New Methods And Techniques Of Assessing English Language Knowledge” (,,metode Si Tehnici Noi de Evaluare a Cunostintelor de Limba Engleza)

=== a5d155fe288b1d759783caf9dd7559ff36e63342_386790_1 ===

UNIVERSITATEA PETROL – GAZE DIN PLOIEȘTI

DEPARTAMENTUL PENTRU PREGĂTIREA PERSONALULUI DIDACTIC

NEW METHODS AND TECHNIQUES OF ASSESSING ENGLISH LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE

Coordonator:

Lector universitardr. BADEA MIHAELA

Candidat:

Profesor ZAHARIA ADINA-PETRONELA

Liceul Tehnologic, sat Gheaba, comuna Măneciu

PLOIEȘTI

2016

INTRODUCTION

The new role of foreign languages is closely connected to the development of society itself. Many years ago people may have needed to speak foreign languages for educational purposes, for special reasons or for travelling.Today we live in a " globalizad" world that is completely different from what it used to be.

Firstly, in the modern world one cannot function efficiently without knowledge of computers or, at least, one foreign language. When sitting for a scholarship or applying for a job, English is generally among the basic requirements.Students need to integrate on the labour market, they need to adapt themselves to its imperatives. Apart from being well-prepared, well-instructed or well-educated in school these involve not only teamwork and creativity but also foreign communication skills. As a matter of fact, learning a foreign language also represents, beyond the advantages that I have mentioned above, a way to facilitate the development of students' learning skills and to improve communication competence in general.

Secondly, an important aspect of the educational process resides not only in students'capability of using language but also in their ability to use it practically rather than theoretically. I strongly sustain that learning a foreign language, especially English, should be seen as part of a permanent learning process or lifelong learning process.Formal learning is not enough anymore.This must be doubled by the informal counterpart. Lifelong learning suppose learning to learn, not just learning. Students should not limit their study and use of knowledge in schools. Instead, they should expand their linguistic competence according to their priorities, needs and circumstances.

Furthermore, The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages considers learning foreign languages as a necessary need in nowadays society. It presents what language learners must learn in order to develop knowledge and skills they need to communicate effectively.The description also defines the new role of foreign languages within the educational system, such as interpreting and understanding of the new values through language. Concerning this matter, teaching becomes organicallly linked to testing, that is why changes in teaching are soon followed by changing in testing strategies. In my opinion teachers need to test those skills that allow students to manage the language no matter the situation. I am not talking about students just acquiring English knowledge but using it, showing what they can do with the help of language, being able to perform practical tasks in situations that simulate real-life and not only, exchanging ideas and negotiating meaning.

To sum up these ideas, students need to know how to use language communicatively. Communicative language teaching (CLT) is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that lays stress on interaction encouraging students to take advantage of their own personal experience during the learning process and their personal goals. Also, students can become better language learners when they feel responsible for what they are learning.For example, self-assessment encourages students to become independent learners and increase their motivation. So, students need to be shown strategies for self-monitoring and self-assessment. Communicative teaching requires communicative testing, too.

All things considered, assessment claims for new needs of developmet due to the current change within the Romanian educational system. My teaching experience consolidated my conviction related to the necessity of approaching this subject. A fair evaluation, as objective as possible, gives students the opportunity to reach self-knowledge, self-worthing and social integration. The role of English in human society has made educators devise new ways of teaching and assessing so that their results match the students' needs. The objective of evaluation is to highlight attitudes and skills that show the efficiency of the educational process.

CHAPTER 1. THE CONCEPT OF ASSESSMENT AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

Specialists mention “communicative” as the methodology of choice. Nevertheless, when pressed to give a detailed account of what they mean by “communicative,” there were varied explanations. A good teacher must know if communicative language teaching (CLT) is similar to teaching conversation, the absence of grammar or an emphasis on open-ended discussion activities being considered the main features of a course. For teachers, it is important to understand the essence of communicative language teaching. This concept can be considered: a set of principles regarding the goals of language teaching, the way learners learn a foreign language, the different types of classroom activities organized in order to facilitate learning, as well as the roles of teachers and students.( Richards, Jack, 2006:6)

Language Teaching seen as a communicative concept is characterized as a wide approach in the sense of teaching. It is not considered a method having a clearly defined set of practices at classroom level. From a historically perspective, the concept of Communicative Language Teaching has been considered a solution to the Audio-Lingual Method, as well as a development of Notional-Functional Syllabus (this way, ”CLT emphasizes on helping learners use the target language in multiple and various contexts and on studying the different functions of language”).( Banciu et al., 2012:8)

Being different from Audio-Lingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching is focused on helping students to create meaning; they are not helped to develop flawlessly grammatical structures or native pronunciation. This shows that studying a foreign language in order to learn it with success is an aspect assessed in terms of how well learners have developed their communicative competence. The communicative competence is considered to be an ability to use the language with adequate proficiency in communication.

1.1. Features of Communicative Language Teaching

The concept of Communicative Language Teaching is represented by an enumeration of general features. The most “famous” list includes five principles, as following (Nunan, 1991:279) :

interaction in the studied language highlighted by an emphasis on the learning concept

the presence of original texts into different learning situation,

the opportunities for students to focus both on language and on studying management process,

student’s experiences developed in order to contribute to classroom learning

an effort made in order to connect classroom language learning with external language activities

Principles mentioned above are claimed by teachers that use Communicative Language Teaching in order to demonstrate their interest concerning needs and desires of students, as well as the connection between the way the language is internal taught and the way it is external used. Starting from the aspects mentioned, any teaching practice that has the role to help learners improve their communicative competence in an original way and using it in different contexts, is considered to be beneficial and acceptable side of instruction.

1.2. The Goals of Language Teaching

Communicative language teaching depends on its goal. Its aim is that of teaching communicative competence. But what is the meaning of this term? The meaning of this term can be deduced by making a comparison with grammatical competence. The concept of grammatical competence refers to the ”knowledge people have of a language accounting for their competence to make sentences in a language”. (Nunan, 1991:185) Also, it highlights the knowledge of building blocks of sentences (for example, different phrases, parts of speech, clauses, sentence patterns or even tenses) and the way sentences are formed. Grammatical competence represents the focus of grammar practice books, which presents in a typical way grammar rules on the first page, and proposes practical exercises on the other page. These exercises are provided using the rule on the first page. The sentence is the unit of analysis and practice. Grammatical competence is seen as an important dimension of language learning. At the same time, it has a clear involvement in studying a language in order to learn it. In this way, one can coordinate the rules of sentence formation in a foreign language and still not being able to use it for meaningful communication. It represents the latter capacity understood by the communicative competence concept.

This concept includes aspects of language knowledge (Richards, Jack, 2006:7) such as:

Recognizing the way a language can be used for different functions and purposes

Recognizing the way people use language in accordance with the setting and participants

Recognizing the way to produce authentic texts and understand them

Recognizing the way of maintaining communication despite the limitations in one’s language knowledge

Richards (2006:25) suggests that ”Communication Language Teaching is a paradigm that has led to eight major changes in approaches to language teaching”. These changes are:

Learner autonomy: It is important to give learners a choice of their own learning. This aspect can be achievable by using small groups or self-assessment.

Social nature of learning: Learning is not considered an activity characterized by individuality or privacy, but a social one with great dependence upon interaction with others. The movement known as cooperative learning reflects this viewpoint.

Curricular integration: The existence of a connection between curriculum strands is emphasized, so that English language is not seen as a stand-alone subject. It is connected to other subjects in the curriculum. This approach is reflected by text-based learning, seeking to develop fluency in text types across the curriculum. Project work in language teaching requires students to explore external issues.

Focus on meaning: This concept is considered to be a driving force of learning. Content-based teaching shows the view and at the same time, it seeks to make the exploration of meaning through content the core of language learning activities.

Diversity: Students can learn in different ways. Their strengths are also different. Teaching activity must consider these differences rather than try to force learners into a single mold. In the activity of language teaching, this aspect has led to an emphasis on developing learners’ use and awareness of various learning strategies.

Thinking skills: it is important language to serve as a way of developing higher-order thinking skills. It is also known as creative and critical thinking. In language teaching, the language is not being learned for its own sake, but to develop and apply students thinking skills in situations that go beyond the language classroom.

Alternative assessment: This concept reflects a mixture of new forms of assessment and it must replace traditional multiple-choice, for example, that test skills at lower-order level. Nowadays are outlined multiple forms of assessment such as observation, interviews, journals, portfolios. They can be applied in order to build a comprehensive idea of what students can do in a second studied language.

Teachers seen as co-learners: The teacher is considered a facilitator constantly applying different alternatives such as learning through doing. In teaching a foreign language, this aspect has led to an increased interest in action research and other forms of classroom investigation.

A key issue is that of assessment and the way learners can be assessed: ”in accordance with the content knowledge, with the language use or both”. (Nunan, 1991:284)

The term assessment is used in various contexts and has different meanings regarding things to different people. Most statistics consider the assessment in terms of testing and grading (for example, scoring quizzes and exams, as well as assigning course grades to students). Assessment is typically used to inform students about the way they are doing or the way they did in the courses. An emerging vision of this concept is that of ”a dynamic process that continuously yields information about student progress toward the achievement of learning goals” (NCTM, 1993:15). This vision acknowledges that when the information gathered is consistent with learning goals and is used appropriately to inform instruction, it can enhance student learning as well as document it. Rather than being an activity separate from instruction, assessment is now being viewed as an integral part of teaching and learning, and not just the culmination of instruction (Mathematical Sciences Education Board- National Research Council, 1993: 25)

The presence of a reform movement through the educational assessment encourages teachers to assess more broadly than testing and using test results to assign grades to students, as well as to rank them. A recent report on assessment, "Measuring What Counts", highlights two basic principles of assessment, respectively:

The Content Principle: According to this principle, assessment should reflect the content that is most important for students to learn.

The Learning Principle: According to this principle, assessment should encourage content learning and support good instructional practice.

These principles lead in a direct way to the use of alternative forms of assessment in order to provide complete information about what students have already learned. At the same time, students should be able to use their knowledge, as well as teachers should provide more detailed and timely feedback to students about the quality of their learning. Assessment approaches now being used in different domains capture aspects of students’ way of thinking, reasoning and applying the learning.(Ciara O’Farrell,2009:14) Some of these alternative methods are described below – portfolio assessment, authentic assessment and performance assessment.(Joan B. Garfield , 1994:3)

Portfolio assessment is a method based on a collection and evaluation of a selection of students' work that has been carefully chosen. By this method, the number and types of selections included in the portfolio may be various, but they are typically agreed upon by the teacher and student for the purpose of representing what that student has learned.

Authentic assessment is a method of obtaining information about the way students understand a context reflecting realistic situations. At the same time, students are challenged to use what they have learned in class in an original context.

Performance assessment is a method through which students must present a task, project, or investigation. Then, the teacher evaluates the products in order to assess what students actually know and can do.

Before making a selection of alternatives to traditional testing, it is important to consider criteria regarding their appropriate use. Different standards regarding the assessment in various domains may be considered criteria for assessment procedures, being below. ( Joan B. Garfield , 1994:4)

They are relevant to the development or selection of statistical assessment materials as well. By these criteria, one could consider that:

A good assessment should provide information in order to contribute to decisions about instruction’s improvement

A good assessment should be aligned with various instructional goals.

A good assessment should provide information on the students’ knowledge.

A good assessment should supply other assessment results to ensure a global description of students’ knowledge.

Considering these criteria, a broader view of good assessment emerges and it is considered to be beyond that of testing and grading. This way, the assessment becomes an integral part of instruction, consists of multiple methods as complementary sources of information about student learning, providing, at the same time, both the student and instructor with a more complete analysis of what has happened in a particular course.( Joan B. Garfield , 1994:6)

1.3. Purposes of Assessment

The most compelling reason of a teacher to consider implementing other assessment methods than traditional tests and quizzes is because traditional forms of assessment rarely improve teaching and learning methods, offering teacher limited understanding of students. In this way, the attitudes and beliefs students bring to class, the way they think in a foreign language, as well as their ability in applying what they understood should be taken into account. With this knowledge it is not difficult to determine and establish the way a change is made or an instruction is designed in order to improve student’s learning. (Ayala, C., 2005:12)

The main purpose of any student assessment should be the one of improving student learning. There are also few secondary purposes established in order to gather assessment information, such as (Adkisson, C., McCoy, L. P., 2006: 31):

providing of individual information to students about how well they have understood and applied a particular topic, as well as where they are having difficulty.

providing information about how well the class understood a particular subject and what other additional activities might need to be introduced in the curriculum or whether it is time to approach another topic.

providing diagnostic information about individual understanding of students or difficulties in understanding a new topic.

providing information about students’ perceptions and reactions to the class, the material, the topic matter, as well as other particular activities.

providing an overall indicator of students' success in achieving course goals.

helping students to determine their strengths and weaknesses in studying the provided material.

The process of selecting appropriate assessment methods and instruments is directly dependant on the purpose of assessment. If this purpose is the one of determining that students have learned some important concepts or skills, this may have effects in a different instrument or approach than if the purpose is to provide feedback to students. This way, “students may review material on a particular topic”. (Doughty & Long, 2003:44)

Regardless of the specific purpose of an assessment procedure, incorporating an assessment program offers teachers a way to reflect about what they are doing, but also to find out what happens in classrooms. The assessments provides teachers with a systematic way of evaluating information in order to use and improve their knowledge, not only of students in a particular topic, but the general knowledge of teaching. By using assessment to identify what is not working, as well as what is working, teachers can help their students to become more aware of their own success in learning a specific topic, as well as “to assess better their own skills and knowledge”. (Kumaravadivelu, 1994: 10)

1.4. Ways to assess student learning

In order to gather assessment information, there exist different methods. Multiple methods should be used at “providing a more complete image of student learning”. (Lawrence M. Rudner, 2002: 65) All types of assessment have in common their role in a particular situation, over a task, or questions; a student response, an interpretation, an assignment of meaning to the interpretation, as well as reporting and recording of results are the basis of a good learning assessment. Different assessment methods may include:

projects or reports which can be individual or in groups

different quizzes

minute papers

essay questions

journal entries

portfolios

exams that cover a broad range of material

attitude surveys

written reports

open-ended questions

enhanced multiple-choice questions where responses are designed to characterize students' reasoning .

Quizzes and essay questions should be graded and assigned a single grade or score. More complex assessments are “projects and written reports and they may be evaluated using scoring procedures in an alternative way”. (Biehler, Snowman, 1997:440) These procedures are also used to help students to learn the way to improve their performance, both on this task or future ones. Evaluation procedures for projects and reports consist of:

Giving a grade of A or "needs work" – this procedure allows the student to revise and improve the product

Using a scoring rubric to assign points (for example, 0, 1, 2) to different assessment components – this procedure provides more detailed feedback to students on various aspects of their performance. The following categories may be used in order to evaluate a student project:

Understands the problem

Describes an effective solution

Discusses limitations of the solution

Communicates effectively

One may recommend to use scoring rubrics, model papers and exemplars of good performance in order to assign student grades. These methods provide students with insights over the good performance expected to be, allowing them, at the same time, to acquire standards in “comparison with teacher’s performance standards”. (Ciara O’Farrell,2009:15)Also, there areother assessment information such as minute papers or attitude surveys. These do not require a score or grade, but they can be used to inform the teacher about what the student understands and feels, as input for modifying instruction.

1.5. The assessment framework

The assessment framework comes from the different aspects of assessment: what teachers want to have happen to students in studying a topic, different methods and purposes for assessment, together with additional dimensions presented below.

The first dimension of this framework is WHAT to assess. This may be divided into: “concepts, skills, applications, attitudes, but also beliefs”. (Ciara O’Farrell,2009:15)

The second dimension of this framework is the PURPOSE of assessment. This reflects the reason the information is being gathered and the way it will be used. For example, it has the role to inform learners about strengths and weaknesses of the learning process, or to give information to the teacher about the way of modifying the instruction.

The third dimension of this framework is represented by the identification of the individual who will assess. He can be the teacher or a student; in this respect, he is considered to be “a critical and early part of assessment process”. (Brumfit, C., 1984:22) Constantly, students express a need for knowledge and they should have different opportunities in order to improve their learning methods by stepping back from the usual work and considering what they did and learned. Pupils should have opportunities to apply criteria in the sense of scoring their own of other colleague’s work so they are able to compare their ratings to those given by teacher.

The fourth dimension of this framework is the method to be used. This method involves the use of quizzes, group or individual projects, reports, portfolio or writings.

The fifth dimension of this framework is represented by action and feedback. These represent one of the essential components of the assessment process, providing the connection between the process of assessment and improved student learning. This framework does not suggest an intersection of the previous dimensions in order to make “a meaningful assessment technique efficient”.(Littlewood, W., 1981:11). A good example is that of measuring students' understanding about the variability concept, respectively WHAT to assess for fulfilling the PURPOSE of identifying if learners understand this concept, using them in the group as assessors (WHO), applying the METHOD as a quiz, and the ACTION or FEEDBACK being represented by a numerical score. This assessment framework may not have particularly meaningful and useful results. It also does not make sense to assess student stances towards computer halls (WHAT) by having peers (WHO) read and evaluate student essays (METHOD). It is obvious that “some dimensions are more appropriately connected than other ones”. (Brumfit, C., 1984:34)

Another important target in applying this framework is that it is often difficult to assess a single concept in isolation of other concepts and skills. “It may not be possible to assess understanding of standard deviation without understanding the concepts of mean, variability, and distribution” (Littlewood, W., 1981:13).When given the task last fall, a group of statistics educators were unable to design an appropriate assessment for understanding the concept of "average" without bringing in several other concepts and skills. There are some examples below regarding the assessment activities illustrating the dimensions of the framework from the English class activity at secondary level.

Example 1:

WHAT: Students' understanding of the topic „Creativity”

PURPOSE: To find out if learners need to review text material or if the teacher needs to introduce additional activities designed to exemplify the concept.

METHOD: An essay question as a quiz; students will be asked to explain the topic and exemplify it using an authentic example.

WHO: The teacher evaluates the responses.

ACTIONS/FEEDBACK: The teacher will read the responses and assigns a score of 0 to 3. Students with scores of 0 and 1 are assigned additional materials to read and understand or different activities to complete. Students with scores of 2 are given feedback on where their responses could be strengthened.

Example 2:

WHAT: Students' ability in applying basic exploratory data over analysis skills.

PURPOSE: the main purpose is the one to determine if students are competent in applying their skills to data collection, analysis and interpretation.

METHOD: A student project, where instructions are given to the sample size, format of report and so on.

WHO: First, the student is asked to complete a self-assessment grid, using a copy of the rating sheet the teacher will use, being distributed prior to completing the project. After that, the teacher evaluates the project using an analytic scoring method. Below, one can identify explanations of each category:

Communication: an use of appropriate language and symbols.

Visual Representation: an appropriate construction and display of tables and graphs.

Decision Making: it is written in order to represent the data and the appropriate summary.

Interpretation of Results: the ability to use information from various representations and summary measures in order to describe a data set.

Drawing Conclusions: the ability to draw conclusions about the data, point out missing information or relate the performed study to other information.

ACTIONS/FEEDBACK: there are assigned scores to each category. Then, scores are given back to students together with written comments. This way, the teacher aims to create feedback between them and his students.

