Standardized tests

This reading is intended to talk about standardized tests that in fact, they play an important role in education since they are necessary and sometime useful, but in the same breath they are really harmful because they are not objective.

I would like to point out some disadvantages standardized tests have; for instance, as I said before the only objective thing standardized tests have is scoring, when done by an accurately programmed machine. But deciding what items to include on the test, how questions are worded, which answers are scored as "correct,” and the uses of exam results are all made by subjective human beings. On the other hand, these kinds of tests are very poor in the sense that they don’t improve critical thinking skills of student learning. They are weak measures of the ability to comprehend complex material. Besides, these tests do not help a teacher understand what to do next in working with a student because they do not indicate how the student learns or thinks.

Anyway they also have some advantages, for example they are easier to score, they are useful for some institutions in order to level some students, and they are necessary to take when an English teacher wants to get a better job or keep studying. It is very important here in Colombia and I guess that in other countries is the same.  I am going to give an example, it happened to a friend of mine; he applied for a job in an English Institute here in Bucaramanga, and everything was going good till the coordinator asked him for a certification of any test, and my friend said he didn’t have any test certification, so he couldn’t get the job just for this reason.

As a short conclusion I would say that standardized tests are not fear enough, or objective, but they are necessary and useful sometimes, so we sooner or later we as future teachers have to face them.

 

Standards-based Assessment

This article talks mainly about Standards-based assessment which is a type of assessment or a test and its information and criteria is based on contents that students have been taught or are expected to learn. Then, it is different to achievement tests which examine more generalized knowledge as I mention in the previous session. Standards-based assessment lets students know against which criteria teacher will judge their work, and the standards attached to each of these criteria. It tells students what performance is required and allows you to make comparisons between students based on their achievement of the standards.

Here in Colombia there are some standards-based tests such as ICFES and Saber-Pro. I had to take the first one, because in Colombia is really important to get high score in that one if you want to enter to a public institution. It was like 12 years ago; but I wanted to enter to a public university, so I had to take it again due to the fact that the first one wasn’t be really good. The point is that I studied in a small town located to the North of Colombia and I never received any training before taking that test. We never had told what this test consisted of, how long it was, and so on.

So, for those reasons I would say that here in Colombia for public education those kinds of assessments are not achieving the established standards, so they need to be improved every day in schools by engaging, fostering, and training nor only students but also teachers in order to fulfill the main objective proposed in the Colombia Education System.

Designing Classrooms Language Tests

In this session I will talk about designing tests, the first thing we have take into account is that the types of tests. According to H. Douglas Brown there are mainly five types of tests: Language aptitude test, it is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn foreign language. Proficiency test, it consists of multiple-choice items on language skills.

Placement test, it is for placing a student into a particular level or section of a language curriculum or school.  I am going to make a parenthesis here since I am related to this type of test. About six years ago, I had to take a test like this when I was about to enter at Language Institute at UIS university in Bucaramanga. I wanted to take an English course because I wanted to learn to speak English. I was really scared since I had not had any test before. I took about 1 hour and half, anyway I had to begin with a basic one.

The third one is Diagnostic test; it is designed to diagnose specified aspect of a language. The last one which is one of the most relevant for us as teachers is Achievement test; it is directly related to classrooms, lessons, units or even total curriculum. For teachers, designing tests is something that sometimes tends to be hard because it is time consuming. In addition to this, we have to take into account many aspects, such as the objectives of the lesson or unit, the time the students may spend, ask only for things that were explaining in class, among others.

I would say that designing tests is a hard work since then we have to check the tests and give students the appropriate feedback and on time. But in the same breath, they are also useful and necessary because tests allow the teacher to know the needs, weakness, failures and doubts students have and also notice which skills they have to improve. Personally I have no problem in designing tests, the problem is that sometimes those tests are too long.

Journals, questionnaires, and interviews

     In this session it will be talked about journals, questionnaires, and interviews as well, but it is focused on questionnaires and interviews since these two tools have been used for the authors of this article.

