Читать книгу The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics - Carol A. Chapelle - Страница 67

The confluence of constructivist learning principles, sociocultural views of assessment, and task‐based communicative approaches in language teaching has resulted in the use of multiple approaches to language assessment that extend the repertoire of tools and resources of teachers to support classroom learning. These tools go beyond paper‐and‐pencil or online tests at the end of a unit of learning. The language and greater educational communities have embraced a broad range of performance‐based curricular projects or products as expressions of learning. These encompass student models, exhibitions, and multimedia presentations, coupled with accompanying rubrics or performance criteria. Additionally, portfolio assessment focuses on the collection of an integrated set of language and content tasks that are embedded within instructional activities.

This expansion of what is acceptable as evidence extends to include an array of assessment approaches useful in the language classroom to meet an array of purposes and student characteristics during teaching and learning. The terms assessment as, for, and of learning (reframed from formative and summative assessment) represent this growth of assessment approaches that moves toward elevating the status of those which are instructionally focused and learner driven (Gottlieb, 2016). In addition, recently coined student‐centered assessment or learner‐oriented assessment are also more inclusive of the role of students in the assessment process (Carless, 2015; Jones & Saville, 2016; Turner & Purpura, 2016).

Figure 2 presents a table (based on an adaptation of Sigman & Mancuso, 2017) that displays a continuum of assessment purposes; it forms an integrated assessment system for language and content based on a time frame. Starting from minute to minute and continuing throughout the academic year, the continuum illustrates how assessment information is integral to the functioning of a classroom and beyond. These multiple assessment approaches highlight a shift in emphasis from ones that have been externally produced for accountability purposes to those which are teacher directed and internal to the classroom, reflective of the local context and individual students.

The classroom assessment literature describes various ways for teachers to collect and judge student performance as part of planned assessment activities within instruction (e.g., Coombe, Folse, & Hubley, 2007; Gottlieb, 2016). A sociocultural view of classroom assessment indicates that assessment also takes place throughout instruction as teachers engage with students, guide student‐to‐student communication, and monitor small group activities. It is the proximity of classroom assessment to instruction that reaps academic benefits for the students, especially for those learners who are actively engaged and receive or give specific timely feedback (Moss & Brookhart, 2009; Heritage, 2010; Wiliam, 2011).

In addition to changing how assessment data are collected, emerging practices in classroom assessment have sharpened the focus on what is assessed, by aligning assessment more closely to learning. When teachers align assessment to instructional objectives or learning targets and then tie them to success criteria, there is greater coherence and more valid inferences for informing decision making about teaching and learning. Thus, when assessment tasks, such as a debate or a dramatization, are designed in light of specific learning targets, such as features of argumentative or persuasive speech, the information collected provides evidence of student progress toward meeting those learning targets. The following section explores classroom assessment approaches more in depth and the usefulness of the information gleaned from each.

Figure 2 A continuum of assessment purposes, uses of data, and examples based on a time frame