Example 3:

WHAT: Students' involvement in cooperative group activities while studying the topic “health nowadays”.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the teacher is to find out the way groups are working, their efficiency and to determine if the procedures at group level need to change.

METHOD: A "minute paper" is a very successful method. It is assigned during the last five minutes of class, when students are asked to write about their perceptions of what they like best and like least about their experience with group activities. All the papers are anonymous.

WHO: The teacher will read the papers.

ACTIONS/FEEDBACK: The teacher summarizes the responses. Then, he shares the responses with the class, making changes in groups or group methods as necessary.

Example 4:

WHAT: Students' understanding of topic’s assumption. The studied topic could be “pollution”.

PURPOSE: The purpose of teacher is to evaluate students' understanding of topic’s assumption, giving a grade to students for a major portion of work on the specific subject.

METHOD: A portfolio is a good method to be used in this situation. Students will be asked to select samples of their work from a unit developed on four weeks on inference to put in a portfolio folder. Students select examples of written assignments, group activities or writing assignments. They make sure that particular topics are represented. Students will select samples of their work, will write a summary in maximum 20 rows describing why they selected each part. Finally, they give their own rating of their work quality.

WHO: The teacher reviews the portfolios and completes a rating sheet for each one. He can use a scoring rubric, including categories such as:

Demonstrates understanding of subject testing.

Correctly determines and interprets different error.

Correctly uses and interprets different concepts.

Selects the appropriate procedures in testing the subject involving one or two groups.

Demonstrates understanding of the topic significance.

ACTIONS/FEEDBACK: Portfolios are returned to students with completed rating sheets. The students will review domains of weakness points or errors made and may submit a follow-up paper demonstrating their understanding of these topics. The teacher will highlight few mistakes or weakness points in class before approaching the next subject.

Some suggestions can be identified below for teachers approaching alternative assessment procedures for their class:

The teacher should analyze every assessment activity, considering it a way to provide students with feedback on the improvement way for learning and not just as an activity used to give a grade.

The teacher should not try to do it all at once. He should choose one method, try it for few days, and then introduce and experiment it in a gradually way with other techniques.

The teacher should not try to do it all alone. He should plan, review and discuss with other teachers, colleagues of him, about what he is doing and what he is learning from the assessment information.

The teacher should be open with his students about the reason and the way they are being assessed.

The teacher should make sure that he has opportunities to highlight the assessment information he obtains, reflecting upon it, as well as monitoring the impact of the results on his perceptions of the class and of the topic he is teaching.

The teacher should consult resources for ideas of different approaches to use and ways to evaluate assessment information.

The assessment drives instruction, so the teacher must be careful to assess what he believes is important for students to learn. The teacher should use an assessment form in order to confirm, reinforce and also support his ideas of what students should study. A good teacher should not lose track of the main purpose of assessment: learning improvement.

1.6. Summative assessment

The formative impact of summative assessment is presented in the following part. According to Crooks (1988:467), “classroom evaluation could affect learners in many different ways”. For instance, it guides their judgment of what is important to learn, affects their motivation and self-perceptions of competence, structures their approaches to and timing of personal study (e.g. spaced practice), consolidates learning, and affects the development of enduring learning strategies and skills.

Classroom evaluation seems to represent one of the most powerful forces influencing the process of education. Also, it requires a careful evaluation and a considerable investment of time. Many of the skills and attitudes, considered education aims, take years to improve and develop, and development can be compromised by “a lack of support for teachers in the educational experiences of students” (Willis, J., 1996:56), all in a consistent way.

There are effects of summative assessment manifested on short term , such as:

Focusing on attention over important aspects of the topic;

Giving students great opportunities to consolidate learning by practicing skills;

Guiding further instructional activities or even learning ones, within the course;

There are also some “effects on medium and longer term” such as (Crooks, 1988:470):

Influencing students' motivation as learners, as well as their perceptions of own capabilities. This aspect is known as self-efficacy;

Communicating and reinforcing teaching goals. This aspect includes key performance criteria. It also desires great standards of performance;

Influencing students' choice and development of learning different study patterns, skills or strategies;

Influencing students' subsequent choice of activities and even, careers.

1.7. Formative assessment

“Formative assessment is known as an active learning process partnering teacher and students to continuously and systematically gather evidence of learning with the express goal of improving student achievement. Intentional learning reflects a cognitive process having learning as an aim and not an incidental outcome”(Bereiter&Scardamalia, 1989: 66)Teachers and learners engage in an active and intentioned way in a formative assessment process in the moment they work together. They will:

focus on learning and developing topics as goals.

size up the position of the current work in relation to the aim.

take action to move closer to the aim.

The formative assessment process has an “impact on teachers”.(Bereiter&Scardamalia, 1989: 66) This way, teachers adopt a working assumption in order to:

be aware of students learning more effectively when they know and understand the learning aim.

help each student succeed. In this way, the teacher must precisely know the student position in relation to the learning aim.

provide specific suggestions by effective feedback. These suggestions will be provided in order to close the gap between the actual position of students and where \they need to be in relation to the learning aim.

provide students a way of regulating their own learning.

encourage meaningful learning. This type of learning appears between minds, during strategic conversations, as well as in the moment students become models of success for each other.

provide motivation. Motivation is not a material thing a teacher will give to his students; it is an aspect a teacher must help students to develop.

Teachers should act in a “constructive way” (Skehan P., 1996: 78) in order to:

Bring precision to their long time planning.

Communicate learning aims in a friendly and appropriate language.

Unpack the exact criteria learners must accomplish in order to succeed.

Collect evidence of student learning for monitoring and adapting the teaching during a lesson.

Give focused, generative and descriptive feedback.

Develop and improve a collection strategies regarding the feedback.

Teach each students how to self-assess.

Make checklists, guides, rubrics or other meta-cognitive tools considered as integral part of what students shall do before, during and after finishing the process of learning.

Encourage students in order to become learning resources one to another.

Plan and ask strategic questions, producing an evidence of student learning.

Align appropriate levels of challenge and support.

Create learning experiences in an intentional way, students being able to learn what they do well, what they should do more or how to focus their efforts in order to maximize a successful situation.

About formative assessment, one could consider some key points. A key premise is that of the students’ improvement ability. In this regard, “students must have the capacity to monitor and evaluate the quality of their own work”. (Beglar, D., Alan, H.,2002: 102) This process requires:

students to appreciate the level of work quality,

students to evaluate, having necessary skills in order to make objective comparisons about the quality of what they are producing in relation to the standards,

students to develop and improve a set of tactics which can be drawn upon for modifying their own work.

The process of giving or receiving feedback must occur during English classes. Simple knowledge of results is consistently provided by direct or implicit means. A more detailed feedback is used where necessary, in order to help student work through misconceptions or other weaknesses at the performance level. Compliments should not be used meagerly and when used “they should be task-specific, whereas criticism is usually counterproductive”.( Valerie J. Shute, 2007)

Royce Sadler (1989) identified three essential elements of formative assessment effectiveness:

helping students to recognize clearly the desired goal – students should understand what a teacher requires;

providing students with evidence about how well their work matches that goal;

explaining ways to close the gap between the goal and their current performance.

Quoting Crooks, “self-assessment represents a vital learning component. Feedback on assessment cannot be effective unless students accept that their work can be improved. Also, they have to identify important aspects of their work, in order to improve it. Self-monitoring became a key component of all professionals work. In this regard, if teachers want their students to become professional learners and very good in their fields, they should promote self-assessment in an active way. If students are asked and encouraged to make a critical examination and comment on their own work, assessment will be more a type of dialogue than a monologue, contributing stoutly to the educational development of students.” (Crooks, 1989:13)

Marks or grades do not produce learning gains. There can be reflected some the way students mostly gain learning value from assessment when feedback is provided without marks or grades. Where the teacher provides a mark, it seems to dominate students' feelings and thinking, being seen as the real purpose of the assessment.

Student motivation is essential to learning. Without it, assessment will be faulty, assessment having major influences on motivation. Therefore, it is very important to anticipate and optimize the motivational effects of feedback on assessment. ( Shute, Valerie. J., 2007) Researching, specialists highlighted the fact that the greatest motivational benefits will come from focusing feedback (Gibbs, G. , 1988) on:

qualities of student's work, rather than on making comparisons with other students;

specific ways in which the student's work could be improved;

improvements that the student has made in comparison to his earlier work.

There are “some points that summarize the key lessons regarding formative assessment that promotes learning” (Goldstein, I. L., Emanuel, J. T., Howell, W. C. , 1968: 154), as following:

it involves students in self-assessment;

it involves learning aims that are being understood and shared by teachers and students;

it helps students to understand and recognize the standards to be achieved;

it provides feedback, helping students to recognize next phases and they way of taking them;

it builds confidence that students can develop their work by improvement.

In order to obtain a productive formative assessment, learners should be trained in self-assessment. This way, they can understand the main purposes of their learning and thereby grasp what they need to do in for achievement. Opportunities for students to express their understanding should be designed into different fragments of teaching and for this, one will initiate the interaction whereby formative assessment aids learning. The dialogue between teacher and student focuses to evoke and explore understanding, but at the same time, it should be thoughtful, reflective and conducted so that all learners have the chance to think and to express their own, authentic ideas. Tests and homework exercises are considered to be an invaluable guide to learning. However, the exercises must be relevant and concise for the learning goals. At this level, the feedback should give each student the guidance on how to improve. It is important to know that each child must be given opportunity and help to work at “the improvement and development”.(Richards, J., C., Theodore R., 2001: 100).

Assessment that promotes learning:

has a view of teaching and learning- this way, it is an essential part;

involves sharing learning points with students;

has the objective of helping children to know and to recognize the standards they are aiming for;

involves students in self-assessment;

provides feedback which leads students to recognize the next steps and the way of taking them;

is underpinned by confidence that every student can improve;

involves teacher and students- this way, they review and reflect on assessment data.

1.8. Formative assessment of completed or draft work

There should be taken into consideration some student-centred contextual components (Black, Paul, William, Dylan, 1998) such as:

Who is this student?

What considerations require special attention? (cultural, social and so on)

How confident is this student about this curriculum area or type of task?

One can talk about self-efficacy?

How does the student respond to teacher’s requirements?

Does praise, criticism or guidance work best?

The following tasks should be taken into consideration. They are specific to contextual components. The teacher will be able to answer the following questions(Lundeberg & Fox, 1991):

Did the student understand the task?

The teacher must have broad thrust

The teacher must have specific qualities desired, and their relative importance

The teacher must have the standards that would be applied.

How much effort has the student put in order to complete the task?

The teacher must appreciate if there were mitigating commitments or circumstances.

Did the student receive substantial help while working on the task? Did it receive distraction?

The teacher must appreciate if the help or distraction came from school staff, peers or parents or other family members.

What use did the student make of help available from others?

The teacher must appreciate if he ignored or rejected it

The teacher must appreciate if he learned from it, and incorporated it into his/her work

The teacher must appreciate if he used it essentially verbatim, without evidence of learning

There are some components (Ramaprasad, A.,1983), such as:

Summative ones

The teacher must appreciate how well does student’s work meet the desired criteria and standards

The teacher must appreciate if a mark should be recorded for the student and if so, where and how?

Components with both summative and formative aspects

The teacher must appreciate the strengths of the work.

The teacher must appreciate the weaknesses of the work.

The teacher must appreciate if the student should be given "knowledge of results"

Formative Components

The teacher must appreciate how does a student's performance match his expectations for that student.

distinctly better than expected

largely as expected

distinctly worse than expected

The teacher must appreciate the evaluative feedback that should be given to the student

what should be passed over without comment?

what, if anything, should be commended?

what, if anything, should be criticised?

The teacher must appreciate the most corrective requirements or suggestions that should be given to the student

The requirements or suggestions will be focused on improving some particular piece of work

The requirements or suggestions will be focused on better performance on future work

The teacher must appreciate if the student should be required or encouraged to resubmit the work with improvements

The teacher must take into consideration and appreciate “the following student-centered contextual components” (Felder R. M., Brent R.,2005:15):

Who is the student?

What considerations require special attention?

How confident is the student about this curriculum area or type of task?

How does the student respond to criticism, praise and guidance?

What works best between criticism, praise and guidance?

Task-specific contextual components could be considered the following:

The teacher must appreciate if this is the sort of task that the student usually finds motivating, but also if the learner understands the task. Here, we can talk about:

task’s broad thrust

specific qualities desired by teacher and their relative importance for student

the standards that will be applied in order to accomplish the task

Below, there are some “formative components that must be taken into consideration” (Trigwell, K., Prosser, M., and Waterhouse, F, 1999:56)

What questions should a teacher ask in order to better understand what the student is doing?

What a teacher should be doing in order to encourage the development of self-assessment skills?

How well is the student’s work progressing towards meeting the teacher’s desired criteria and standards?

What are the strengths of the student’s work thus far?

What are the weaknesses of the student’s work thus far?

How is the student's performance matching the teacher's expectations for that student?

They are considered to be distinctly better than expected

They are considered to be largely as expected

They are considered to be distinctly worse than expected

What evaluative feedback on the progress made should be given by teacher to his students?

Will the progress be commended at this stage?

Will the progress be criticized at this stage?

Will the progress be passed over without comment at this stage?

What corrective suggestions or requirements should be given by teacher to his student?

To focus on improving his particular piece of work

To enhance the student's work more generally

Are there issues here that should be raised with other students or with the class as a whole?

What is required before this work can be regarded as completed, and ready for summative assessment (if required)?

There are some key factors influencing the “validity of formative assessment”, presented in the following part. (Kulhavy, R. W., & Stock, W. , 1989:280)

In the category of affective factors are included:

Motivation

Teacher is devoted to give help in student learn.

Student considers learning is very important and he wants to improve and develop it.

Trust

Teacher is encouraging, but also constructive and sensitive to student's feelings.

Different relationships and attitudes of the relational environment support student's learning.

Student admits difficulties and uncertainties. In this regard, he feels safe.

In the category of task factors are included (Richards, J.C., 2006):

Knowledge

Teacher will understand the key aspects and difficulties of the required task.

Criteria

Teacher will identify and explain in a professional way the qualities sought.

Students will understand clearly what is needed in order to complete the task.

Standards

Teacher will set some proper standards for student to aim.

Through descriptions and examples, the teacher will explain the standards to aim.

Students will understand the standards and will accept them as appropriate for them.

In the category of structural factors are included:

Connections

Tasks’ final version can take advantages from formative assessment.

1.9. Assessment roles

Assessment is considered to be part of the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment cycle as an integral process. Assessment implies evaluating students' learning by collecting evidence about it, interpreting the obtained information and making different judgments about students’ performance. This process has a view of providing feedback to “many types of individuals, such as teachers, parents, students, stakeholders and even schools and the system of education”. (Black, P, William., 1998: 60)

The assessment during the process of instruction is about pupils’ learning progress, but also about the manner teachers provide knowledge to their students.

Assessment represents an indispensable component of the curriculum practice. Nowadays, in the context of educational systems, the main consideration of both teachers and students is represented by the learning outcomes. In this respect, the objective of assessment is to evaluate the ability which “students can demonstrate in connection with their knowledge growth and changes in comprehension based on their school experiences”. (Fisseha Mikre, 2010:101)

Talking about gaining school experience, teachers should to be very careful about the quality of the curriculum practice and learning assessment in secondary school education. Currently, a part of current teaching and assessment during learning in secondary school induce a passive, but reproductive form of learning. Particularly, teachers tend to accentuate the factual knowledge and the learners have a too firm behaviour in the context of the current theoretical framework, manifesting similarly while assessing learning. By contrast, teachers may value transferable skills, respectively communication skills, problem solving or team work. Teachers suggest that during the learning process, assessment should be integral to teaching and learning activities and should be well structured. Portfolios, different types of assessment (performance, authentic peer or student self) along with feedback and comments have been established as procedures that align assessment with current constructivist theories of learning and teaching. In this regard, teachers are responsible for providing “the necessary feedback to students aiming them to relearn and refine learning goals”. (FissehaMikre, 2010:102)

According to Jan van den Akker (2003), assessment is an essential part of curriculum practice, as well as a process used in order to obtain information in curriculum proceeding with the goal of taking a decision regarding student learning, curriculum, programs, but also education policy. This way, teachers believe that assessment and curriculum should be integrated in the chain of class planning, operation, topic implementation and students’ evaluation. Formative procedures of assessment could also relief the operations of the curriculum. Including managing teaching, assessing pupils competences, parting learners to levels of education programs, assigning grades to pupils, certifying students’ competence, guiding, as well as councelling pupils, selecting the appropriate learners for education opportunities and so on. All these goals may be achieved in the context of effective assessment procedures in the curriculum operation and practice.

Regarding students’ learning progress and their attained competences, assessment needs to have various information, in order to determine the degree to which pupils have attained the learning goals. Many techniques represented by students’ formal and informal observation during the learning process, paper and pencil tests, performance on assignments, research projects, presentations and so on, may be useful while assessing students. Pursuant to Pratt (1998), it is necessary that assessment should be planned and conducted in a careful manner, while being subject to ongoing analysis, evaluation and improvement, in order to assure pupils achievements and grades. Students’ achievements and grades reflect the learning priorities established in the curriculum. Teachers must approach students’ knowledge and competence in the curriculum targets, as well as “assessment and instruction as parts of an integrated assembly”. (Fisseha Mikre, 2010:105)

With the image of a desirable curriculum component, assessment purposes are, first of all, represented by the instructional process. In this respect, the instructional process is considered an important part of the educational assessment, a pervasive observation and transaction that occur in classrooms. Teachers should be able to determine if a lesson is running smoothly and students understand it through observation during the learning process; in this regard, learners should give answers to teacher’s questions, should interact one to another (Nitko, 2004). In directing teaching, assessment could diagnose learning difficulties of different students, helping the teacher to identify the pupil’s strong and weak points and to plan an instruction with the purpose of remediating issues in formal ways.

Another assessment role is that of providing feedback about the success of a certain study programme (Pratt, 1998). Assessment is also able to report individual learning achievements or grades for different parties such as students, education institutes, parents and so on. Nitko’s opinion (2004) was that the results obtained by each student from different classroom activities such as tests, projects, quizzes, assignment papers or informal observations on learning targets can be used in order to give marks to pupils for a lesson, unit or a marking period. Moreover, assessment helps pupils to achieve their priorities at the instructional level, influencing their approach regarding the curriculum course. In this situation, informal teacher questions, examinations and tests indicate students which curriculum parts have priority. Furthermore, assessment is useful when teachers want to enhance students' motivation, self-concept or the sense self- efficacy. When assessment is designed to produce real success during the students' learning and curriculum experience, its frequent use stimulates students' confidence and willingness to learn.

Meherns and Lehman (1991) considered that the importance of assessment consists in increasing the students' motivation towards a course, encouraging good study habits, and providing the feedback that identifies the learners' strengths and weaknesses. Teachers can use assessment to guide decisions about the learners. The better the diagnostic and achievement data from assessment the teacher has about his/her students, the more appropriate the guidance he/she will be able to provide learners about their learning, and about their academic and occupational choices.

