Testing Service in Higher Education (GETS HE). It also looks at the emphasis of alternative assessments and discusses some of the practical implication of assessing language differently that we currently do.
Key Words: Alternative Assessments, English for Engineers, BEC, Cambridge, GETS HE
Introduction
Assessment is central to good teaching, that we need to know what the child knows in order to provide them with appropriate support. There are two opposing forces found influencing assessments of English language today. One is curriculum consisting of body of knowledge with facts that can easily be taught by teachers. The other is standardized test that can attempt to gauge the acquired knowledge of the student after a certain period of time. As it aims at only knowledge banking, students start accumulating it rather than understanding to apply it in the real time situations. It is easy for both the teachers to administer and students to score by writing what all they know about the subject. Especially in English, other major components like listening, speaking are missing in this model of assessment.
Alternative assessment can be a diagnostic tool to improve both a teacher's instruction and a student's learning of English by revealing information about three dimensions of a student's English literacy. First, students who complete alternative assessment activities demonstrate their knowledge of Language Structure, Vocabulary and ideas. Second, students who complete alternative assessment activities demonstrate their ability to reason; that is, to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize various situations for communication. And third, students who complete alternative assessment activities demonstrate their ability to communicate their knowledge and reasoning to others.
Alternative Assessments – A View
Instructional approaches for Engineering English have changed with the passage of time. Technological advancements have brought into play greater use of visual aids, hypermedia, and interactive simulations. Additionally, curricular developments have been undertaken to address the ever increasing stack of educational information needed by students. These did not only redefine the teaching process of English during engineering education but also affected the learning experience of students. Such curricular changes also brought about dynamism in the educational evaluation process. That is where Alternative Assessments paved the way to examine. Electronically generated examinations, evidenced-based researches, learning portfolios have been utilized in addition to the conventional paper-and-pen examinations. Alternative assessment is a way for Assessment for Learning. According to Sengupta (2015), ‘Alternative assessments assess higher-order thinking skills. Students have the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.’1 The concept of Alternative assessment may be coined for all the possible activities used for assessing the performance of the students for learning by doing. It is alternative to the traditional assessment that evaluates linguistic process by performance.
The concepts like authentic assessments, performance-based assessments, and portfolio-based assessments may also come under alternative assessments. They are alternative to the conventional type of testing and being process oriented, involve task based activities relating to real-life situations. Following is a list of possible alternative assessments.
ü Performance-based assessments (projects, exhibitions, role playing, experiments and demonstrations)
ü Open-ended questions
ü Writing samples
ü Interviews
ü Journals and learning logs
ü Story of text retelling
ü Cloze tests
ü Portfolios
ü Self and peer assessments
ü Teacher observations
ü Checklists
Language education and assessment not alone preparing students to succeed in scoring marks but it should make them ready to contribute the real time communication outside the classroom. It is more possible through the Alternative Assessments because they grade students through competition, performance and task based activity. There will always be a fair choice for all to participate and perform the activity and learning. Hence Alternative Assessments give room to have holistic evaluation.
Some traits of Alternative Assessments
According to Kay Burke (2009) the following traits of Alternative Assessments are more authentic in bringing fruitful results in ESL Classroom.2
● Capturing complex outcomes.
Alternative assessment goes beyond the assessment of knowledge and facts to the more complex goals of assessing and developing life-long skills of creative thinking, problem solving, summarizing, synthesizing, and reflecting. With authentic assessment, products and processes are equally valued.
● Addressing realistic tasks
With authentic and performance-based assessments, students are involved in tasks, performances, demonstrations, and interviews reflecting everyday situations within realistic and meaningful contexts.
● Including good instructional tools
Assessment and instruction interact on a continuous basis. Assessment can be used to adapt instruction and to provide feedback for monitoring students’ learning. Alternative assessment focuses on the students’ strengths, therefore enabling the teacher to get a more accurate view of students’ achievement, of what they can do, and of what they are trying to do.
● Communicating what we value
Assessment and instruction need to be aligned. If we value oral proficiency but only assess through written tests, students infer that only the written language matters.
● Meeting the students’ different learning styles
Alternative assessment offers a broad spectrum of assessment possibilities to address the different learning styles. Some students might choose to demonstrate understanding by writing about something while others might prefer to perform, to display visually, or to create a timeline.
● Collaborating and interacting with students
Even though Educational Institutes usually focus on students working alone, the real world allows and encourages people to talk, ask questions, get help and receive feedback. Denying students the right to cooperate and collaborate diminishes the authenticity of the achievement.
Alternative Assessments at Lendi Institute of Engineering and Technology
The author’s work place Lendi Institute of Engineering and Technology of Andhra Pradesh imparts communication skills to its Engineering students as per the curriculum designed by Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Kakinada (JNTUK) to which it is affiliated to. Following the assessment system of University, English Language Communication Skills Lab (ELCS Lab) of Lendi also conducts various alternative assessments among its Engineering Graduates in form of certificate courses in association with International bodies like Cambridge English Language Assessments (CELA), Qualifications Assessments International (QAI).
