TESL 0100- unit 8- reflections- ESL assessment

How do the ESL teachers assess students?
Teachers have been using tests to assess students's knowledge and understanding of a lesson. Giving test is really hard for students and it would be even harder for ESL students. When you are giving a test in a new language, you must be able to understand it and analyze it in order to give the write answer which is really hard for ESL students.
"One of the most common reasons why teachers shouldn’t only use tests is because students may have test anxiety. What tends to happen is that students are so nervous when presented with a test that they don’t do as well. You then aren’t able to see what the student is really capable of. For ELL students, they can be extra nervous because not only do they have to recall information they’ve learned, but they may have to decipher what the test question is asking in the first place" (Licain, S (n.d).
So, why tests doesn't work?
As Frost (2012) mentioned, there are many arguments against using tests as a form of assessment:

• Some students become so nervous that they can't perform and don't give a true account of their knowledge or ability
• Other students can do well with last-minute cramming despite not having worked throughout the course
• Once the test has finished, students can just forget all that they had learned
• Students become focused on passing tests rather than learning to improve their language skills.

So, how a teacher can assess the students without using tests?

There are many assessments that teachers can use before, during and after an activity to assess their students. The three main types of assessment are diagnostic, formative and summative and each has different purposes.

Summative
.used at the end of the learning process
. evaluates student learning against some standard or benchmark
. graded
.The goal is to evaluate student learning at the end of instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark
.example: multiple-choice questions

Formative. used during the learning process
.provides feedback on learning-in-process
.dialogue-based, ungraded
.formative assessments seek to determine how students are progressing through a certain learning goal
.example: informal questions, practice quizzes and one-minute papers

Diagnostic
.used at the beginning of the learning process
.allows a teacher to determine students' individual strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and skills prior to instruction
.allows a teacher to make sound instructional choices as to how to teach the new course content and what teaching approach to use
.attempts to quantify what students already know about a topic
.example: initial writing prompts, surveys

Here in this video you can see how English is assessing in an ELL classroom in Arlington, Virginia.

Now that we know different types of assessments, it is a good time to take a look at some ways of assessment that have been using in ESL classrooms. Lician (n.d) suggests 5 ways of assessment.

1. Rubrics and performance Criteria

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or

piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions

of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery.

A performance criteria can simply be a checklist of what to assess for each student. With either of these

assessment tools, it’s important to develop your own, as assessments are based on the teacher’s judgment.

There are different types of rubrics:

• Checklists: list of grading criteria that are completed/present 

• Rating Scales: include a continuum for scoring 

• Holistic Rubrics: overall description of the entire product/performance rather than the components 

• Analytic Rubrics: levels of performance are described for each criterion

2. Oral Presentations or Performances

A performance assessment is one which requires students to demonstrate that they have mastered specific skills and competencies by performing or producing something. Three advocates of performance assessment call for assessments of the following kind: designing and carrying out experiments; writing essays which require students to rethink, to integrate, or to apply information; working with other students to accomplish tasks; demonstrating proficiency in using a piece of equipment or a technique; building models; developing, interpreting, and using maps; making collections; writing term papers, critiques, poems, or short stories; giving speeches; playing musical instruments; participating in oral examinations; developing portfolios; developing athletic skills or routines, etc.

3. Non-verbal Assessments

This is a great activity for shy students or students who are not proficient in English. This assessment compiles any written activity such as fill in the blanks, matching words, writing a summary, etc. which the teacher can assess students without any oral comments. The teacher can give them feedback by using rubrics or checklists.

4. Written Assessments:

Written assessments are a nice way to see how students can apply their knowledge of English over a
wide variety of concepts. For example, you can use assignments to see just how well they understand
a text, or even different forms of writing.

Some different ways to incorporate written assessments in your class include:

. Creative and structured writing assignments: Ask students to write a creative story, or even give
them a writing prompt—where students read the beginning of a story and are asked to write the ending.

. Editing writing: Give students a piece of text with grammatical mistakes and ask them to correct it,
to test their knowledge of grammar.

. Reading response logs: Give students a list of questions, such as how do they know a character is
evil, or how would they change the ending of a story. When students are finished reading a book or
article, have them write down the answers to these questions. Make sure to only assess for content,
and not spelling or grammar, unless you specify to your students that you’re doing so.

. Content logs: Have students write down facts they learned about a text. You can also have them

write what parts they didn’t understand. This is helpful for you to see if there are concepts you may

need to reteach or review, particularly if a lot of students are confused about similar parts of the same
text.

With writing, don’t assess too much at once. For a writing piece, you could assess just spelling, complete

sentences or unity in paragraphs. Build it up to assess more than a few criteria once you see that your students

have mastered what you have taught them.

5. Portfolios:

A portfolio is a collection of student work that can demonstrate learning and be used as an effective
assessment tool. The portfolio complexity can range from a simple collection of teacher-identified student
assignments to a more complex student-driven product demonstrating learning standards with the teacher
evaluating mastery of content for a grade. A portfolio can be completed as a short-term project or a
comprehensive one that spans over the term.
Here is a video about portfolios:

Material you can include in a portfolio can include the following:
. performance criteria or rubrics
. recording of oral presentations
. tests
. writing samples, drafts and final copies
. book reports
. interview checklists

In order to best assess a student, you should include more than one kind of student work in the portfolio.
The work does not have to be the best work they’ve done, rather a wide variety is best. Based on your
judgment, you can even ask students for their opinion as to what types of work they should include.

In a portfolio, you are looking for any type of improvement in their work. For example, if you keep a
couple of a student’s writing pieces, look to see if their sentence or paragraph structure gets better. When
looking at tests, see if their spelling tests, for example, have gotten higher scores over time. If you notice
that they continually lack in certain skills, this would be the time to address it. You can either give the
student extra support in class or find ways for them to practice with extra work at home.

In Canada, most of English classes' assessments are based on portfolios (PBLA).Portfolio-Based Language Assessment (PBLA) is a teaching and assessment model designed to enhance nationwide consistency and standards of quality in English as a Second Language (ESL) training for adult newcomers to Canada. Although teacher can use different types of assessment during the term, at the end the portfolio will show students progress, strengths and weaknesses. Students can file their activities and assessments in their portfolios and look over them to see their improvement.

Overall, there are many ways to assess students like portfolio, written assessment, presentations,etc., but the most important thing is what to measure and how? Teachers have to know the lesson plans and when do they want to assess the students; this could be before, during or after a lesson or activity. The other thing that they have to consider is what to measure by assessment. Is it vocabulary? reading? writing? speaking? It has to be clear. Also, teachers have to give feedback to the students for further assessments.

Resources:

Licain, Sarah. (n.d). Watch Them Grow: 5 Non-test Alternatives for Assessing English Language Learners (blog post). FluentU English Educator Blog. Retrieved from: https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/assessing-english-language-learners/

Frost, Richard. (2012). Testing and Assessment [webpage]. British Council. Retrieved from: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/testing-assessment

Karkehabadi, Sharon. (2013). Using Rubrics to Measure and Enhance Student Performance. Northern Virginia Community College. Retrieved from https://www.nvcc.edu/assessment/_docs/FTW5.usingrubricsmeasurestuperf-spr13.pdf

Nash, Sherry. (n.d). What is a Student Portfolio? - Ideas & Examples [webpage]. Study.com. Retrieved from: https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-student-portfolio-ideas-examples.html

Teachings in Education (December 19, 2016). Student Portfolios for Classroom Assessment [video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sacuuqjHPXo

Colorincolorado (June 5, 2015). Assessment for ELLs [video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6fG4FmibEQ&t=7s