As in the recent understandings, assessment is not something that follows and is separable from learning. Much has been written about the need to integrate assessment practices with instruction to enhance student learning (Wright, et.al, 1997). Assessment and instruction should be seamless, each contributing to the goal of improved learning. Moreover, effective instructors integrate assessment and teaching and the way the learning activities are structured. Despite this suggestion, teachers in higher learning institutes continue to use assessment that measurement experts contend that it is not consistent with best practice (Wright et.al, 1997). Furthermore, assessment procedures in higher learning institutes have been criticized for placing a premium on the reproduction of knowledge and passivity of the mind at the expense of critical judgement and substantive competence (Black &Wiliam, 1998). For example, the introduction of multiple-choice tests into the education system have been criticized for encouraging teachers to set learning tasks that promote de-contextualized, rote learning. It also narrows the intended curriculum to basic skills with low cognitive demands. In contrast to this, the proliferation of the service industries and the changing character of work have created demands for transferable skills such as those of communication, information retrieval, problem solving, critical analysis, self-monitoring and self-assessment. Due to this demand, there is a fast growing interest in the more formative, holistic, contextualized forms of assessment, often described as ‘authentic’ or performance assessments.

However, as argued by Black and William (1998), it remains the case of traditional forms of assessment that are not easily replaced, embedded as they are in complex histories, cultures, and power relations of school societies. Shepard (2001) has also suggested that the traditional assessment perspectives, based on behaviourist theories of learning and conventional psychometric principles conflict with the implications of assessment for learning represented by the emerging cognitive and constructivist learning paradigms.

According to Wright et.al (1997), performance assessment, portfolios, authentic assessment, student self-assessment and peer-assessment are considered procedures that align with the current constructivist theories of learning and teaching. In order to have salient contributions to the curriculum implementation process, assessment procedures should define what students regard important during their learning, how they spend their time, and how they come to see themselves as students. Sometimes, students complain about the assessment procedures used by their teachers. I was reported that curriculum does not shape the assessment; assessment does not always shape the curriculum implementation and embody the purpose of higher education. As a result, students fail to experience the intended curriculum as a whole.

As a pillar of the educational process, assessment plays significant roles in implementing the curriculum. For this to happen, the practice should be based on some important guiding principles. James (2003) forwarded the following as guiding principles for conducting continuous assessment (assessment for learning):

– ensure that assessment procedures promote and reward desired learning activities and outcomes;

– communicate assessment requirements clearly to students;

– strive for providing effective feedback and comment to students on a continuous basis. For instance, in the case of the first principle, instructors are advised to draw on Bloom’s taxonomy to divide the intellectual skills into three broad areas (recall and recognition, comprehension and application, critical thinking and problem solving). With respect to the second principle, James (2003:65) sets the following: “Assessment procedures at higher educational levels are likely to become increasingly open to scrutiny to candidates and to candidates appeals. The need for commonly agreed marking procedures and techniques is obvious if collective responsibility for candidates is maintained and if there is full openness between colleagues. The demonstrable internal consistency of courses and the related assessment procedures are of vital importance”. Of course, there can be a problem in over generalizing good assessment procedures for learning practice. As with teachers themselves, different subject disciplines (eg. Engineering versus Psychology) may have different pedagogic assumptions. Thus, while the general principles apply across all subjects, the ways in which they manifest themselves in different subjects may differ (Black & William, 2004). On the other hand, the assessment procedure changes perceived as improvements in one course might be seen as impractical or irrelevant in another. However, teachers who have good intentions and who always attempt to make assessment practice integral to teaching become more efficient. Despite their good intentions, many teachers establish assessment tasks that encourage a narrow instrumental approach to learning emphasizing the reproduction of what is presented, at the expense of critical thinking, deep understanding, and independent activity (Filer, 2003). In contrast to this, Boud (1990) suggests some alternative changes for students' assessment at higher education levels. These include a careful track of the assessment practices to see how valid they are in the students' eyes, challenging the existing assessment procedures because they do not prepare reflective practitioners needed in the world of work.

According to (Meherns, Lehman, 1991; Nitko, 2004), quality teaching and quality assessment are intertwined; together they greatly improve students’ opportunities to learn. Teaching can be most effective when teaching activities, learning targets, and assessment procedures are all synchronized. For this, the assessment procedures should specify the important learning targets. As Nitko Anthony (2004) states it, to be valid, assessment procedures must match the learning targets. Otherwise, the validity of assessment for learning results falls down when even some of the tasks do not match the stated learning targets. Educational researchers estimated that effective teachers may spend from one third to one half of their time in assessment related activities (Stiggins. Rick, 1992).

In McMillan’s opinion (2003), the need for changing the base of assessment at the classroom level is a scientific one or it is ascribed to the teacher’s belief, constructivist theories of learning and motivation, and the classroom reality. While teachers are willing to do this, assessment is enhanced in improving student learning.

The roles of assessment for different stakeholders can be summarized as follows:

for students to

understand their need of learning from different perspectives and the way they are progressing towards their goals;

understand their need of improvement on the next phase of learning;

understand their strength and weakness values in learning and the way of taking steps in order to improve and also, to self-regulate their own work at school.

for teachers and schools to

understand the strength and weakness values of students in the process of learning;

recognise the effectiveness of learning and teaching practices, making, at the same time, an adjustment to their way of teaching;

monitor the standards and quality of the education they are providing;

guide students for an appropriate future learning.

for parents to

understand the strength and weakness values of their children in the process of learning;

co-operate with schools institutions in order to guide students in their future learning.

CHAPTER 2. ASSESSING STUDENTS' RESULTS

2.1. Assessment of learning vs. assessment for learning

According to Wiggins (1993), the notion of assessment comes from the Latin “assidere”, meaning “to sit beside or with”. Although this notion is nowadays far removed from the role that it has typically played in schools, many teachers have always done it. Classroom assessment is represented by an undertaking presuming something different to audiences and in various situations. The purposes of assessment sometimes support or compete one another. As Wilson believed (1996), teachers use various assessment roles and keeping them straight is a challenging task.

The evidence collected in assessments has the capacity to clearly show both the outcomes of learning (what students have learned and what students have not learned) and the processes of learning (how students learn).

The former refers to an establishment of the way students have achieved the information, the quality of education being provided to them by teachers and the types of standards that are being attained. In this regard, one could consider that the assessment involved refers to as "assessment of learning". The latter refers to give help to students in order to improve in a continuous way, the assessment involved being known as "assessment for learning". The first concept, the assessment of learning, is adaptable to reporting and assessing both students’ performance and progress towards the learning goals. The second concept, the assessment for learning, is preferable in case of identifying students’ strength and weakness points and values, providing, withal, quality feedback for learners. This type of feedback implies providing timely support and enrichment. Also, assessment for learning is very important because it helps teachers to review learning aims, lesson plans, as well as different teaching strategies, improving them.

Analyzing the learning stages, as well as the curricula, one could observe that it is essential to schools and teachers to give more importance to assessment for learning to help students in improving and developing their way of learning, as well as promoting life-long learning. From earliest times until today, assessment of learning has always been of great concern at every level of education. However, the good intentions of assessment for learning should not be neglected throughout the teaching and learning practices.

In order to implement appropriate assessment strategies for curricula at each stage, it is useful to make a distinction between two forms of assessment, “formative and summative one, each of them serving different purposes”. (Earl, Lorna, 2003: 70)

Formative assessment represents an act of collecting evidence about student learning by different methods, such as class activities, homework, classroom observation or various quizzes. At the same time, it provides feedback in order to promote better learning for each student.

At the opposite pole, summative assessment is seen as being carried out at the end of a teaching unit/ term/year to sum up what students have learnt. A good example could be the end-of-unit tasks or tests. One could observe that it is clearly distinguished that assessment for learning is formative, while “assessment of learning is summative”. (Earl, Lorna, 2003: 74)

The first concept presented above usually develops during daily teaching. This way, it reflects its vital part of everyday practice in classrooms, as following:

assessment for learning is entailed in the process of learning and teaching;

assessment for learning involves sharing learning objectives between teachers and students;

assessment for learning provides help to students in order to know and recognise the aims;

assessment for learning engages students in different types of assessment such as peer or self-assessment;

assessment for learning provides feedback to students in order to help them in recognizing the next steps for developing on success and strength values as well as to correct weakness points;

assessment for learning involves teachers and students. This way, they review and reflect on assessment data, respectively on the students’ performance and progress.

Assessment for learning takes place in the moment that teachers make deductions about students' progress in order to inform about their teaching. This type of assessment is frequent, formal or informal, in the last category being included some quality questioning, written comments or anecdotal notes, entrenched in the teaching process and providing clear and timely feedback. This type of feedback has the capacity of helping learners through their learning progression, having as “a formative use in order to provide evidence that informs or shapes short term planning for learning”. (Earl, Lorna, 2003: 76)

Regarding the assessment for learning, teachers should:

establish planning decisions for the main objectives of assessment for learning

analyze and audit their assessment practices in order to observe the manner they provide timely feedback to learners

recognise various types of written feedback given to students by different teachers, and give more qualitative feedback

create additional formal and informal opportunities to gain evidence of student learning in order to improve it

ask more qualitative questions as a key strategy of assessment for learning in order to gain feedback – this has the role of shaping teachers' way of teaching

identify the data available for one student and use it in order to inform planning for learning

plan and implement some classroom-based actions following this module.

Assessment of learning occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards. It is usually formal, frequently occurring at the end of units of work where it sums up student achievement at a particular point in time. It is often organised around themes or major projects and judgements may be based on student performance on multi-domain assessment tasks. Assessment of learning ”has a summative use, showing how students are progressing against the standards, and a formative use providing evidence to inform about long term planning”. (Malhotra et. al., 2015:22)

Regarding the assessment of learning, teachers should:

plan some decision with the purpose of assessment of learning

be able to identify assessment strategies that are mostly used; in this regard, teachers should develop a plan in order to try some new assessment instruments

be able to identify those situations when different assessment tasks promote deep understanding and they are authentic and productive

be able to plan future learning for students by assessment of learning methods

create, but also trial a rubric for a certain class they teach

design a more conventional written tests for students

Nowadays, the predominant type of assessment in schools is represented by the assessment of learning. It has a summative purpose, it intends to certify learning and report to parents and students about students’ progress in school, usually by signalling students’ relative position compared to other students. Assessment of learning in classrooms is typically done at the end of something (e.g, a unit, course, a grade, a key stage, a program) and takes the form of tests or exams that include questions drawn from the material studied during that time. In assessment of learning, the results are expressed symbolically, generally as marks across several content areas to report to parents. This is the kind of assessment that still dominates most classroom assessment activities, especially in secondary schools, with teachers firmly in charge of both creating and marking the test. Teachers use the tests to assess the quantity and accuracy of students' work, and the bulk of teacher effort in assessment is taken up in marking and grading. A strong emphasis is placed on comparing students and feedback to students comes in the form of marks or grades with little direction or advice for improvement.

These types of testing events indicate which students are doing well and which ones are doing poorly. Typically, they do not give much indication of mastery of particular ideas or concepts because the test content is generally too limited and the scoring is too simplistic to represent the broad range of skills and knowledge that has been covered. But this lack of specificity hasn’t presented a problem because the ”teachers’ perceived purpose of the assessment is to produce a rank order of the students and assign a symbol to designate the students’ position within the group, whatever group it might be”. (Leithwood et. al., 2006:119) Teachers maintain voluminous records of students' achievement that are used only for justifying the grades that are assigned.

Assessment of learning and grading has a long history in education. They have been widely accepted by parents and the public. If they served us so well, why would we worry about a process that worked? Without moving too far away from my primary purpose, I’d like to highlight a few of the issues that are currently contentious about what we have always done. Although the public has been largely supportive of grading in schools, “scepticism is increasing about its fairness and even its accuracy”. (Earl, Lorna, 2013:30)

Educational researchers and theorists have been critical to the traditional grading practices for quite some time (Marzano, 2000). In terms of measurement theory, grades are highly suspect. Why? Because teachers consider many factors other than academic achievement when they assign grades; teachers weight assessment differently, and they misinterpret single scores on assessment to represent performances on a wide range of skills and abilities (Marzano, 2000). As education becomes an essential ingredient for a successful future, more attention will be paid to how grades are calculated and how well they actually reflect what they are taken to mean. The book is not yet closed on assessment of learning, and educators have a great deal to learn to ensure that it and the grades that result from it are defensible and worthwhile.

According to the Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) , the EUROPEAN LEVELS of SELF ASSESSMENT GRID:

In terms of UNDERSTANDING, regarding the Listening process (the Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2015):

Level A1- Students are able to understand familiar words and very basic phrases concerning themselves, their families and immediate concrete surroundings when people speak slowly and clearly.

Level A2- Students are able to understand phrases and the highest frequency, vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance. Students can catch the main point in short, clear, simple messages and announcements.

Level B1- Students are able to understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Students can understand the main point of many radio or TV programmes, on current affairs or topics of personal or professional interest when the delivery is relatively slow and clear

Level B2- Students are able to understand extended speech and lectures and follow even complex lines of argument provided the topic is reasonably familiar. They can understand most TV news and current affairs programmes, as well as the majority of films in standard dialect.

Level C1- Students are able to understand extended speech even when it is not clearly structured and when relationships are only implied and not signaled explicitly. Students can understand television programmes and films without too much effort.

Level C2- Students do not have any difficulty in understanding any kind of spoken language, whether live or broadcast, even when delivered at fast native speed. Students have some time to get familiar with the accent.

In terms of UNDERSTANDING, regarding the Reading process (the Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2015) :

Level A1- Students are able to understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues.

Level A2- Students are able to read very short, simple texts. They can find specific, predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus and timetables and they can understand short simple personal letters.

Level B1- Students are able to understand texts that consist mainly of high frequency everyday or school-related language. They can understand the description of events, feelings and wishes in personal letters.

Level B2- Students are able to read articles and reports concerned with contemporary problems in which the writers adopt particular attitudes or viewpoints. They can understand contemporary literary prose.

Level C1- Students are able to understand long and complex factual and literary texts, appreciating distinctions of style. They can understand specialized articles and longer technical instructions, even when they do not relate to their field.

Level C2- Students are able to read with ease virtually all forms of the written language, including abstract, structurally or linguistically complex texts such as manuals, specialized articles and literary works.

In terms of SPEAKING, regarding Spoken interaction (the Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages,2015):

Level A1- Students are able to interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help them formulate what they are trying to say. Learners can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.

Level A2- Students are able to communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar topics and activities. They can handle very short social exchanges, even though they can't usually understand enough to keep the conversation going themselves.

Level B1- Students are able to deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. They can enter unprepared into conversation on topics that are familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life.

Level B2- Students are able to interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible. They can take an active part in discussion in familiar contexts, accounting for and sustaining their views.

Level C1- Students are able to express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. They can use language flexibly and effectively for social and professional purposes. They can formulate ideas and opinions with precision and relate their contribution skillfully to those of other speakers.

Level C2- Students are able to take part effortlessly in any conversation or discussion and have a good familiarity with idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms. They can express themselves fluently and convey finer shades of meaning precisely. If learners do have a problem they can backtrack and restructure around the difficulty so smoothly that other people are hardly aware of it.

In terms of SPEAKING, regarding Spoken production (the Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages,2015):

Level A1- Students are able to use simple phrases and sentences to describe where they live and people they know.

Level A2- Students are able to use a series of phrases and sentences to describe in simple terms their families and other people, living conditions and their educational background

Level B1- Students are able to connect phrases in a simple way in order to describe experiences and events, their dreams, hopes and ambitions. Learners can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans. They can narrate a story or relate the plot of a book or film and describe their reactions.

Level B2- Students are able to present clear, detailed descriptions on a wide range of subjects related to their field of interest. They can explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Level C1- Students are able to present clear, detailed descriptions of complex subjects integrating subthemes, developing particular points and rounding off with an appropriate conclusion.

Level C2- Students are able to present a clear, smoothly-flowing description or argument in a style appropriate to the context and with an effective logical structure which helps the recipient to notice and remember significant points.

In terms of WRITING, regarding the Writing process (the Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2015):

Level A1- Students are able to write a short, simple postcard, for example sending holiday greetings. They can fill in forms with personal details, for example entering their name, nationality and address on a hotel registration form.

Level A2- Students are able to write short, simple notes and messages. They can write a very simple personal letter, for example thanking someone for something.

Level B1- Students are able to write simple connected texts on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. They can write personal letters describing experiences and impressions.

Level B2- Students are able to write clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects related to their interests. They can write an essay or report, passing on information or giving reasons in support of or against a particular point of view. They can write letters highlighting the personal significance of events and experiences.

Level C1- Students are able to express themselves in a clear, well structured text, expressing points of view at some length. They can write about complex subjects in a letter, an essay or a report, underlining what they consider to be the salient issues. Learners can select a style appropriate to the reader in mind.

Level C2- Students are able to write clear, smoothly-flowing text in an appropriate style. They can write complex letters, reports or articles which present a case with an effective logical structure which helps the recipient to notice and remember significant points. They can write summaries and reviews of professional or literary works.

2.2. Basic principles in designing internal assessment at secondary level

It is known that the ultimate objective of assessment is that of improving and developing student learning. For achieving this goal, schools have to set up their own internal assessment policies in order to be aligned with the curricula offered. Also, it should provide a rich source of assessment information, having the capacity to provide feedback in order to improve student learning. Proper record-keeping together with systematic analysis of “assessment results help to generate evidence-based feedback for school-based curriculum planning”.(Akker, van den., 2003: 11). The following points should be mentioned and taken into consideration:

Because every student is unique and each one possesses the capacity of learning, a teacher should develop his multiple intelligences and potentials. The Report of Learning to Learn – The Way Forward in Curriculum Development (2001) recommended that there should be a change in assessment practices and schools should emphasize more the “Assessment for Learning” considered an integral part of the learning, teaching and assessment cycle.

Assessments should be on the same line with student learning. They should make reference to the curriculum goals and outcomes. Performing internal assessments  sets fundaments on the criteria derived directly from different learning objectives or outcomes.

Each assessment strategy has its own limits. A variety of assessment strategies will truly reflect students’ progress, highlighting their performance. For example, written examinations may not reflect very well students’ performance in laboratory, creative and practical work. “A proper assessment strategy should therefore be involved in order to cater for the different learning aims being assessed”. ( Akker, van den., 2003: 12)

“Students in the same class have different abilities. Adopting different assessment strategies could be important for them and for teachers in order to address different levels of performance and  learner diversity. In this regard, they will provide equal opportunities for students to demonstrate what they achieved”. ( Akker, van den., 2003: 12)

Students should be provided with ample opportunities to receive timely feedback, usually through dialogue in the classroom, to motivate them and guide their future learning.

Assessment for learning could be used to track student progress over time, build up students’ confidence in themselves and help students to take responsibility for their own learning.  This in turn would lay a foundation for life-long learning.

To enable formative use of information gathered by summative assessment, constructive and timely feedback on students’ performance should be provided along with their results in tests and examinations.

Appropriate assessment formats and methods can help to provide quality feedback to students and a more positive backwash effect on students learning.