CELA conducts Business English Certificate Course (BEC) and QAI conducts Global English Testing Service in Higher Education (GET HE) in accordance with the principles and approach of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). CEFR is an international system that describes learners’ abilities in a foreign language using six levels, from A1 (the lowest) to C2 (the highest). This makes it easy for employers, schools, universities and other institutions to find out whether the candidates’ English is at the right level for them by looking at these certificates or Statement of Results. These certificates assess the ability of the students’ communication on one hand and allowing the students to practice various real time activities that cater to the needs of communication on the other. They test the ability of student basic skills of language; Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (LSRW). The certificates also give can do statements to students to have self-assessments as The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)3 defines, “Can-Do Statements are self-assessment checklists used by language learners to assess what they “can do” with language in the Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational modes of communication”3
These modes of communication seem to be useful parameters in Alternative Assessments as they are defined in the National Standards for 21st Century Language Learning and organized in the checklist into the following categories:
Interpersonal (Person-to-Person) Communication
Presentational Speaking (Spoken Production)
Presentational Writing (Written Production)
Interpretive Listening
Interpretive Reading
Thus, Alternative Assessments seem to play important role in graduates acquiring English language skills that are helpful for them to be successful in campus recruitments. Especially, in engineering education, English is once considered as one of the subjects to improve percentage of marks. But now, the skill of English has become synonymous with the rate of the opportunities that the engineers had as Jensen (2000) states, “Employers want a number of new competencies, with an emphasis on an increased ability to communicate.”4
A Generic Rubric for Alternative Assessment Activities at Lendi
For decades, English Teachers have been using projects and activities requiring students to blend skills and knowledge across disciplines. Often, the problem is associated with the assessing of these activities in the English class room. Critics have rightly cautioned that assessment is susceptible to corruptibility, possible lack of sensitivity to cultural and linguistic diversity, and psychometric issues such as reliability and generalization. We should be aware of these important problems, but a more immediate concern for classroom teachers is: Will the teacher need to create a new rubric for each assessment activity?
At Lendi, we the team of English Teachers developed a generic "English Rubric for Alternative Assessment". It is to help teachers assess their students' background knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills. It is an analytic rubric which allows English teacher to assess simultaneously student performance in each of a few interrelated dimensions: Task achievement, Coherence and Cohesiveness, Vocabulary, Grammar and communication skills etc. depending on the type of the task.
Each dimension of the rubric is divided into five levels. Each level is defined by several criteria which reflect a student's abilities and skills. Collectively, levels 5 and 4 are designed to differentiate among students whose knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills are developed. Collectively, 3, 2, and 1 represent knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills that are still developing. Level 5 represents work of a student who exhibits the most developed knowledge and skills; level 1 represents the work of a student with the lowest level of developing knowledge and skills.
How Alternative Assessment improves the Teaching and Learning of English at Lendi
A generic rubric we follow at Lendi is especially appropriate and useful for assessment, because the rubric benefits teachers and students alike. Teachers know that their students may perform at a more or less developed level in one dimension than in another. For example, when a student performs an activity, he or she may demonstrate background knowledge at a level 5, reasoning at a level 4, and communication at a level 3, Grammar and Vocabulary at a level 2. An analytic rubric allows teachers to take these differences into account when assessing their students. An analytic rubric benefits students by showing them their strengths and weaknesses in each dimension. Thereby, they learn where they must place their time and effort to improve their background knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills.
The effective use of a rubric requires planning and practice by teachers and students alike. Moreover, teachers must share the rubric with their students because it contains the criteria that students will have to meet as they construct background knowledge, engage in reasoning, and communicate what they know and understand. Successful acquisition of knowledge and development of skills in reasoning and communication demands that both teachers and students know in advance the criteria they are seeking in each dimension, and that the students are trained about the best ways to demonstrate their abilities. For teachers, the rubric serves as a diagnostic tool; for students, it establishes the parameters for attaining success.
As students attempt initially to meet the criteria of an alternative assessment activity, they may achieve developed levels (level 5 or 4) in one dimension (knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills), while achieving a developing level (3, 2, or 1) in the other dimensions. Reference to the rubric during consultation with their teacher will help students to organize their background knowledge and reasoning and to consider ways to communicate effectively what they know and think about the past.
Conclusion
Alternative Assessment has more advantages than disadvantages in the learning and teaching process of English as it focuses on assessing what the students know and drives the students to be able to do even if something they do not know. As name says alternative assessments have the secondary status in spite of their effectiveness. There is a necessity to have a look at some of the issues of Alternative Assessments that Worthen (1993) has identified as: “First, conceptual clarity is needed to ensure consistency in the applications of alternative assessment. Second, until a mechanism for evaluation and self-criticism is established, alternative assessment cannot become a viable force in education. Third, the users of alternative assessment, whether they are teachers or administrators, need to become well versed in issues of assessment and measurement. Fourth, although one of the most significant advantages of alternative assessment is its flexibility and its allowance for diversity, unless some standardization is introduced, the future of alternative assessment for high-stakes decisions is questionable.”5
In spite of these issues, implementing alternative assessments at various levels among engineering students of Lendi Institute of Engineering and Technology, there lay an incremental growth in the improvement of students’ need based communication subsequently their performance rate in the on-campus recruitments.
References
[1] Sengupta Amlanjyoti (2015). Alternative Assessment in the ESL Classroom: Why and How?
The Journal of English Language Teaching (India) LVII/2, 4-5
[2] Kay B. Burke (2009). How to Assess Authentic Learning Corwin Publishing House xvi
[3] https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Can-Do_Statements.pdf
[4] Jensen, H.P. (2000). Strategic Planning For the Education Process in the Next Century.
Global J. of Engg Educ., 4 (1), 35-42.
[5] Worthen, B. R. (1993). Critical issues that will determine the future of alternative assessment. Phi Delta Kappa. 74, 444-456
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