     It is known that questionnaires and interviews are relatively structured and formal, but they are more useful with people who have a regular level of proficiency in the second language acquisition. Then, the provided information is valuable for planning and assessing students; however, feedback must be given periodically.

     As a student and as well a teacher, both tools have been practiced. In the second semester of my program, I was asked to answer a short questionnaire written my teacher. It was applied in order to know our level of English at this time. At the beginning we were a little bit reluctant, but when the teacher gave us feedback, we realized that it was a good idea since it permitted the teacher to knows our doubts and failures. 

     On the other hand, I tend to interview students as soon as I a start working at any institute (it does not mean that I would  not do it at schools, it is beacuse I haven't had the opportunity to work at any aschool yet, I did it, but just for a very short time) since it helps me to know the level of English the students have, their tastes, ambitions, expectations and so on and so forth. I could have notice that some students do not like interviews, and sometimes they feel uncomfortable. But then, I try to be friendly and tell them joke in order to avoid nervousness and make them to feel comfortable.

     I would say that all of these tools are really useful not only for teachers, but also for students  because they offer a wide way to express opinions, ideas, and expectations, so it allows the teacher to give a better assessment since she/he knows what are students weakness, failures, doubts, or strength. I think it is better when you know what your students’ needs are, in order to help them to improve their abilities and knowledge. 

Portfolios and Conferences

Portfolios and conferences are innovate and valuable methods of collecting data for evaluation. They offer a lot of opportunities to use language with teachers in way that seldom occur during regular class time. When they are used interactively can give students a sense of involvement in, control over, and enthusiasm for learning. But it must be taken into account that a special care should be taken by the teachers to ensure that these activities are used in student-centered, interactive ways; otherwise, the unique benefits of these methods will not be realized. 

Portfolio is a purposeful collection of student’s work that demonstrates to students and others their efforts, progress, and achievements in given areas. They can provide many benefits such as: A holistic view of student learning, opportunities for collaborative assessment, opportunities to use metalanguage to talk about language among others. In addition to this, it also promotes: student involvement is assessment, responsibility for self-assessment, collaborative haring classrooms, among others.

In the beginning, it is vital that teachers negotiate with students how you will jointly implement portfolios in your classroom. Portfolios are useful since they can keep samples of writing, lists of books, books reports, and so on. Although reviewing portfolios is time consuming, it helps you since they are more organized.

Conferences in comparison are often used to review the contents of portfolios. While portfolios whose primary benefits are related to assessment of achievement, conferences are advantageous for understanding the process, strategies, and approaches students use in the performance of school work. Then, the authors of this paper (Genesee & Upshur) do not recommend using conferences for grading purposes because grading generally focuses on learning outcomes or achievement, whereas the primary focus of conferences is process. I agree with them since there exists other methods of assessing language achievement for grading such as portfolios and tests which are more objective.

Beyond Tests: Alternative in Assessment (Brown & Hudson)

It is well-known that everyone wants a test for everything; for this reason, tests have acquired a great importance nowadays. First of all we have to know that tests are one of number types of assessment. Long time ago a new term was proposed, that was “alternative assessment” such as journal, portfolios, observations, self-assessment, peer-assessment, it was discovered that these assessments gave a power of balance to the classroom. Later, the authors of this paper (Brown and Hudson) discover that these assessments implies something new that may be exempt from the requirements, so he proposes alternatives in assessment instead.

There are some of the alternatives in assessments that are different from formal tests. In contrast, standardized tests are designed to minimize time and money on part of designer and test-taker and alternative assessments are time consuming instead.

On the other hand, we also have to talk about performance-based assessment; it implies productive observable skills since the tasks students perform are consistent with course goals and curriculum.  

Portfolios are one of the most common alternative assessments especially within a framework of communicative language teaching. They include essays, reports, and journals, among others.

Journals are very common written assessment; they include diaries, language-learning logs, among others.

Observations are based on nonverbal behavior; perception, feelings, etc.

Self and peer assessment derives their theoretical justification from a number of well-established principles of second language acquisition.