Certain educational research on the characteristics of good practice for assessing student learning summarizes the following set of principles:

Assessment’s primary purpose is the one of improving learners performance

In this respect, good assessment is founded on a vision of the types of learning teacher most value for students and the best manner of achieving these.” It sets out to measure what matters most”. (Stephens, D., 2003:44)

Assessment should be a pillar of understanding of the manner students learn

“Assessment has most effectiveness in the moment when it highlights the fact that learning represents a complex process that is multi-dimensional, integrated and revealed in the students' performance over time”. (Stephens, D., 2003:44)

Assessment should not be something to add afterwards, but an integral component of the course design

“Teaching and various learning elements of each program should be designed in full knowledge of the sorts of assessment students will undertake, and vice versa, so that students can demonstrate what they have learned and see the results of their efforts”. (Stephens, D., 2003:45)

Good assessment provides useful information to credibly report to parents on student achievements

A variety of assessment methods fit for purpose provides teachers with evidence of what students know and can do, and their particular strengths and weaknesses. Teachers then can report to parents on how far their children have progressed during the year, where they are compared to the relevant standards, and what the students, parents and teachers need to do to improve the students' performance.( OECD, 2005)

Good assessment requires clarity of purpose, goals, standards and criteria

Assessment works best when it is based on clear statements of purpose and goals for the course, the standards which students are expected to achieve and the criteria against which we measure success. Assessment criteria in particular need to be understandable and explicit so students know what teachers expect of them from each type of assessment they encounter. Staff, students, parents and the community should all be able to see why assessment is being used and the reasons for choosing each individual form of assessment in its particular context.

Good assessment requires a variety of measures

It is generally the case when a single assessment instrument will not tell us all we need to know about the students' achievement and how it can be improved. We therefore need to be familiar with a variety of assessment tools so we can match them closely to the type of information we seek. (Communications Division, 2001)

Assessment methods used should be valid, reliable and consistent

Assessment instruments and processes should be chosen so as to directly measure what they intend to measure. They should include the possibility of moderation between teachers, to enhance objectivity and contribute to shared understanding of the judgments. (Communications Division, 2001)

Assessment requires attention to outcomes and processes

Information about the outcomes students have achieved is very important. It is notable to know where each student ends up, but also to receive information about their experiences along the way and, in particular, the kind of effort that led to these outcomes. (Communications Division, 2001)

Assessment works best when it is ongoing rather than episodic

Student learning is best fostered when assessment involves a linked series of activities undertaken over time, so that progress is monitored towards the intended course goals and the achievement of relevant standards.

Assessment for improved performance involves feedback and reflection

All assessment methods should allow students to receive feedback on their learning and performance so assessment serves as a developmental activity aimed at improving student learning. Assessment should also provide students and staff with opportunities to reflect on both their practice and their overall learning.

Schools should consider that excess drilling can reduce learning and teaching time, and increase unnecessarily teachers’ workload, putting undue pressure on students.  “Institutions are advised to adopt some public assessment models in their internal assessment practices”. (Ciara O’Farrell,2009:20)

A range of assessment practices, such as learning and assessment tasks, activities, projects, portfolios and reviewing assignments should be used to promote the attainment of various learning outcomes. These practices help to provide feedback on students’ understanding of concepts, as well as their knowledge and development of their generic and subject-specific skills. Schools may refer to the individual curriculum and assessment (C&A) guides for good practices.

Assessment should not be confined to activities that are conducted only for checking purposes but should include feedback for improvement.

Examples of assessment tasks:

Students are required to write up a report of an experiment.  Apart from being provided with training on writing up laboratory reports, students may also be requested to write essays which emphasize the application of scientific principles or the impact of moral issues on technology.  In order to assess students’ ability to link up the subject knowledge, a Chemistry teacher of School A might ask students to focus on writing up the application of the scientific principles, the influence on the environment of the chemical being studied, or the moral issues associated with the technology involved, instead of making some general remarks about the experiment.  Areas to be considered in assessing the reports include:

content – for instance, applying a scientific principle, showing the relevance of ideas or coverage of the topic;

organization – for instance, development of ideas in a logical way, linking the ideas;

language use – for instance, fluency or accuracy;

evidence of the use of generic skills – for instance, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration in pairs, communication;

demonstrated attitudes – for instance, keenness to take part in different activities.

In a similar way, students may:

demonstrate their understanding of the criteria by which their learning is assessed and enable them to assess their own and others’ work;

develop and improve a positive view of others’ efforts and attainments;

demonstrate how they are actively involved in improving their work.

To a certain extent, internal assessment practices at the SS level, for instance, should be aligned with various practices at junior secondary level. Learners should be given the opportunity of improving their skills in moving from the junior secondary level to the SS level. When charged with tasks of similar nature but different levels of difficulty, learners would be able to demonstrate their development by relevant skills.

2.3. Effects of formative assessment on student learning

Long-standing theory and research suggest the critical role that formative assessment can play in student learning. With roots in Ralph Tyler’s curriculum rationale (1949), B.F. Skinner’s behaviourism and programmed instruction (1953, 1960) Robert Glaser’s seminal work in criterion referenced instruction and testing (Glaser, 1963), and Benjamin Bloom’s concept of Mastery Learning (Bloom, 1968), the use of assessment in guiding instruction has long been advocated:

“Through the assessment of students’ needs and the monitoring of student progress, learning sequences can be appropriately designed, instruction adjusted during the course of learning, and programs refined to be more effective in promoting student learning goals.”

Moving towards more recent pedagogical theory, Sadler (1989) adds the important cognitive and social functions that assessment can provide in teaching and learning and the significant role that feedback from assessment plays in enabling teachers and students to understand their learning goals, to compare the actual level of their performance to the desired level and to engage in effective actions to reduce the gap. In modern pedagogical conceptions, in fact, assessment moves from an information source on which to base action to part and parcel of the teaching and learning process.

That is, contemporary cognitive psychology recognizes that knowledge is always actively constructed by learners and a situational perspective reminds us that knowing is a verb before it is a noun (NRC, 2001a, 2001b). What is acquired through schooling is a set of capabilities for meaningful participation in activity structures; all knowing has a social component. And socio-cultural perspectives remind us as well of the political, social, and motivational functions of assessment (Gipps, 1999). Assessment itself provides opportunities for students to display their thinking and to be engaged with feedback that can help students to extend, refine, and deepen their understandings and reach more sophisticated levels of expertise. For example, interim assessment or quizzes during the course of instruction or questioning during class discussions can serve to elicit students' thinking, feedback can be used to encourage students to confront their misconceptions and the process itself can be instrumental in helping students move to higher levels of understanding (Gitomer&Duschl, 1995).

Nowadays, the effects of the formative assessment process on students are dramatic because this type of assessment involves students in learning a way to learn. Students learn more and smarter, but there is a grow into self-aware students who can tell teachers exactly what they did for getting right where they are. In other words, learners may become data-driven decision makers and self-regulated. They learn to keep note of their own learning and to use that information in order to choose from a growing collection of strategies for success. Students do not only learn how to take ownership of their learning, but they also consider themselves as autonomous, confident and capable.

This represents a combination of learning factors such as:

ownership,

autonomy,

confidence,

capability.

These factors fortify students with increased levels of resilience.

Improving and growing student resilience can cause a dangerous cycle for many of them, especially for those who attribute their failure in order to perform well on tasks to a lack of academic ability. Judging themselves to be incapable of achieving and powerless for changing things, students become discouraged and, in most cases, they quit trying. Resilient students, on the other hand, get over from poor performances. Students attribute their failures and their successes on learning tasks to factors within their control. At the same time, they rebound; students do not give up during challenges. Resilient students have faith in their capacity to adapt their activity and the way they are doing it in order to succeed. (Connie M. Moss, Susan M. Brookhart,2009)

Even if formative assessment is very significant regarding its effects on learning, it has an influence over those students considered to be low achievers more than over other ones. This way, it makes possible the decrease of achievement range while there is an overall raising achievement. Formative assessment represents a compelling method used to increase and improve student learning, but also to close the achievement gap.

Essentially, formative assessment seeks to present students with explicit goals or outcomes of instruction, to help them assess their current position in relation to these goals and to equip them with the tools to bridge the gap between the two. Thus, “effective formative assessment must help students answer the following questions”: (Chappuis, S.R.,Stiggins,2002:3-4)

“Where Am I Trying to Go?” Students need clearly articulated, concise learning targets to be able to answer this first question. Learning is easier when learners understand what goal they are trying to achieve, the purpose of achieving the goal and the specific attributes of success. Teachers should continually help students clarify the intended learning as the lessons unfold—not just at the beginning of a unit of study.

“Where Am I Now?” All of these strategies help students ascertain—and, even more important, learn how to ascertain—where they are and where they need to be, a sort of awareness that is central to their ultimate success.

“ How Do I Close the Gap?” Assessment for learning helps students know what to do to move from their current position to the final learning goal. To meet learning goals, students must participate fully in creating the goals, analyzing assessment data and developing a plan of action to achieve the next goal.

These three core processes form the theoretical underpinning of formative assessment. Further conceptions note that teachers, students and peers all play a role in the learning process and, as a result, each has roles to play in formative assessment. Teachers’ roles emphasize setting clear goals, making aspects ofexplicit success, providing useful feedback and encouraging peer and self-reflection. Peer and learner requirements centre on understanding the learning objectives and continuously assessing progress against these.

CHAPTER 3.METHODS AND TECHNIQUES OF ASSESSING ENGLISH LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE.

3.1. Initial assessment of language proficiency

The initial assessment of English language proficiency has the following purpose: a teacher should obtain information regarding the student’s proficiency in listening, reading, writing and speaking. This information can be used for:

determining instructional starting points

identifying primary proficiency levels of different foreign languages

determining programming and instructional support in learning

Conducting an initial language proficiency assessment is connected to the factthatit may be influenced by feelings of stress and dislocation in particular cases. Students may underperform due to some issues such as lack of confidence, anxiety, rate of speech or unfamiliarity with the dialect . Often, the student will show a significant improvement in language proficiency in a period of four to six weeks as he becomes more confident, more comfortable and more familiar with the environment he lives and studies. This assessment should be directed in a place full of comfort, a quiet area where the teacher can proper interact with the student.

3.2. Establishing English Language Proficiency Levels

After the language assessment information has been gathered, the English language proficiency of a learner can be identified by means of appropriate material for teaching. The goal of materials is to define a baseline proficiency level, guiding proper programming for the specific type of learners, as well as monitoring the growth and development of language proficiency. If the initial assessment reveals concerns regarding student’s behaviour or learning or behaviour, additional assessment may be required. Language proficiency assessment should be conducted in an ongoing way throughout the year of study in order to assess the language proficiency progress of each student.

Using a proper teaching material for ongoing assessment and reporting is a fundamental criterion. Good teaching materials may be designed for use by teachers and can be used to assess the proficiency, but first of all, to study, understand and learn the language in classroom context. Nowadays, teachers need a good teaching material, along with multiple samples of student work for assessing a subject. The ESL Benchmarks (Alberta Education, 2010):

provide language proficiency descriptions at every level of grade- division

support educational institutions in delivering program planning and effective instruction for children studying English language by means of:

identifying students’ initial language proficiency levels

developing English language learners’ consistency in assessment of language proficiency

promoting interaction through collaboration and communication

• support teachers in order to:

assess, monitor, track and report student’s language proficiency

communicate with learners and their parents for developing the language acquisition process of understanding

plan for explicit language instruction in everyday learning.

The ESL Benchmarks are used (Alberta Education, 2010):

when learners enter the school system with the purpose of establishing a baseline proficiency and for identifying both the level and types of instructional support

on an evolving basis for monitoring language proficiency and for informing instructional planning

in every reporting period for assessing students’ English language proficiency

at transitions between classes, schools and various programs.

There are many types of assessment of English Language Learners, identified as following (Alberta Education, 2010):

ongoing assessment

reporting

additional assessment

document problem solutions

studies of time spent learning

one-minute papers

3.3. Methods and techniques of assessing English language knowledge

In school careers, as students and as teachers, people have encountered different types of assessment. Even if there are endless variations, all types of assessment people have experienced fall today into one of the following basic methods:

Selected response and short answer

Extended written response

Performance assessment

Personal communication

All the methods mentioned above are legitimate options when their use correlates highly with the learning target and the intended use of the information.

Selected Response and Short Answer

This method highlights the fact that students are able to select the correct or best response from a provided list. Formats comprise “multiple choice, matching, true or false, fill-in questions or short answer.” (Chappuis et al., 2011: 122)  

For all selected response assessments, the scores of learners are represented by a number or sometimes, by a proportion of questions that are correctly answered.

Extended Written Response

This method requires students to write an answer as a response to a question or even a task. The answer is not selected from a list. An extended written response has several sentences. At this level, one can talk about:

Comparisons between pieces of literature, solutions to environmental issues or economic events.

Analysis of forms of government, artwork or solutions to different issues.

Various interpretations of scientific information, music.

Answers to mathematics problems and explanations of all students’ work.

Description of a scientific process or principle, for example the way of working in the case of demand and supply.

Teachers will correctly appreciate and judge the extended written responses by applying different types of scoring criteria. One type of scoring criteria reflects the specific of information, while the other can be represented by a rubric (for instance, a general rubric used in making comparisons; it can be applied to all types of exercises requiring for comparison). (Royce Sadler, 2009)

Performance Assessment

This method represents an observation and judgment- based on assessment. The teacher will expect a performance or product, judging according to its quality. For instance, one can consider (Royce Sadler, 2009):

Complex performances – they may be represented by carrying out the stages in the case of a scientific experiment, playing an instrument, being able to speak a foreign language, being able to read aloud and fluent, and even being capable to repair a vehicle, an engine, or to work in group. In these cases, the emphasize will be on the action of doing, so the process is important.

Creating complex products – they may be represented by works of art, lab reports, term papers. At this level, the process of creation does not count so much (but it may be evaluated), but the quality level of the product itself.

Personal Communication

This method implies the process of gathering information about students. Teachers can find out what students have learned after the interaction among them in the classroom. For instance, they can (Royce Sadler, 1998):

Listen to students’ opinions and respond to their comments

Ask various questions during the teaching period

Interview students when participating to conferences

Listen to students as they participate in class

Give oral examinations

Student responses will be evaluated in one way of two possible. There are times when the questions a teacher asks require students to provide different types of answers, such as simple or short ones. This is the moment when the teacher will appreciate whether the answer is correct or not. This method is parallel to scoring. But there are also times when oral responses are longer and more complex. In this regard, “teachers evaluate and appreciate the quality of oral responses using as method a rubric or a scoring guide”. (Bloxham, S., West, A. , 2004: 712)

Other methods

There are many other methods of grading. It is important for teachers to appreciate by means of grading philosophy, considering purposes first and then deciding on a grading scheme. Before selecting a method, teachers are advised to check relevant course. Numeric methods or holistic approaches can be used. (Walvoord, B. E., Anderson, V. J. ,1998)

Letter Grading

This method is familiar to those who have attended a traditional institution. Defining what it represents, each level of performance is the responsibility of the teacher. (Walvoord, B. E., Anderson, V. J. ,1998)

Among the advantages of this method we could mention the following :

The method is convenient in order to determine the levels of competence for advanced education and future employment.

Letter grades provide good feedback.

Among the disadvantages of this method we could specify:

Letter grades can be accorded by mixing factors that have various weightings.

Letter grades can split students (learners) into competitive and even discriminatory groups.

Letter grades can foster students' confirming, unimaginative, dependent behaviour.

Letter grades can emphasize hierarchy among students with an adverse effect on learning.

Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory Systems

These systems are grounded on a single cut-off point which determines if the student has passed or failed the exam (test). There are some advantages that could be considered when applying satisfactory-unsatisfactory systems:

This method is less competitive and more relaxed.

It provides a better atmosphere.

Cheating may be reduced.

Some students work more in comparison to others.

Teachers are encouraged to schedule classes outside of students major fields of study.

After the end of the satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade request period, a class cannot be changed to the traditional grading system.

There are some disadvantages that could be considered when applying satisfactory-unsatisfactory systems:

While applying satisfactory-unsatisfactory systems a passing mark does not make any difference regarding the levels of competence.

While applying satisfactory-unsatisfactory systems a part of students works less.

While applying satisfactory-unsatisfactory systems it can be difficult to state a level of mastery leading to a passing mark.

While applying satisfactory-unsatisfactory systems a failing student is under pressure.

Mastery Approach

This method assigns a basic satisfactory or unsatisfactory grade to students based on their achievement of aims that have been specified by the teacher. For instance, in a mastery system, it is allowed for students to dispose of different amounts of time in order to accomplish an aim; they can also repeat their assignments without penalty until they obtain the most desired outcome, respectively a great mark. (Rafiee, G., 2014)

The advantages of this method could be:

The grade is full of meaning since it is connected to the students' performance level.

When students know their goals, they may achieve them faster.

In mastery approach, the focus is on success, rather than on failure.

Among teachers and students can be established cooperative relationships

The  disadvantages of this method could be :

It is more time-consuming;

The teachers’ freedom is limited;

Some teachers might be too exacting in their desires and requirements.

Contract System

This system of grading implies the development of a written contract between teacher and student. For instance, the syllabus lesson is a good moment to use this option. (Rafiee, G., 2014)

Some advantages of this method could be considered:

It can contribute to reducing anxieties since students know what the teacher expects.

It reduces the role of personal judgment when according grades.

It encourages self-set goals.

Some disadvantages of this method could be considered:

There is a possibility of overemphasis on quantity.

Difficulties can be found in measuring the quality of students' activity.

Self-Evaluation and self- assessment

In self-evaluation a variety of formats can be used. In this regard, students represents the source of the evaluation. Teachers can use self-evaluation in order to determine the course grade.

The advantages of this method could be :

Students can have their own learning experience.

Students are more objective, fair and demanding of themselves.

It encourages students to be responsible.

The disadvantages of this method could be :

Self-evaluation can be treated less seriously as the novelty disappear.

Self-evaluation can be overrated when learners are not introspective.

Self-evaluation can be abused under extreme pressure for specific marks.

Self-assessment

The CEFR supports the idea that there are three manners in which self-assessment can be used:

1. The CEFR can be used in case of content specification of examinations.

2. The CEFR can be used in case of stating the criteria in order to attain a learning goal, connected to the assessment of a certain performance (it may be spoken or written), as well as in relation to continuous peer-assessment, teacher-assessment or self-assessment.

3. The CEFR can be used in case of describing proficiency levels in different examinations thereby making comparisons across various systems of qualifications.

In self-assessment the descriptors for communicative activities can be used in many ways, such as:

Checklist

The checklist is used for continuous assessment or for summative assessment in a final course. The teacher can list the descriptors. Alternatively, their content can be “developed”

Grid

For the assessment of continuous or summative type, one could establish a profile of well-established categories of grids such as conversation, exchanging information, discussion, but with the condition to be defined at different levels.

Self-assessment implies judgements about student’s proficiency and teachers can use many types of assessment techniques. This research reflects the fact that ‘high stakes’ that were provided are not involved, thereby the process of self-assessment can be additional to test assessment. During self-assessment, the accuracy increases:

at the moment assessment is connected to well-defined descriptors of standards in proficiency

at the moment assessment is about a certain experience.

