Unit 18

ASSESSMENT TYPES AND TASKS

Assessment is an important part in language acquisition, for that using assessment tasks with students will help them to clarify all their doubts. We can assess learners informally and formally.  Is good to start with a diagnostic test to see what they know and do not know.  A progress test let us know how well learners have learnt what we already teach, but in order to have a formative assessment we do not have to forget about feedback, feedback let students be aware about their strengths and difficulties. Another way that will help students to let language be more remarkable for them is Portfolios a collection of learners´ work done during the course to present to the teacher.

Sometimes it is preferable to use informal assessment because students will perform the language in a freely way without worry about the structure, grammar, spelling and punctuation. As teachers at this point is remarkable to give them feedback. But it does not mean that it is not important formal assessment with formal assessment we can see the development of our students and also we can include objective and subjective tasks.

Here you have a chart were you can find:

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS OF LANGUAGE TESTING

TESTING FOCUS	SUBJECTIVE METHODS	OBJECTIVE METHODS
LISTENING	Open-Ended question and answer Note-Taking Interviews	Blank-filling Information transfer Multiple choice questions True/False questions Jumbled pictures
SPEAKING	Role plays Interviews Group discussions Describing pictures Information gap activities	Sentence repetition Sentence response to cues Question and answer (interview)
READING-COMPREHENSION	Open-ended comprehension Questions and answers in the target language or mother tongue Summary writing Note taking	Information transfer Multiple choice Questions True/False questions Jumbled sentences Jumbled paragraphs Cloze
WRITING	Guided writing e.g., letter Completion, re-writing, information transfer Free writing e.g., Compositions, essays	Blank filling Sentence joining

TESTING FOCUS		SUBJECTIVE METHODS		OBJECTIVE METHODS
GRAMMAR	Open-ended sentence Completion Re-writing		Expansion exercises Scrambled sentences Transformation exercises Multiple choice questions
FUNCTIONS	Giving appropriate responses Discourse chains Split dialogues		Matching Multiple choice questions Odd-man-out Listen and match
VOCABULARY	Compositions and essays Paraphrasing		Crossword Classification exercises Matching exercises Labeling

SOURCE: “Achievement Tests: Alms, Content and Some Testing Techniques” by Mary Spratt.

For  further information visit these webpages :

• Flinders.edu.au, (2014). Flinders University. [online] Available at: http://www.flinders.edu.au/teaching/teaching-strategies/assessment/tasks.cfm
•  App.griffith.edu.au, (2014). Assessment Matters. [online] Available at: http://app.griffith.edu.au/assessment-matters/docs/assessment-methods/tasks
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