Self-assessment is an experience that may itself be seen as an examination activity. It is probably made more accurately when pupils participate during the session. “Structured self-assessment is related to evaluations and tests identical with levels of concurrent validation between teachers, between teacher assessment and tests, between tests”. (Alderson,Charles, 2000:77)

The primary potential of self-assessment is represented by its role as an instrument for motivation and awareness. It helps students to appreciate their strengths, to recognise their errors, as well as their weaknesses and to direct students’ learning in a more efficient manner. (Rafiee, G., 2014)

3.4. Teaching-Learning-Assessing

Ongoing Assessment

A teacher has to collect constantly any type of information, from informal to formal one, regarding the topics and the methods students choose to learn from. Teachers assess students by checking their assignments and tests but, at the same time, they suggest activities in small groups. Thereby, teachers are able to observe students participating in different types of activities, such as structured or unstructured ones. Teachers could obtain valuable information in order to keep in touch with children, parents or to meet different benchmarks and standards. At the time they collect the right type of acquaintance and use it efficiently, “teachers help their students grow as learners and thinkers”. (Alderson,Charles, 2000:82)

Contextually, assessment is interchangeable with evaluation. Assessment is a term to be used when referring to all methods and strategies in order to provide information about children learning. Formative assessment type provides students with feedback from teachers about how they handle during classes, throughout the process of learning. Through assessment, teachers will receive information about students’ knowledge and skills. (Littlewood, W., 1981).There is an instructional cycle highlighting ongoing assessment for both teachers and learners, providing information to them. Teachers can use formative assessment for:

providing feedback to teacher and student;

assessing learners’ previous readiness and knowledge;

monitoring progress;

encouraging and supporting group collaboration and self-direction;

checking for understanding;

demonstrating skills;

encouraging and supporting meta-cognition.

The essential purpose of assessment is to provide teachers the information they need in order to guarantee quality teaching. Assessment represents the basis of project-learning, providing, at the same time, providing students the appropriate knowledge. While integrating assessment in different units of teaching, teachers discover interesting and new things about learners’ needs. In this regard, they can develop the process of instruction in order to improve students achievement. Quoting McMillan, “when assessment is integrated with instruction, it informs teachers about what activities and assignments will be most useful, what level of teaching is most appropriate, and how summative assessments provide diagnostic information.” (McMillan, J.H., 2003: 35)

Assessment during instruction

While teaching a specific topic, teachers must account for different purposes of assessment, such as:

teachers have to encourage collaboration and self-direction;

teachers have to monitor students’ progress;

teachers have to check for understanding;

teachers have to encourage meta-cognition;

There are many types of informal assessment, respectively checklists, anecdotal observations, learning logs and even conferences. This way, teachers should collect information about students’ thinking, about their skills’ development, but also about the way they understand a certain topic. Teachers should assure students’ progress, information helping them to make a difference in the process of instruction. This difference can be done by immediate decisions. A good example in this respect is to review a certain concept or topic before going further with a scheduled activity. Also,” revising a sequence of activities could give advantages to the teacher in discovering students’ interest”. (McMillan, J.H., 2003: 42)

Knowing the opinion that learners have on a topic also helps the teacher to adapt instruction to individual learning differences so that he will ensure that all learners understand the main ideas, by practicing them. “They also master each topic component as they progress and develop their knowledge toward the final aim” (Guskey, 2005: 33).

Teachers can give help to students by means of individual feedback or, why not, flexible grouping. Children will develop their critical, objective or subjective thinking from the point they are in a certain moment to where they need to be. An efficient teaching is when the instruction process that meets students’ individual needs, has a final purpose: to provide them confidence, motivation, experience and so on.

Assessment has many purposes, but by far, the most important of them is represented by the development of a special category of learners, respectively the independent, the thoughtful and self-directed ones. Sometimes, students only get feedback from their teachers only after finishing a unit through a final test. (Brumfit, C., 1984) Also, by the time they find out the mark, the class has already approached another subject, and this way, the student has insignificant interest or opportunity in making corrections upon his mistakes or misunderstandings, not to mention the improvement of his own skills.

Assessment after Instruction

After finishing a unit, students should demonstrate what they have learned. On the one hand, teachers would find out if their students understood the topic. On the other hand they need to know what pupils have learned and what they will keep with them across the units. This proceeding signifies assessment after instruction: teachers should ask students to show that they understood the subject and to demonstrate their skill. Other types of assessment after instruction are long-term ones, appropriate examples being ongoing conferences or portfolios. They give both learners and teachers the opportunity to connect units of study, even if there are different topic areas and individual objects. Assessment after instruction helps students evaluate their own learning and it also gives teachers and schools important information for long-term planning over an extended period of time. (Laura Greenstein, 2010)

Creating a Classroom Culture of Learning

There are times when teachers plan a unit of study, thinking about the activities they could develop, the final papers or tests they should create and grade. In the moment formative assessment is considered to be a daily, repeated occurrence, teachers will think about what learners are doing than in terms of what teachers are doing. Instead of thinking or even saying, “I will explain the game and play concept to my students using an animated video and a demonstration,” a professional teacher will ask himself, “What type of activity can I ask my students to do in order to show me what they understand about game and play concept?”. Then, the teacher conceives ways of helping students to build their own vision about the topic, their understanding, by monitoring the way they learn. In this type of classroom, teacher's behaviour is only instructional as the objective is represented by student learning. (Laura Greenstein, 2010)

When there is a good connection between students, teachers and parents, the pupils will be continually assessed towards the learning aims and progress. In this respect, the internal setting will be more focused on learning. “Children will control more the development of activities, but at the same time, they will take a more proactive approach to learning while their teachers will focus more on learning in classroom and less on teaching.” (Black, et al., 2003: 80).

A good teaching process is based on a learning network represented by a learning cycle. There are four steps in the cycle, observing and collecting facts being the first one. A teacher's daily programme implies continual observations of pupils. “There is always something new to learn about a pupil- the learner you think you know well.”( Jabloned al., 2007:25) . When he observes a student’s skills, knowledge and behaviour, he should record his observations in a systematic way in order to analyze the information and to discover what is unique and special about that pupil. “This proceeding represents the basis for creating a positive relationship, teachers planning experiences in order to allow the child to develop”. (Stetson ed al., 2009:38)

The second step of the assessment cycle is represented by the process of analyzing and responding. During this stage, a good teacher will use the information obtained during the previous step in order to give responses to every student and scaffold his learning in an appropriate manner. If a teacher knows what students can do in relation to the final goals of development and learning, he may be able to decide how much support each individual needs, as well as whether the rules and routines of a classroom are appropriate for the group as an assembly. Teachers should use this knowledge only if they consider it helps them to decide when, what and how to realize the teaching process.

The third step of the cycle is evaluating. This one gives help when deciding which goal best describes the student’s skills, knowledge and behaviour. Teachers will be able to determine each pupil’s level of progress in connection to each goal by analyzing and evaluating in a consistent manner their portfolio samples or observation notes.

The fourth step of the assessment cycle, the final one, is represented by summarizing, planning and communicating. Teachers should summarize their knowledge about each student and create plans for individual ones and for groups. Finally, teachers should communicate their results to the learners' parents.

In accordance with the CEFR, processes such as learning, teaching and assessment accommodate different forms. There are many uses of this framework, such as:

Creating a plan for a language learning program regarding:

assumptions in terms of students' previous knowledge;

topic adaptation to earlier learning or to interfaces between many types of education such as primary or lower secondary one, as well as upper secondary and higher or further one;

topic objectives;

topic content.

Planning of language certification regarding:

examinations in terms of content syllabus;

assessment criteria through positive achievement;

avoidance of negative deficiencies.

Planning of a particular type of learning, the self-directed one, including:

growing student’s awareness of his state of knowledge;

self-setting of worthwhile, important and feasible goals;

proper selection of teaching materials;

self-assessment.

Certification and learning programmes:

may be global

may bring students forward the language proficiency and may also give them communicative competence in all dimensions;

may be modular

may improve the students' proficiency in a restricted domain for a particular objective;

may be weighted

may emphasize learning in various directions

may create a profile with an attained higher level in many domains of knowledge and skill in comparison with other ones;

may be partial

may take responsibility just in case of certain activities and skills, leaving others aside

CHAPTER 4. LEARNER AUTONOMY

4.1. Definitions

Learner autonomy is considered a problematic concept because it is often confused with the term self-instruction. It can be considered a slippery concept, argument based on its notoriety in giving a precise definition. Specialty literature expands rapidly and, in time, it has debated issues such as whether learner autonomy should be considered a capacity or a behaviour. Also, “there was a problem in this case learner autonomy being characterized by learner control or his responsibility; whether it represents a psychological phenomenon based on political implications or a political right based on psychological implications; and whether the development of this concept depends on a complementary teacher autonomy”. (Benson, 2001:89). 

However, there is an agreement which suggests that autonomous learners are able to understand the main goal of their learning programme, all of them accepting that they are responsible for their learning, sharing the setting of learning objectives, “taking initiatives in terms of planning and executing various activities, and reviewing in a regular manner their learning, at the same time evaluating its effectiveness” (Holec,1981:64)

A consensus may be taken into account when practice of learner autonomy imposes for insight, for positive attitudes, for capacities of reflection, and for a readiness in order to be more proactive both interacting with other people and in self-management. This is a working definition that reflects the challenge of learner autonomy; “the learner has a holistic view that requires teachers to indent different types of dimensions such as cognitive ones, meta-cognitive ones, affective and social ones, describing the language learning and worrying about how learners interact”. (Little, 1991:8)

Often, teachers are not sure what learner autonomy is. In Moore’s opinion (2009:1) “the learner autonomy definition has the premise that an autonomous learner takes responsibility for his own learning.”

By doing this, students are able to identify:

their learning aims -what topic they need to learn;

their learning processes- the manner they will learn the topic;

their learning strategies;

the manner they will evaluate and use the learning;

they have strong learning conceptions;

they have a broad range of learning approaches and skills;

they are capable to organize their learning;

they obtained good information in order to process skills;

they are well motivated to learn.

Thanasoulas (2000:1) states that: “It is noteworthy that autonomy can be thought of in terms of a departure from education as a social process, as well as in terms of redistribution of power attending the construction of knowledge and the roles of the participants in the learning process.”

Also, Little (2015:1) mentioned that “ learner autonomy is a problematic term because it is widely confused with self-instruction. It is also a slippery concept because it is notoriously difficult to define precisely. The rapidly expanding literature has debated, for example, whether learner autonomy should be thought of as capacity or behaviour; whether it is characterised by learner responsibility or learner control; whether it is a psychological phenomenon with political implications or a political right with psychological implications; and whether the development of learner autonomy depends on a complementary teacher autonomy.”

In order to be autonomous learners, students are helped by teachers through well-established lesson plans and ultimate techniques and teaching approaches . According to Scharle and Szabó “in theory, we may define autonomy as the freedom and ability to manage one`s own affairs, which entails the right to make decisions as well. Responsibility may also be understood as being in charge of something, but with the implication that one has to deal with the consequences of one`s own actions. Autonomy and responsibility both require active involvement, and they are apparently very much interrelated.” (Scharle and Szabó , 2000: 4)

If students feel happy while they are active during classes, they can be considered autonomous learners. The topics will be relevant to students if the teacher will abandon the usage of the same method while teaching. The same method can make pupils bored and even unhappy. Different types of techniques will be useful in order to lead learners at autonomous level.

Also, Scharle and Szabó state that: “The saying goes: you can bring the horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. In language teaching, teachers can provide all the necessary circumstances and input, but learning can only happen if learners are willing to contribute. Their passive presence will not suffice, just as the horse would remain thirsty if he stood still by the river waiting patiently for his thirst to go away. And, for learners to be actively involved in the learning process, they first need to realize and accept that success in learning is dependent on the student and on the teacher. That is, they share responsibility for the outcome. In other words, success in learning very much depends on learners having a responsible attitude.” (Scharle and Szabó, 2000:4)

In this regard, responsibility and autonomy should be developed for:

the reason of having better classes;

the reason of creating joyful classes;

the reason of having more successful and happy pupils ;

the reason of having more students characterized by respect and self-confidence;

the reason of having creativity and giftedness.

When a teacher wants to make learners autonomous, they should adopt one of the following two general arguments.

The first argument is represented by the situation in which students are reflectively engaged with learning. Thus, what students learn in school is more likely to serve students’ wider agendas.

The second argument is represented by the situation in which students are proactively committed to their learning. In this case, the problem of motivation is solved. Learners may not always have an entirely positive feeling about the whole assembly of aspects of their learning. Still, autonomous learners developed certain reflective and attitudinal resources in order to overcome temporary motivational setbacks.

There is also a particular case, when foreign languages or second ones are represented by a third argument. Effective communication is directly dependant on a mixture of skills, being developed only by means of use. In case of creating a vital dependence between language learning and language use, students enjoying a more developed social autonomy at learning environment level should master easier the whole range of roles on which spontaneous communication depends.

4.2 Learning strategies

Learning strategies are popular because they are known as instruments used for the improvement of students' language competence. In this respect, pupils should have great responsibility for their competences in case they are aware of the tools already mentioned. Hence, teachers need to present students a variety of appropriate strategies, helping them to discover what really works in their cases, but also to encourage them to use these strategies in the appropriate moment. A good teacher will make learners enjoy thrilling experience of exploring and expanding their own capacities.

Many learning strategies were identified, such as:

Identifying preferences and sharing them

Before the class begins, teachers should contact students in order to establish a connection with them, as well as to understand their preferences. This strategy may be achieved by asking students to complete a simple questionnaire, such as:

What is your favourite class work ?

Examples can be: pairs, individual or groups

What is your favourite type of class activity?

Examples can be: projects, lectures, discussions.

What sort of learning materials do you prefer?

Examples can be: books, videos, handouts

Who should provide guidance during the class?

Examples can be: a mentor, a friend, different students

What type of feedback do you consider is more appropriate?

Examples can be: group feedback, individual feedback, general summary of performance, detailed correction of every mistake.

The information collected from this short questionnaire may be a good facilitator for teacher in understanding different types of learners and their preferences. Individually talking, each student may consider these preferences and the purpose they were created; at the opposite pole, from a collective point of view, students’ preferences can be summarised by teacher and then shared with other students. In this regard, a rational opinion will be provided about the manner of managing a course. In particular, teachers can use this information to create face-to-face sessions, can use different teaching materials and can give feedback according to learners’ preferences. Thereby, the experience will have a more effective and meaningful aspect for both teachers and students.

The second strategy highlights the possibility of encouraging self monitoring                                                                   

Students find it useful to be aware of the manner they approach tasks given by teacher and also, they may observe other methods and approaches used by other students. This aspect can help learners to choose the best method and technique they use in learning. Specifically, learners may consider that other ways of learning are more appropriate for their needs, being more effective and suitable. In this respect, the capacity for self-monitoring has important role in facilitating and strengthening learner autonomy. To apply this type of strategy a teacher should follow the next steps:

1.   As a supplement to an assignment, teachers may ask student to write a brief essay reflecting on how they approached a certain task.

2.   In order to reflect, the following examples of questions are suitable for each learner:

How did you prepare for the examination?

What learning materials did you use for the assignment?

Did you read further before completing the assignment?

Did you make any note?

Did you discuss the assignment?

How much time did you spend on the giving answers?

3.   The learners should share these reflections with other students and they should discuss in groups.

4.   Students can decide which methods and techniques are the most suitable for each task.

5.   Students can be encouraged to try new ways to approach the tasks.

This strategy aims to promote self-monitoring. It also grows awareness of alternative ways for completing the given assignments. This strategy provides students with a wide range of methods and techniques, so that they will choose when attempting tasks. When using this type of strategy a teacher stimulates students to monitor their own activities regarding learning, thus encouraging autonomy.

3.The third strategy strengths summarising and sharing texts.                                            

The capacity of reading and independently reflecting is vital for learner autonomy. Thereby, teachers should seize the opportunity to provide students with activities requiring them to read and paraphrase the texts. This type of activities discourages students’ reliance on obtaining explained aspects, while forcing them to make sense of the presented information. A suitable strategy is simple, but “effective, used in order to achieve the aspects mentioned above”. (Sykes, 2014:19) It has steps such as: (Sykes, 2014:20)

The teacher will have the role to identify relevant texts such as articles, case studies, book chapters or reports and to provide them to students

Pupils will be divided into small groups or pairs

The teacher will give students to read one of the identified texts

Individually, pupils will read and then, they will identify the key points.

Learners will realize their summary with other colleagues

Learners will compose a text of their summaries

Students will present their text to the rest of the group

Group members and the teacher will ask questions

Group members and the teacher will make comments on the presented summary

Comments will lead to an open discussion about the text content.

This strategy supports students to learn by reading for themselves, but also helps them to identify the key points of the text. They would make sense of their reading without relying solely on input and explanation from the teacher. Pair-work may give students a sense of security and, at the same time, gives them the chance to check and confirm what they understood with group partners. Students presenting their summary to other colleagues represents a step that promotes the ownership of their learning: they are more responsible when share their knowledge and ideas with other students. When the teacher finds out a lack of understanding, he should provide clarification.

4. Strategy number four implies the relation between quizzes created by learner and quizzes generated by him

The autonomous learning requires an ability of reviewing, consolidating and creating new things on the basis of what has been already learnt. This is a type of ability that can be developed at the students’ level by means of incorporating it into classes topicsand tasks that require the need of revisiting learning materials. Creating and answering learner-generated quizzes assure various opportunities that lead to an increase in pupils’ understanding of the subject content. This strategy helps students to remember what they have already learnt, what they should do to learn and the manner they can evaluate themselves. This is not only considered a useful revision instrument, but it also measures the students’ knowledge: it allows both pupils and teachers to identify domains that need more learning and consolidation.

This strategy can be practiced following some steps:

The teacher will ask students to find parts of the learning material necessary to review.

In small groups, students will review the material mentioned above and will prepare some questions in order to quiz their colleagues.

The groups share the quizzes

The groups answer each other’s quizzes.

The students check their colleagues answers.

Each pair reports on the questions with the lowest number of correct answers.

Helped by the teacher, the students will create a list of problem areas for reviewing it in the future.

This strategy helps students to identify the gaps at the knowledge level and also fill them. It also provides evidence of some issues. Students will understand that problems are not only individually faced, but also by their colleagues (in groups).

4.3 Motivation to learn

Hand in hand with learner autonomy, motivation highlights essential aspects in the students’ development through the cycle of education and after it. Pupils may achieve a lot of struggle against issues if they are well-motivated or if they know a way to motivate themselves. Nowadays, motivation represents a very important subject for pupils. Students are more active, more talkative if they are motivated. Motivation is considered to be connected to the behaviour, as “a state that energizes, directs and sustains it” (Maqbool Ahmad, 2008:336) . This concept also involves goals, but requires activity. A goal reflects a stimulus for an action and its’ direction. Actions are characterized by effort and persistence to sustain long-term activities.

The selection of a free-choice task under appropriate conditions shows that motivation is the pillar of performing for that task right. High effort, mainly when working on different assignments, indicates motivation. In this respect, a good example is that of a student diligently working on a difficult exercise again and again. This situation indicates an increased level of motivation towards different scholar activities.

Working for a long-term period, particularly after facing many obstacles, is also associated with motivation at a higher degree.

Finally, one’s level of achievement may be affected by his own effort, choice or persistence. The higher these goals, the higher the motivation. Also, in this case the task achievement will be more appropriate.

During classes, teachers are aware of these aspects and that is why they make efforts to reinforce some activities that students were slightly interested in and to redirect their interests. The actual term which best describes this concept is the situational motivation.

Motivation has different effects on students' learning and behaviour. It directs students’ behaviour towards some particular aims. It determines a specific objective for which people take action; yet, it affects the choices students make. One can give examples such as: whether to enrol in a music class or chemistry, whether to attend a football game at school during the week or complete the homework for the next day.

Motivation may lead to an increased degree of effort and energy. It also determines whether a pupil will complete a task with enthusiasm or an unhappy attitude, a lackluster one.

Motivation flourishes the persistence of activities. It increases students' time at tasks levels and it is also considered an important factor which sometimes affects both their learning and achievement.

Motivation improves cognitive processing. It actually affects what type of information is processed and how it is made. Motivated students pay more attention and try to better understand the learning material instead of simply reading passages in a superficial manner.

4.4. Learning to learn

Nowadays, most of the students would likely manifest their desire to learn as the main reason for studying three or four years to a college education. But, in essence, what do people mean when they use the verb “to learn”? This term is something all people do from the moment they came to life, so most of them consider it a very complex process. Although many people have a general sense of what this process implies, there are often many assumptions involved.

As defined in the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (2006/962/EC),“learning to learn” represents that ability of persuasion and persistence in learning, organizing one’s learning through efficient time and information management, both at individual level and in pairs or groups. Learning to learn is a competence including awareness of one’s needs and his learning process. One may identify appropriate opportunities, being able to surpass various obstacles in order to accomplish a successful learning process.

This competence reflects obtaining, processing and absorbing new skills and knowledge. It also seeks and makes use of guidance. Learning to learn makes students to develop life experiences. In order to use and apply knowledge, students will develop skills and they need they need a wide area of contexts such as education, work, home or training.

In order to realize the process of learning to learn, motivation and confidence are essential for students’ competences.

In time, within the educational context, learning to learn became a political priority, despite the fact that there is a connection between its development and knowledge in the context of economy and social cohesion. Economic knowledge may be considered a competence that enables individuals to find a job, while social cohesion is reflected through the fact that individuals have “social skills necessary for a society to function in a democratic and cultural environment”. (Bryony Hoskins, Ulf Fredriksson, 2008:13) From this prospect, it is vital to reveal what this concept actually is. Until nowadays, there have been made many attempts in order to define learning to learn. Stringher (2006:14), famous on the learning to learn online research network, reviewed the existing sources on this concept and found “40 different definitions for it”. Laura Rožman and Andrej Koren (2013: 1213) emphasized the complexity of the process and noticed the existence of various concepts, such as: “meta cognition, socio-historical approaches, socio-constructivism, socio-cognitive approaches, as well as assessment studies and lifelong learning.”

Regarding the sector of education, the European Union is focused on “Key competencies”. In this respect, the process of “Learning to learn” is a recommendation on developing lifelong learning key competencies. The concept was adopted by the European Council and the European Parliament in December, 2006 (Education Council, 2006).

At the educational level, teachers may accelerate students' learning experience by teaching them the concept of learning-to-learn in an explicit manner. In time, research and experience have shown that high-performing learners present a tendency for:

Establishing goals.

Planning and managing time

Finding patterns in information.

Determining essential information.

Seeking help when necessary.

In this respect, high-performing tends to use memory strategies in an efficient manner (e.g. "distributed practice."). A good example could be considered the following: when a good pupil memorizes some words in order to prepare for an oral examination, he will not attempt to learn all words in one night. Instead, the student may memorize a number of six words in the first evening, another group of six words in the next evening, another group of six words in the third evening, and after all, he will memorize the last two words, but also will review the most difficult ones the evening before the examination. When teachers teach all students to use these kinds of strategies, an improvement will be registered at their performance level within a relatively short period of time, one or two weeks. One may emphasize that skills associated to learning-to-learn process are more efficient if they are taught compared to the content. For example, teachers can teach the comparing skill as students learn about photosynthesis.

When a student learns how to learn, he:

becomes better ;

inquires about a topic;

self-directs other learners.

When the learning experience has a deep effect on the learner, the student is very careful about the studied topic, about other or about the entire process learning.Greater caring can open new interests, but can also give energy for learning. Finally, it is very important to learn how to learn. This process suggests that by means of learning, students must diagnose their own need for learning and the manner to become self-learners. “This type of learning determine pupils learn continuously and more effectively. By far, it signifies a particularly important skill in terms of knowledge and advanced technology.” (AACU, 2002: 62)

STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ASSESSMENT METHODS AND TECHNIQUES USED AT SECONDARY LEVEL

II. 1 Effective Teaching Methods and successful teaching

The process of teaching is a complex one, requiring proper methodologies, in order to inculcate useful information in students’ minds to transfer knowledge to other generations. Therefore, secondary education represents a turning state and in this respect, teachers should adopt effective teaching methodology in accordance with students needs so that they can receive proper guidance.

In Vijayalakshmi’s opinion (2004:1) teaching has the meaning of both “art and a science”. Able teachers will always find means and ways in improving their techniques in teaching. In time, change appears and teachers are asked to adopt newer methods for a more efficient teaching so that they must be able to cope innovation.

“Teacher” is a notion being used for that person who teaches students, guides learners and enables them the manner of reading and writing. In its third edition, the International Encyclopedia of Education defines teacher education as “education and preparation of individuals enabling them in order to become professional teachers.” (International Encyclopedia of Education, 2010). On the other hand, Frank and Wagrall emphasized the accentuate need for dynamism (1987: 11) in teacher education. They considered that “ for maintaining the pace with all of these technology changes in the modern society, one must plan teacher education programs in such a way that teachers, in this respect, become broadly educated, scientific minded, uncompromising on quality innovative, but sympathetic towards students” (Frank and Wagrall, 1987: 11). Also Aggarwal concluded that “teacher education represents the essence of knowledge, as well as relevant skills and abilities to teachers’ professional life”. (Aggarwal, 1990: 26) By far, it is very important for teachers to be provided with continuous training in order to adopt the proper methods of teaching. This way, teacher education is that initiative of keeping alive, of saving time, energy, money and of protecting from trouble.

There can be used several teaching methods in order to teach English at secondary level. Nowadays, most of the teachers use the lecture method and in most of the cases, the excuse of not using new techniques is that the curricula is so lengthy and the working environment is missing in public sector. Anyway, one of the most important teaching methods used by English teachers are represented by the inquiry based learning, direct instructions (direct lecturing), cooperative learning and group discussion.

Inquiry-based learning represents a teaching method that gains popularity day by day. In case of English language, students develop their critical thinking skills in order to arrive to different conclusions. This method takes plenty of time and energy, by planning, but in most cases, it was very effective, mainly because it student-centered and directed, giving the opportunity to reach students in accordance with the level they are.

Direct instruction represents one of the most common type of instruction on the basis of the lecturing method. This is the lecturing method of teaching. Many teachers make use of this method almost exclusively because it is considered the simplest of all, and they are able to cover large amounts of material in a short period of time. However, this method is not the most effective of all in order to teach all students, especially younger ones. This last category of students need to be engaged more, to be given a hands-on strategy in order to learn effectively. In addition, it is hard for teachers to give instruction to students at different levels.

Cooperative learning, another highly effective teaching method when done correctly lends itself well to differentiation when teachers can assign specific tasks to students at different ability levels. (http://www.wisegeek.com). With cooperative learning, children are put in small groups for working together, but they are not grouped by ability, but on various levels. Then, they are given tasks to accomplish together while teachers monitor these groups in order to make sure that pupils remain on task and all of them are participate.

Group discussions are efficient in classrooms of small or moderate size. Teachers act as moderators for this kind of lesson, so they begin the discussion, but then, it is passed to the students. This teaching method is very effective for children who want to be engaged in their own learning.

While the majority of teachers may not consider lecturing to be one of the most efficient method, there is still a group of settings in which lecturing can work proper. In this respect, presentation of innovative information in a concise manner can be very important during English classes and lecturing can work well in such an instance. (http://www.wisegeek.com).

In Mursell’s opinion , successful teaching is considered to “reveal a number of certain emphases and aspects in the total pattern of meaningful learning, transforming general orientation in a more definite one” (Mursell, 1954), as following:

“Learning is meaningful in the sense of “mattering” to the learner, but it is essentially purposive.

Exploration and discovery are the most important elements of the basic learning process, and not the routine repetition.

The result achieved by children through means of learning always represents an understanding or intelligible response.

The result may not be connected to the situation in which it was achieved but one can make use of it in other situations.” (Mursell, 1954)

Mursell was not the only one who described effective teaching, but also Ibrahim did it. The most important objective of teacher education program has always been the one of preparing teachers capable of bringing desired changes in students’ behaviour to an optimal level in terms of expended human energy and material resources during the process. (Ibrahim,1990: 12) It is obvious that the teacher has always to adopt variety of teaching methods and teaching strategies in teaching his subjects in classroom situation to make teaching more effective and result oriented.

In terms of the effective teaching, a teacher must adopt a good method. He has many options for the style of teaching, he may write lesson plans of his own, borrow plans from others, or even search for lesson plans within books. When deciding about the proper teaching method, a teacher must take into account students’ background and knowledge, as well as their environment, and the most important of all, their learning goals. Teachers know students have different ways of learning, but almost all pupils will respond well to praise; students also have various modalities of absorbing information and demonstrating what they know. Often, a good professor uses techniques catering to multiple learning and his style could help pupils to retain information and strengthen their understanding. There is a variety of teaching methods and strategies in order to ensure that all children have equal opportunities to learn and in this respect, a lesson plan should be carried out as following:

Questioning

The teaching method based on questioning is similar to the one of testing. A teacher can put some questions with the aim of collecting information of the information students have learned and what needs to be taught.

Explaining

Explanation is another efficient teaching method with a form similar to lecturing. Lecturing is based on teaching, the professor giving a speech, by means of a discourse on a specific subject in the classroom. This method is often associated with modeling and demonstrating.

Demonstrating

Demonstrations’ role is the one of providing opportunities in learning by means of new exploration and visual learning tasks from a different point of view. This method can be practiced in several ways.

Collaborating

Students’ collaborations is based on the group work and it is another manner a professor can enforce a lesson plan. Collaborating allows pupils to talk each other and to listen to all view points of others is discussions or assignments. It also helps children to think in unbiased way.

II. 2 Teaching Method, Teaching Strategy and Tactic

Teaching methods, teaching strategies and teaching tactics are usually considered to be similar, but one may see a visible difference in thir meaning. According to Swarup, these terminologies may be explained in the following manner:

Teaching Method

In teaching method’s case, the main aspect is the manner of presentation and the contents. (Swaroop,1994: 6) It is also determined in accordance with the contents’ nature and there can be three methods of the content and of presentation, such as:

Telling Method: Lecturing, questioning and so on

Doing Method: Project method

Showing Method: Demonstration, observation and so on.

Teaching Strategy

The notion of “strategy” is about a pattern of acts serving to attain certain outcomes, but also to ground against others (Swaroop,1999:7). Strategy’s meaning is related to the determination of a certain policy by planning before presenting the contents with the help of which the student’s force is faced and the teaching objectives are achieved. In this situation, pre-planning represents a key of success.

Teaching Tactics

In this case, tactics are similar to the method with which new knowledge is being permanently marked in the pupils minds. (Swaroop,1999:8) Teaching tactics are more comprehensive in comparison with teaching strategies and, with a single teaching strategy, using one of more teaching tactics, the lesson becomes easier, more clear and more understandable.

Teaching tactics and strategies are based on the following elements:

According to Manitoba Education, “assessment is the most efficient when its purpose is clear defined, and when it is carefully designed to fit that purpose” (Manitoba Education, 2006: 13). However, Earl claimed that assessment represents a complicated entity that has various purposes, all of which need to be understood and appreciated for their own merits (Earl, 2003). In explaining this further, Black claimed that “the main purposes of assessment are those of enhancing learning, reporting on and certifying student achievement, and for public accountability” (Black, 1998:12). In addition to this, Earl emphasized that there are “different assessment purposes, varied approaches for assessment being necessary” (Earl, 2003: 12 – 13). It is essential teachers know and understand each of these purposes, but also they have “to aware of when and why they are using them” (Manitoba Education, 2006:14) in order make a valid choice of approaches. Thus, it is obvious that the purpose of assessment should always be the centre of attention and as commented by Black and Wiliam, “assessment in education must, first and foremost, serve the purpose of supporting learning” (Black , Wiliam ,2006a: 9).

In time, there have been used various methods and approaches aiming to assess learning and it is necessary to understand the benefits and possible defects of each as well as making the best choice. In Stiggins’ s opinion, “if teachers assess accurately and make an effective use of results, students prosper. If they do it poorly, students’ learning suffers” (Stiggins, 2004). So, choosing the proper type of assessment has great relevance. Below, there will be discussed in a practical manner the assessment methods such as tests, performance-based assessment, portfolio assessment, self-assessment and peer-assessment.

Tests

Testing has long been one of the most common assessment methods. In this respect, Bachman and Palmer believed that “language testing may be considered a valid manner to interpret individuals’ language abilities” (Bachman and Palmer ,1996: 8) , but they also claimed that professors must to be aware of the importance of tests’ formulation.(Bachman and Palmer,1996). This way, they forwarded their language testing philosophy:

A good teacher should relate language testing to both language teaching and use.

A good teacher should design his/her tests in order to encourage and enable learners to perform at their highest ability levels.

A good teacher should make considerations of fairness into test design.

A good teacher should humanize the testing process.

A good teacher should demand accountability for test use; hold himself/herself, as well as any others who make use of his/her test, accountable for the way his/her test is being used.

A good teacher should recognize those decisions that are based on test scores and are fraught with dilemmas

Also, in Earl’s opinion, “a test can only contain a limited amount of what has been taught with the instruction” (Earl, 2003:22 – 23), while according to Weeden, Winter and Broadfoot, the results only highlight “what the student can do at the exact time the test is completed”. (Weeden, Winter, & Broadfoot, 2002: 29).

Performance-based Assessment

Another common method that is being used in assessment is the performance-based assessment. Linn and Miller considered that a movement took place towards new approaches while assessment developed in the 1990’s, (Linn and Miller, 2005) and these ones have been “referred to as alternative, authentic, direct, or performance-based assessment” (Linn and Miller, 2005: 7).

McKay (2006) emphasizes that there is avoided the use of “selected-response items” (McKay, 2006:98) in the assessment based on performance. The focus must be on tasks, they enabling students to use the language as they would in real life, where both grammar and vocabulary knowledge are assessed as “elements of communicative use of the language” (McKay, 2006:99). Scoring rubrics are considered to be an appropriate ways to assess performance while the used “tasks are not likely to have only correct or incorrect answers” (McKay, 2006: 266).

Even if assessment based on performance is relatively new, it is something that language assessors are quite familiar with and “has been used in language assessment for more than a century” (Bachman, 2002a: 5).

Portfolio Assessment

Currently, portfolio assessment is one of the most popular alternative methods “where instruction and assessment are integrated” (Hamp-Lyons, 2007:493). According to McKay, portfolios are still considered very important in assessment in secondary level and they are “widely advocated” (McKay, 2006: 159). In some schools, portfolios are the unique method that is being used for assessment while in others, they are used in combination with other ones (Gronlund, 2003:157). Portfolios are advantageous for assessment because there is a variety of evidence they can show in order to judge students’ performance, as following:

“Learning progress in time.

Learners’ current best work.

Comparison between best and past work.

Self-assessment skills development.

Reflective learning development.

Students’ level and pace of work.

Learning’s clear evidence to parents.

Collaboration between teachers and students.” (Gronlund, 2003: 158).

However, in Gronlund’s opinion, applying portfolios represents time consuming and “demands substantial teacher-student conferencing if it is supposed to be a useful tool” (Gronlund, 2003: 159). He emphasized that “portfolio’s structure and students’ overall performance” (Gronlund, 2003: 163) need to be evaluated.

Self-assessment

Self-assessment is the most important strategy which formative assessment is founded on, and in fact, in Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, and Wiliam’s opinion, “it is of esential value for formative assessment development that self-assessment be practiced by learners” (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, Wiliam, 2003:18). According to McKay (2006), this type of assessment is a manner to persuade students for focusing on their own learning in order to understand the process in a better way and to accept its’ responsibility” (McKay, 2006:165 – 166). In case of any learning, students must understand their learning goals as well as how best to work for reaching them and “self-assessment enhances learning” (Black and Wiliam, 2006a:15).

Peer-assessment

Peer-assessment is also one of the methods used in formative assessment, and as Black et al. considered, it is “uniquely valuable” (Black et. al, 2003:50) and “may represent a prior requirement for self-assessment” (Black et. al, 2003:50). Many researchers suggested that peer collaboration during classroom activities brings benefits to student learning, and they sustain with evidence from various research. Additionally, evidence highlights peer-assessment’s beneficial effects; however, it also supposes that in order to use peer-assessment, “learners have to know its manner of execution” (Saito, 2008:553 – 554).

II.3 Research

Statement of the Problem

The present research is designed to investigate the effective use of teaching methods at secondary level.

Objectives

Study’s objectives are based on the:

1. Investigation of teaching methods’ effective use at secondary level.

2. Exploration of various methods’ advantages and disadvantages.

3. Identification the effectively use of teaching methods.

Study’s significance

In general, this study is very important for teachers, but in particular, for secondary level teachers as it has collected plenty of information concerning teaching methods, their effectiveness and appropriateness in secondary level English. Furthermore, it will guide teachers in exploring adequate methodologies for teaching, while its significance may also be for planners and education managers in policy formulation of teacher education programs at secondary level.

Problem’s statement

The present research is designed to investigate the effective use of teaching methods based on assessment, at secondary level.

Method

In order to carry out the study, there was adopted the following method:

Population

The examined group consisted of a total of 100 pupils, boys and girls, all studying at secondary level at the Technological High School in Geaba village, Maneciu commune, VIIth and VIIIth grade.

Sample

100% boys and girls, students at the Technological High School in Geaba village, Maneciu commune served as sample for the study. Subjects have normal intellectual development and different academic results. Questionnaire was attended by 100 students.

The sample is contained therein the school age 13-15 years old whereas in terms of psychosocial development, “the growing independence leads first thoughts on identity” (Cosmovici 1999: 46), and in terms of cognitive development view, at this age "increases children’s mental ability to analyze and to test deductive assumptions”. (Cosmovici, 1999: 46).

Besides these purely psychological reasons, there was taken into account the fact that students’ classes in discussion are studying English since the IInd grade, having, at the moment, a total of four hours a week.

Instrument

Questionnaire with opened, closed and mixed questions represented the main instrument of the present research, being used for collecting the data. The questionnaire was validated by specialists and it was developed for students of Technological High School in Geaba village, Maneciu commune.

The questionnaire is characterized by anonymity and it was applied to the whole group at once, not individually, to give subjects a setting where they feel protected at this age – own entourage.

Data Collection

The questionnaire was personally administered to secondary level students of Technological High School in Geaba village, Maneciu commune. Data were collected back after respondents’ completion.

Data Analysis

Collected data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted and presented at the end of the present research.

STUDENT’S LEARNING OUTCOMES – Classroom Assessment Techniques

Attitude Surveys

Attitude surveys may have many forms and address to a range of issues, but typically, they consist of a series of statements, students being asked to express their agreement or disagreement using a scale. This type of survey assures valuable information on the perceptions of students and on their emotions regarding their experience in classroom. ( Shulman, L. S. , 1991) This supposes attitudes, in general, toward the English course, for example and toward students’ own learning. The survey’s results can also help you identify elements in the English course that best support pupils’ learning. (Oregon State University, Center for Teaching and Learning)

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

The one of providing information about the style of students’ learning or their preferences for a certain learning manner, allowing teachers to choose the best instructional approaches in order to meet students needs

The one of discovering which components of the course contribute most to students’ learning

The one of providing feedback helpful for designing activities to foster a more realistic view of a discipline and what members of that discipline do

To prompt students to reflect on their own learning preferences, strengths, or styles

In this case, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Students will learn techniques and methods in order to gain new knowledge

Students will develop appropriate skills, strategies, and habits in order to study

Students will develop awareness and control over the learning processes

Students will develop a knowledge and appreciation for the subject

Instructor teaching outcomes

Teachers will develop and refine teaching based on student feedback

Involved factors

An attitudinal survey can provide information on student perceptions of their classroom experience, but at the same time, it may be focused on students’ needs, abilities to perform or beliefs about the nature of the discipline.

ConcepTests

The teacher presents one or more questions during class on the basis of key concepts, together with several possible answers. In the class, students will indicate by the correct answer, for example. If many students did not identify the correct answer, they are given a short time for lecturing in order to try to persuade their neighbor that his/ her answer is correct. The teacher asks again the question to gauge class mastery. Suddenly, he obtains feedback on the level of class understanding. In this regard, students have the opportunity to be part of a team and to communicate skills. Many professors have reported substantial improvements in class attendance and attitude toward the course.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

The one of obtaining real-time feedback regarding student understanding

The one of determining the pace and direction of the remainder of the lecture

In this case, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Students will apply ideas and concepts while communicating orally

Students will be able to integrate concepts

Students will work cooperatively one to another

Instructor teaching outcomes

Teachers will obtain real-time feedback regarding student’s misconceptions and understanding

Teachers will communicate the theirs desires for students to be successful in the English course

Involved factors

If the class size is too small, students may feel more conspicuous and self-conscious, hindering their participation. It is possible the instructors to need to encourage students for participating together in ConcepTests if the classroom has many more chairs than pupils. Some professors group students into teams to work on ConcepTests during their classes.

Concept Mapping

A concept map represents a diagram of nodes containing various concept labels linked together with some directional lines. These nodes are arranged in hierarchical levels that move from general to specific concepts. Concept maps assess the manner students see the “big picture.” They have been used for some years to provide a useful and visually appealing way of illustrating students’ conceptual knowledge.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

To investigate how well students understand the correct connections among concepts in a subject

To document the nature and frequency of students’ misconceptions

To capture the development of students’ ideas over time

In this case, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Students will learn concepts, facts, and concepts of this subject

Students will organize information into meaningful categories

Students will synthesize and integrate information

Students will think about the “big picture” and observe connections among concepts

Students will think creatively about the subject

Students will improve long-term memory skills for accessible knowledge

Students will develop higher-level thinking skills, strategies, and habits

Students will use graphics effectively

Instructor teaching outcomes

Teachers will gain insight into the way students view a scientific topic

Teachers will examine the valid understandings and misconceptions hold by students

Teachers will assess the structural complexity of the relationships students depict

Involved factors

Conceptual Diagnostic Tests

A conceptual diagnostic test is a test with items in a multiple-choice or short-answer format that has been designed with common misconceptions in mind.

Using conceptual diagnostic tests assesses how well students understand key concepts in a SMET field prior to, during, and after instruction.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

To reveal the misconceptions students bring as prior knowledge to a class

To measure conceptual gains of a class as a whole

To identify weak areas of understanding

In this case, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Students will learn terms of a subject and concepts

Students will develop higher-level thinking skills, strategies, and habits

Students will recognize common misconceptions for avoiding or changing them

Teachers’ teaching outcomes

Teachers will tracks students’ misconceptions, conceptual change, as well as the impact of their instruction

Teachers will allow evaluation of student comprehension

Involved factors

Conceptual diagnostic tests aim to assess students’ understanding of conceptual ideas in a discipline, especially those that are prone to misconceptions. In this respect, they are discipline-specific rather than generic. The format typically is multiple-choice so that a conceptual diagnostic test can be given efficiently to large numbers of students and machine scored. Different from traditional multiple-choice items, the distracters have the role to elicit misconceptions known from the research base. A pupil must have a certain understanding of a concept for ordering to select the correct response. Because conceptual diagnostic tests can be scored quickly, they can be used as formative as well as summative assessments.

Interviews

An interview consists of a series of well-chosen questions that are designed to elicit a portrait of a student’s understanding about a scientific concept or set of related concepts. The interview may be video or audio-taped for a later analysis. Structured interviews with selected students will enable teachers to readily judge the extent of understanding the manner his pupils have developed a series of conceptually-related scientific ideas. This type of assessment assure feedback that is especially useful to teachers who want to improve their teaching and their courses organization.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

To investigate the manner students understand and apply a certain concept

To identify possible understanding gaps among students

To document general and content-specific procedures that students employ in application tasks and the sequences and manner in which processes are employed

To document how student understanding and problem-solving skills change over time or with instruction

To obtain verbal feedback from students about course structure, teaching techniques, and other aspects of the course or program of instruction

In this respect, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Analyzes problems from different viewpoints and communicates effectively

Recognizes interrelationships among problems and issues

Applies principles and generalizations to new problems and situations

Demonstrates a basic knowledge of the concepts and theories of the subject

Demonstrates synthesis and integration of information and ideas

Uses appropriate synthetic and analytic methods to solve problems

Instructor teaching outcomes

Answers students’ questions and provides feedback from students

Bridges gap between learning and assessment

Tracks typical questions and problems

Involved factors

During a structured interview, the instructor uses a set of questions called probes designed in advance of the interview to elicit a portrait of the learner’s understanding about a specific concept/topic. The student may be asked to use their own words to explain an idea, but is typically required to go beyond simple recognition of a concept to construct a detailed personal explanation. Generally, the student is also asked to use that concept to solve a problem or other application task. Additional questions may be added in response to the answers given. It is this freedom to follow the interviewee, to ask for clarifications, and to focus on errors, misconceptions, and gaps in knowledge, that makes the interview so much more fruitful than more traditional methods of assessment.

Performance Assessments

Performance assessments are designed to judge students’ abilities to use specific knowledge and research skills. Most performance assessments require the student to manipulate equipment to solve a problem or make an analysis. Rich performance assessments reveal a variety of problem-solving approaches, thus providing insight into a student’s level of conceptual and procedural knowledge. Student growth in knowledge of methods, procedures, and analysis skills prove somewhat difficult to evaluate, particularly with conventional multiple-choice examinations. Performance assessments, used in concert with more traditional forms of assessment, are designed to provide a more complete picture of student achievement.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

The purpose of performance assessment is to evaluate the actual process of learning English. Performance assessments examine students’ actual application of knowledge to answer different question related to a certain text. The assessment of students’ knowledge focuses on the performance and the result.

In this respect, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Develop ability to apply systematic procedures

Authentically utilize resource tests, laboratory equipment, and computers

Develop ability to use scientific methodology and solve complex problems

Apply and evaluate multiple approaches

Instructor teaching outcomes

Bridges gap between learning and assessment

Involved factors

Performance assessment strategies are composed of three distinct parts: a performance task, a format in which the student responds, and a predetermined scoring system. Tasks are assignments designed to assess a student’s ability to manipulate equipment for a given purpose. Students can either complete the task in front of a panel of judges or use a written response sheet. The student is then scored by comparing the performance against a set of written criteria. When used with students with highly varying abilities, performance tasks can take maximum advantage of judging student abilities by using tasks with multiple correct solutions. Performance assessments are typically inappropriate for measuring student knowledge of facts.

Portfolios

Student portfolios are a collection of evidence, prepared by the student and evaluated by the faculty member, to demonstrate mastery, comprehension, application, and synthesis of a given set of concepts. To create a high quality portfolio, students must organize, synthesize, and clearly describe their achievements and effectively communicate what they have learned.

Portfolio assessment strategies provide a structure for long-duration, in-depth assignments. The use of portfolios transfers much of the responsibility of demonstrating mastery of concepts from the professor to the student.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

The overall goal of the preparation of a portfolio is for the learner to demonstrate and provide evidence that he or she has mastered a given set of learning objectives. More than just thick folders containing student work, portfolios are typically personalized, long-term representations of a student’s own efforts and achievements. Whereas multiple-choice tests are designed to determine what the student doesn’t know, portfolio assessments emphasize what the student does know.

In this respect, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Develop ability to communicate scientific conceptions accurately

Develop ability to write effectively using graphics as support

Develop ability to relate principle concepts to real-world applications

Develop ability to cite sources and references appropriately

Develop ability to synthesize and integrate information and ideas

Develop ability to be reflective and effectively conduct self-assessment

Develop ability to think creatively and critically

Instructor teaching outcomes

Bridge gap between learning and assessment

Involved factors

Student portfolios are a collection of evidence to demonstrate mastery, comprehension, application, and synthesis of a given set of concepts. The evidence can be presented in a three-ring binder, a multimedia tour, or a series of short papers. A unique aspect of a successful portfolio is that it also contains explicit statements of self-reflection. Statements accompanying each item describe how the student went about mastering the material, why the presented piece of evidence demonstrates mastery, and why mastery of such material is relevant to contexts outside the classroom.

Portfolio assessments provide students and faculty with a direct view of how students organize knowledge into overarching concepts. As such, portfolios are inappropriate for measuring students’ levels of factual knowledge or for drill-and-skill activities and accordingly should be used in concert with more conventional forms of assessment. Similarly, student work completed beyond the context of the classroom is occasionally subject to issues of academic dishonesty.

Scoring Rubrics

Rubrics are a way of describing evaluation criteria based on the expected outcomes and performances of students. Typically, rubrics are used in scoring or grading written assignments or oral presentations. They may be used, however, to score any form of student performance. Each rubric consists of a set of scoring criteria and point values associated with these criteria. In most rubrics, the criteria are grouped into categories so the instructor and the student can discriminate among the categories by level of performance. In classroom use, the rubric provides an objective external standard against which student performance may be compared.

Rubrics provide a readily accessible way of communicating and developing our goals with students and the criteria we use to discern how well students have reached them.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

To improve the reliability of scoring written assignments and oral presentations

To convey goals and performance expectations of students in an unambiguous way

To convey grading standards or point values and relate them to performance goals

To engage students in critical evaluation of their own performance

In this respect, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Communicating about the discipline in a variety of ways

Improve writing skills

The quality of reasoning and logic increases

Instructor teaching outcomes

Gather a variety of data about students’ understanding and performance

Involved factors

Scoring rubrics are scoring tools that enable instructors to assign points to students’ assignments and tests. One challenge in developing and using rubrics is that of describing performance expectations and defining the criteria that differentiate several levels of performance. Quantitative descriptors may be helpful in differentiating among performance levels, whereas variables such as vague or concise must be described clearly so that students see the differences between a statement that is vague and a statement that is concise. Additionally, no assessment tool is effective if it is not used on a regular basis. Developing effective rubrics requires revision based on feedback from students.

Weekly Reports

Weekly reports are papers written by students each week that address the following 3 questions:

1. What did student learn this week?

2. What remained unclear to him ?

3. If he were the professor, what questions would he ask his students to find out if they understood the material?

Weekly reports provide rapid feedback regarding what students believe they are learning and various conceptual difficulties they are experiencing.

In this respect, assessment purposes are:

To document students’ understanding of their own learning

To investigate how well students understand the content and logical relationships in the material they are learning

To document students’ questions and select the most typical ones

To give students feedback concerning the content and the level of difficulty of questions they consider important

To capture the development of students’ reasoning and writing skills over time

To provide a measure of students’ emotional satisfaction with the course and their levels of frustration with its content

In this respect, teaching goals are:

Student learning outcomes

Understand the difference between observational facts, concepts, principles, and theories

Communicate in writing effectively

Ask important questions

Reflect on own knowledge and learning

Instructor teaching outcomes

Answer students’ questions on a regular basis

Bridge gap between learning and assessment

Communicate desire for student success

Develop and refine instruction based on student feedback

Receive regular feedback from students

Track typical questions

Involved factors

A weekly report is a paper that students compose each week to analyze and reflect on what they have learned. It consists of three questions aimed at general concepts, uncertainties, and evaluation of comprehension.

When done well, weekly reports may provide a useful and easily accessible way of probing three aspects of students’ knowledge.

Cognitive aspects: To be useful, students must provide a well-structured, in-depth exposition of the concepts, principles, and theories they have studied, trying to explain how they learned what they think they did.

Affective aspects: Ideally, the response provides evidence of students’ feelings, attitudes, and beliefs about the content, the course, and the instructor.

Meta-cognitive aspects: Responses to all three questions provide information about students’ understanding of their own learning.

Perhaps the most significant limitation of weekly reports is that students need practice with the technique in order to provide useful feedback to the instructor. Normally, however, this limitation can be overcome in a matter of a few weeks.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Choose one response or complete the empty spaces with an appropriate one. The questionnaire has anonymous and the data below are necessary to a study. Thank you for your cooperation!

Do you like how the English class unfolds?

Yes

No

Do you have an English textbook?

Yes

No

How do you get along with your classmates?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What activity do you enjoy most during the English lessons?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

How do you appreciate the collaboration between you and your English teacher?

Very good

Good

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory

You are allowed to choose one or more answers. You would like to improve:

Your English teacher’s behaviour towards you

School’s material basis

The collaboration between you and the English teacher

Other……………….

What other activities would you like to be organized by your English teacher?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What do you think it is important for the English teacher when he/she evaluates the students?

the initiative

the creativity

the logic

the accuracy of information

the ability to communicate

thorough learning

something else

On a scale from 1 to 10, how do you appreciate how effective your English teacher is?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What do you think about your English textbook?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Which is the best aspect about English classes?

The English teacher uses innovative methods

I can learn English

I can learn about new cultures

English stimulates my creative potential

Other………………………………………….

Which is the worst aspect about English classes?

There are a lot of grammar exercises

Time is too short

There is noise in the classroom

The teacher is not effective

Nothing

Other…………………………………………………

Give an advice regarding the English activity during classes!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Among the aspects listed below, choose one that you believe is positive about the English class:

Methodically well-trained teacher

Scientifically well-trained teacher

The use of new teaching and varied methods

Students are involved in evaluation

Optimal conditions for lessons

The existence of some extracurricular activities

Another option………………………………………………….

Do you consider that your communicative abilities improved on the strength of English classes activity?

To a very great extent

To a great extent

To a satisfactory extent

To a small extent

Not at all

How do you appreciate you English knowledge?

Excellent

Very good

Good

Satisfactory

I don’t know English language

Which activities had a relevant impact on you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Which seems to be the most interesting part of an English class?

Grammar and vocabulary

Listening and conversation

I don’t know

Which seems to be the most appropriate assessment method?

Oral examination

Written tests

Reports and essays

Portfolio

Class activity

Bringing arguments to a new lesson

Which seems to be the most appropriate teaching methods? (multiple choices)

Dictation

Summarizing

Educational games

AEL (e-learning)

Documentation sheets

Practical works

Do you consider the English teacher has outdated teaching methods?

Yes

No

I don’t know

How often do you use English language during leisure?

Daily

Often enough

Rare

Never

How old are you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What grade are you in?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Are you a boy or a girl?

Boy

Girl

Thank you!

Analysis of the present research results

Analyzing the results of the present research, starting with the first question, one could observe that 80% of the respondents gave a positive answer, while 20% of them said that they do not like how the English class unfolds.

Talking about the possession of an English textbook, of the 100 respondents, only 5 gave negative answers. In this respect, one may consider that those five respondents either do not have financial possibilities or they are not interested in English class. In order to improve this aspect, the English teacher will make five photocopies to her textbook from her own funds and she will give them to those five children.

Being questioned about the way children of secondary school get along with their classmates, 70 said that they have a good relation, 9 of them considered that they have best friends among their classmates, while 8 children recognized that they fight sometimes. At the opposite pole there were 4 respondents saying that they do not care about their colleagues and 2 of them do not even know the names of their classmates. Also, there were 7 students who did not give an answer.

Being interviewed about the most enjoyed activity during the English class, 50 students preferred to watch documentary movies without subtitle, 35 respondents said that they would like to listen to audio tales, while 10 of them enjoy completing worksheets. Of all respondents, only 5 enjoyed to correct the homework.

Regarding the collaboration between students and their English teacher, 66% of the respondents agreed its level is a good one. At the opposite, 2% of them considered that they have an unsatisfactory collaboration.

Being interviewed about what they would like to improve, 52% of students considered that school’s material basis needs a melioration, while only 6% agreed that their English teacher’s behaviour towards them should be improved. In this regard, both school and teacher will make efforts in order to offer students a more effective pedagogical framework.

At activity level, in students’ opinion, there are many types of activities that the English teacher should organize. This way, children would prefer a trip to England (36%), thematic days (28%), smartboard activities (15%), training for different English contests (12%) and bingo games (9%). In children’s opinion, is essential the English teacher to be very creative and close to their needs.

When the English teacher evaluates the secondary school students, the most important element is their creativity (from the point of view of 35% students) . Creativity is followed by student’s logic (20%), their ability to communicate (15%), their initiative (13%), the accuracy of information (9%) and their thorough learning (8%).

On a scale from 1 to 10, 94 respondents evaluated at the maximum values (9 and 10) their English teacher’s efficiency in teaching, while 6 students evaluated at medium values (7 and 8). In this respect, one may observe that the English teacher is effective, but sometimes, he/ she may need to improve his/ her way of teaching.

When secondary school students were asked about their textbook, 70 of them considered it is complete and very useful, but 23 of them said that it has both interesting stories and difficult exercises. From all 100 respondents, 7 of them considered the textbook to be hard to understand, having a lot of pages.

In secondary school students’ opinion, the best aspect about English class is that the English teacher uses innovative methods (55%). Also, 23% of the students agreed that they can learn English, a percentage of 13% considered that English stimulates their creative potential and only 9% think that they can learn about new cultures.

The majority of interviewed secondary school students (41) considered that nothing is worst about English classes. Different from them, 35 students agreed that time is too short and 24 complained about the multitude of grammar exercises and about the existence of noise in the classroom.

Being kindly requested to give an advice regarding the English activity during classes, students said that they want less homework (33%) and grammar exercises (22%), more reading (27%), movies (12%) and pauses (6%).

Among the given aspects, the one considered to be the most positive about the English class was that of the use of new and varied teaching methods (25 answers), followed by that regarding the fact that students are involved in evaluation (18 answers). 16 answers were given for methodically well-trained teacher and for optimal conditions for lessons. 14 students appreciate the existence of come extracurricular activities, while 11 responses were given for scientifically well-trained teacher. Neither of the students gave another option.

Analyzing if students consider that their communicative abilities were improved on the strength of English class activities, 48 of them agreed that they improved to a very great extent, 35 – to a great extent, 10- to a satisfactory extent, 5- to a small extent and 2- not at all. In this context, the English teacher will try to integrate those 2 children in other groups where they can achieve important information as others can do, while for the others, the professor will improve their abilities by means of different class and extracurricular activities.

Regarding students’ English knowledge, most of them appreciate it at a very good level (60 respondents). The rest of them consider to know English at an excellent level, 18, at a good one, while 9 of them, at a satisfactory one. At the same time, one student does not know English language. For him and for those who know English language at a satisfactory level, the English teacher will propose a thorough study, aiming them to achieve an improvement in their knowledge.

Concerning the activity with a major impact on students, prevail those of completing worksheets (24%) and thematic days (22%), while at the opposite pole are situated those of listening to old English music (6%)

For a percentage of 52% of students, listening and conversation seem to be the most interesting parts of an English class. Also, grammar an vocabulary are preferred by 44% of secondary school students, while 4% do not know what answer to give about the most interesting part of an English class.

For secondary school students, the most appropriate assessment methods are portfolio (30 answers) and reports & essays (26 answers).

Analyzing the most appropriate teaching methods, educational games are the winner with 30 answers. At the opposite, there is dictation with only 8 answers. In this respect, one may observe that children prefer innovative methods instead traditional ones.

Talking about English teaching, most of the students considered that their English teacher do not have outdated methods (86%). So, it is clear that the English teacher from the Technological High School, Gheaba village, Măneciu commune has an innovative style of teaching, based on creativity and student’s- centered.

During leisure, the majority of students use English language often enough (65%), 24% of them use it rare, while 7% use it daily and 4%, never.

60 of the interviewed respondents are 14 years old, 25 of them are 13 years old and 15 of them are 15 years old. In this respect, one may observe that they study in VIIth and VIIIth grade.

58 students who were interviewed during the English class study in the VIIth grade, while other 42 respondents study in the VIIIth grade,

Talking about interviewed student’s gender, 54 of them were girls, while 46 were boys.

CONCLUSION

Specialists mention “communicative” as the methodology of choice. Nevertheless, when pressed to give a detailed account of what they mean by “communicative,” there were varied explanations. Communicative language teaching depends on its goal. Its aim is that of teaching communicative competence. But what is the meaning of this term? The meaning of this term can be deduced by making a comparison with grammatical competence. A key issue is that of assessment and the way learners can be assessed: in accordance with the content knowledge, with the language use or both. Before making a selection of alternatives to traditional testing, it is important to consider criteria regarding their appropriate use.

The main purpose of any student assessment should be the one of improving student learning. The process of selecting appropriate assessment methods and instruments is directly dependant on the purpose of assessment. If this purpose is the one of determining that students have learned some important concepts or skills, this may have effects in a different instrument or approach than if the purpose is to provide feedback to students.

Assessment is considered to be part of the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment cycle as an integral process. Assessment implies evaluating student learning by collecting evidence about it, interpreting the obtained information and making different judgments about students’ performance.

The assessment during the process of instruction is about pupils’ learning progress, but also about the manner teachers provide knowledge to their students.

Talking about gaining school experience, teachers should to be very careful about the quality of curriculum practice and learning assessment in secondary school education.

Regarding students’ learning progress and their attained competences, assessment need to have variety of information, in order to determine the degree to which pupils have attained the learning goals. Many techniques represented by students’ formal and informal observation during the learning process, paper and pencil tests, performance on assignments, research projects, presentations and so on, may be useful while assessing students.

Assessment for learning takes place in the moment that teachers make deductions about student progress in order to inform their teaching. This type of assessment is frequent, formal or informal, in the last category being included some quality questioning, written comments or anecdotal notes, entrenched in the teaching process and providing clear and timely feedback.

Assessment of learning occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards.

Nowadays, the predominant type of assessment in schools is represented by the assessment of learning. It has a summative purpose, it intends to certify learning and report to parents and students about students’ progress in school, usually by signalling students’ relative position compared to other students.

The initial assessment of English language proficiency has the following purpose: a teacher should obtain information regarding the student’s proficiency in listening, reading, writing and speaking.

In this respect, the major objective of the present research is to outline new methods and techniques of assessing English language knowledge, emphasizing the effectiveness of assessment methods and techniques used at secondary level, with a case study on the Technological High School in Geaba village, Maneciu commune. The research was based on a questionnaire and its objectives were achieved.

References

Adkisson, C., & McCoy, L. P. (2006). A study of teachers’ perceptions of high school mathematics instructional methods. Studies in teaching

Aggarwal, J.C. Development of Planning Modern Education. Delhi: Vikas Publishing 1990

Ahmad, M. (2008). Comprehensive dictionary of education. Atlantic Publishers & Dist.

Akker, van den. (2003).Curriculum Perspectives: An Introduction. In .V.dan Akker, W.Kuiper & U.Hamyer (eds). Curriculum landscapes and Trends

Akker, van den. (2003).Curriculum Perspectives: An Introduction. In .V.dan Akker, W.Kuiper & U.Hamyer (eds). Curriculum landscapes and Trends

Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (1996). Language testing in practice: Designing and developing useful language tests (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press.

Beglar, David, and Alan Hunt (2002). Implementing task-based language teaching. In Jack Richards and Willy Renandya (eds). Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press

Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning. Harlow: Longman/Pearson Education

Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1989). Intentional learning as a goal of instruction. Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser

Bernstein, M. S., Little, G., Miller, R. C., Hartmann, B., Ackerman, M. S., Karger, D. R., & Panovich, K. (2015). Soylent: a word processor with a crowd inside. Communications of the ACM, 58(8)

Biehler, R. F., & Snowman, J. (1997). Cooperative Learning: Background Knowledge.

Biondi, L.A. (2001). Authentic assessment strategies in fourth grade. EDU: Collaborative Action Research, Mangrove College

Black, P and William. (1998).Assessment and Classroom learning. Assessment in Education 5(1)

Black, P and William. (1998).Assessment and Classroom learning. Assessment in Education, 5(1)

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2006). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Granada Learning.

Black, P., and William, D. (2004). Inside the Black Box: Phi-Delta Kappan, 86(1)

Black, P., Harrison, C., & Lee, C. (2003). Assessment for learning: Putting it into practice. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). The nature of value of formative assessment for learning. Improving Schools, 6, 7-22.

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessmentfor learning., Milton Keynes: Open University

Bloom, L. M. (1968). Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars.

Bloxham*, S., & West, A. (2004). Understanding the rules of the game: marking peer assessment as a medium for developing students' conceptions of assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 29(6).

Boud, D. (1990). Assessment and the Promotion of Academic Values. Studies in Higher Education 15(5)

Brookhart, S. M., Moss, C. M., & Long, B. A. (2009). Promoting student ownership of learning through high-impact formative assessment practices.Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, 6(12), 52-67.

Brookhart, S.M. (1997).A theoretical framework for the role of classroom assessment in motivating effort and achievement. Applied measurement in education 10(2), 161-180

Brookhart, S.M. (2001). Successful students’ formative and summative use of assessment information. Assessment in education 8,153-169

Brumfit, Christopher (1984). Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Brumfit, Christopher (1984). Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge

Bryony, H., & Ulf, F. (2008). Learning to Learn: What is it and can it be measured. Current Literature Review in Education

Careless, D. (2004). Converting assessment into learning. Theoretical and Practical perspectives. Paper Presented at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Unpublished

Charles, A. J. (2000). Assessing reading. Cambridge University Press

Counts, M. W. (1993). Mathematical Sciences Education Board, National Research Council.

Crooks, T. J. (1988). Assessing student performance. Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.

Davidson, L., Scripp, L., Gordon, E., Linn, R., & Miller, M. D. (2005). Measurement and assessment in teaching., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Devarajan, S., Rajkumar, A. S., & Swaroop, V. (1999). What Does Aid to Africa Finance?.Manitoba King, J. E. (2006). Gender equity in higher education: 2006. American Council on Education.Earl, 2003

Earl, L., Torrance, N., Sutherland, S., Fullan, M., & Ali, A. (2003). Manitoba school improvement program: Final evaluation report. Toronto: Ontario The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education ofthe University of Toronto.

Education, A. (2010). Inspiring action on education. Edmonton, AB: Author. Retrieved from http://ideas. education. alberta. ca/media/2905/inspiringaction% 20eng. pdf.

Education, M. (2008). Citizenship and Youth.(2006). Belonging, learning, growing: Kindergarten to Grade 12 action plan for ethnocultural equity.

Feez, S., and H. Joyce (1998). Text-Based Syllabus Design. Australia: Macquarie University

Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (2005). Understanding student differences. Journal of engineering education, 94(1)

Ferrini-Mundy, J., Graham, K., & Johnson, L. (1993, April). Recognizing and recording reform in mathematics education: Focus on the NCTM Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics and Professional standards for teaching mathematics. In Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, GA.

Filer, A. (2003). Assessment: Social Practice and Social Product. London: Rutledge

Filer, A. (2003). Assessment: Social Practice and Social Product. London: Rutledge

Filer, A. (2003). Socio-historical and cultural contexts of assessment policy. London: Routledge

Frank & Wagrall, C. (1987). Encyclopedia of Education. London: Oxford University Press

Gačić, M. (2009). Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning.

Garfield, J. B. (1994). Beyond testing and grading: Using assessment to improve student learning. Journal of statistics education, 2(1), 1-11. available at http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v2n1/garfield.html

Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods.

Gipps, C. (1999). Socio-cultural aspects of assessment. Review of research in education, 24

Girish, V., & Vijayalakshmi, A. (2004). Affordable image analysis using NIH Image/ImageJ. Indian journal of cancer, 41(1), 47.

GITOMER, D., & DUSCHL, R. A. (1997). 7.2 Emerging Issues and Practices in Science Assessment. International handbook of teachers and teaching, 2

Glaser, R. (1963). Instructional technology and the measurement of learing outcomes: Some questions. American psychologist, 18(8)

Goldstein, I. L., Emanuel, J. T., & Howell, W. C. (1968). Effect Of Percentage And Specificity Of Feedback On Choice Behavior In A Probabilistic Information-Processing Task. Journal of Applied Psychology, 52(2)

Greenstein, L. (2010). What teachers really need to know about formative assessment. ASCD.

Gronlund, G. (2003). Focused early learning: A planning framework for teaching young children. St. Paul, MN: RedleafPress.

Guskey, T. R. (2005). Five Key Concepts Kick off the Process: Professional Development Provides the Power to Implement Standards. Journal of Staff Development, 26(1), 36-40.

Hamp-Lyons, L. (2007). The impact of testing practices on teaching. InInternational handbook of English language teaching (pp. 487-504). Springer US.

Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon. (First published 1979, Strasbourg: Council of Europe.)

Hulstijn, J. (2003). Incidental learning and intentional learning. The handbook of second language acquisition

Ibrahim, K.. 1990, Effective Teaching. Journal of Elementary Education. Lahore:; Vol.1

James, D. (2003).Making the graduate. Perspectives on student experience of assessment in higher education. In Ann Filer (2003). Assessment: Social practice and social product. London: Rutledge

Kulhavy, R. W., & Stock, W. A. (1989). Feedback in written instruction: The place of response certitude. Educational Psychology Review, 1(4)

Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The postmethod condition:(E) merging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL quarterly, 28(1), available at http://bkumaravadivelu.com/articles%20in%20pdfs/1994%20Kumaravadivelu%20Postmethod%20Condition.pdf

Little, D. (1991). Learner Autonomy 1: Definitions, Issues and Problems. Dublin: Authentik.

Littlewood, W. (1981). Communicative Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press

Long, M. H., & Doughty, C. (Eds.). (2003). The handbook of second language acquisition . Oxford, England: Blackwell.

Lundeberg, M. A., & Fox, P. W. (1991). Do laboratory findings on test expectancy generalize to classroom outcomes?. Review of Educational Research, 61(1)

Malhotra, A., Noakes, T., & Phinney, S. (2015). It is time to bust the myth of physical inactivity and obesity: you cannot outrun a bad diet. British journal of sports medicine, bjsports-2015.

Marzano, R. J. (2000). Introduction to the Special Section Implementing Standards in Schools Updating the Standards Movement. NASSP Bulletin,84(620)

Marzano, R. J. (2000). Transforming classroom grading. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

McKay, S. L. (2006). Researching second language classrooms. Routledge.

Mcmillan, H.J. (2003). Understanding and improving teachers’ classroom assessment decision making: implication for theory and practice.Educational measurement: issues and practice 22(4)

Meherens, W.A., and Lehmann, J.I. (1991). Measurement and Evaluation in Education & Psychology (4th ed). Wadsworth: Thomson learning

Meherens, W.A., and Lehmann, J.I. (1991). Measurement and Evaluation in Education & Psychology (4th ed). Wadsworth: Thomson learning

Mikre, F. (2010). Review Article: The roles of assessment in curriculum practice and enhancement of learning. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 5(2).

Moore, B. (2009). Emotional Intelligence for School Administrators: A Priority for School Reform?. American Secondary Education

Mursill, J.L. (1954) Successful Teaching (2nd ed). Tokiyo: McGraw Hell Book Company Inc

Nitko, A.J. (2004). Educational Assessment of Students (4th ed).Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall

Nitko, A.J. (2004). Educational Assessment of Students (4th ed).Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall

Nokes, T. J., Schunn, C. D., & Chi, M. T. (2010). International encyclopedia of education.

Nunan, D. (1991). Methods in second language classroom-oriented research.Studies in second language acquisition, 13(02), 249-274.

Nunan, D. (1991). Language teaching methodology: A textbook for teachers. Prentice hall.

Nunan, D. (1991). Understanding language classrooms: A guide for teacher-initiated action. Prentice Hall Internat..

O’Farrell, C. (2002). Enhancing student learning through assessment. available at http://www.tcd.ie/teaching-learning/academic-development/assets/pdf/250309_assessment_toolkit.pdf

O’Farrell, C. (2004). Enhancing [anonimizat] through Assessment. A Toolkit Approach'. Centre for Academic Practice and Student Learning (CAPSL) Dublin Institute of Technology, 2004 Updated, 2009 University of Dublin Trinity College.

O’Farrell, C. (2014). Challenges and Opportunities for Teaching and Learning in Irish Higher Education. In Higher Education in Ireland (pp. 233-252). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

OECD. (2005). OECD Communications Outlook 2005. OECD Publishing.

Pratt, D. (1998). Curriculum planning: A handbook for professionals. London: Harcourt Brace College Publishers

Rafiee, G., Moattari, M., Nikbakht, A. N., Kojuri, J., & Mousavinasab, M. (2014). Problems and challenges of nursing students’ clinical evaluation: A qualitative study. Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research, 19(1)

Ramaprasad, A. (1983). On the definition of feedback. Behavioral Science,28(1)

Richards, J. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today.

Richards, J. C. (1979). Rhetorical and communicative styles in the new varieties of English. Language Learning, 29(1), 1-25.

Richards, J. C. (1998). Teaching in action: Case studies from second language classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Richards, J. C. (2006). Cooperative learning and second language teaching.

Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2014). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge University Press.

Richards, Jack C., and Theodore Rodgers (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rožman Laura, Koren Andrej (2013)Learning to Learn as a Key Competence and Setting Learning Goals, available at http://econpapers.repec.org/bookchap/tkpmklp13/1211-1218.htm

Rudner, L. M., & Schafer, W. D. (2002). What teachers need to know about assessment. Washington, DC: National Education Association.

Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional science, 18(2)

Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional science, 18(2)

Sadler, D. R. (2009). Indeterminacy in the use of preset criteria for assessment and grading. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(2)

Saito Mak A., Goepfert Tyler J. ,2008, Some thoughts on the concept of colimitation: Three definitions and the importance of bioavailability available at http://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/Saito,_Goepfert,_Ritt_-_2008__Some_thoughts_on_the_concept_of_colimitation_Three_definitions_and_the_importance_of_bioavailability_91524.pdf

Scharle, A., & Szabo, A. (2000). Autonomy in language learning: a guide to developing learner responsibility. Cambridge University Pres

Scharle, A., & Szabo, A. (2000). Learner autonomy: A guide to learner responsibility. Cambridge University Pres

Shepard, L.M. (2001). The role of classroom assessment in teaching and learning. In V. Richardson(ed), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed). Washington: AERA

Shulman, L. S. (1991). Ways of seeing, ways of knowing: Ways of teaching, ways of learning about teaching. J. Curriculum Studies, 23(5), 393-395.

Shute, V. J. (2007). Focus on formative feedback. ETS Research Report Series, 2007(1), i-47 available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2333-8504.2007.tb02053.x/pdf

Skehan, P. (1996). A framework for the implementation of task-based instruction. Applied linguistics, 17(1)

Skehan, P. (1996). Second language acquisition research and task-based instruction. In J. Willis and D. Willis (eds). Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. Oxford: Heinemann.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Some contributions of an experimental analysis of behavior to psychology as a whole. American Psychologist, 8(2)

Skinner, B. F., & Holland, J. G. (1960). The use of teaching machines in college instruction. Teaching machines and programmed learning: A source book

Snowman, J., & Biehler, R. F. (1997). Cooperative learning. Psychology Applied to Teaching

Stetson, C., Fiesta, M. P., & Eagleman, D. M. (2007). Does time really slow down during a frightening event?. PLoS One, 2(12), e1295.

Stiggins, R. J. (2004). Classroom assessment for student learning: doing it right–using it well. Assessment Training Institute.

STIGGINS, R., & CHAPPUIS, J. iit e an e/ASSESSMENT available at http://grading.dmschools.org/uploads/1/0/4/8/10487804/whatadifferenceawordmakes.pdf

Stiggins, R.J. (1992).Relevant classroom assessment training for teachers. Educational measurement: issue and practice10 (1)

Stiggins, R.J. (2001).student-involved classroom assessment (3rd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

St-Pierre, N. R. (2003). Reassessment of biases in predicted nitrogen flows to the duodenum by NRC 2001. Journal of dairy science, 86(1)

Stringher, C. (2006). Learning competence: an Italian exploratory research in elementary schools. In Learning to learn network meeting Report from the second meeting of the network. Ispra: CRELL/JRC.

Successful school leadership: What it is and how it influences pupil learning. Department for Education and Skills, 2006.

Thanasoulas, D. (2000). What is learner autonomy and how can it be fostered. The Internet TESL Journal, 6(11)

The Council of Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2015

The Report of Learning to Learn – The Way Forward in Curriculum Development (2001) available at http://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/cs-curriculum-doc-report/wf-in-cur/index.html

Trigwell, K., Prosser, M., & Waterhouse, F. (1999). Relations between teachers' approaches to teaching and students' approaches to learning. Higher education,37(1),available at http://202.116.45.198/kcyjxl/jxtj/pdf/23/3%E3%80%81relations%20between%20teachers'%20approaches%20to%20teaching%20and%20students'%20approaches%20to%20learning.pdf

Tyler, R. W. (1949). Educational problems in other professions. Education for Librarianship. Am. Library Assn.

University Press

Vijayalakshmi,K.S. Teaching Strategies: Present Practices and Future Directions.New Delhi:APH Publishing Corporation 2004.

Walvoord, B. E., & Anderson, V. J. (1998). Effective grading: A toolfor learning andassessment.

Weeden, P., Winter, J., & Broadfoot, P. (2002). Assessment. Psychology Press.

Wiggins, G. P. (1993). Assessing student performance: Exploring the purpose and limits of testing. Jossey-Bass.

Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. Pearson PTR.

Wright, et.al (1997).Teacher and classroom context effects on student achievement: Implication for teacher evaluation. Journal of personnel Evaluation in Education