Assessment

Traditionally, educational assessment was the process of documenting

students knowledge, skills and attitudes. Nevertheless, the assessment system
has changed and nowadays it is seen not only as an instrument to judge, but
also as a useful instrument to teach and collect data in order to improve
teaching methods and strategies.
When establishing the assessment criteria, we consult first the
Administrations prescriptions, especially the laws issued by the government
regarding educational matters. In this case, the Order 15520/2007 i, issued on
December 14th 2007 and the Order issued on December 12 th 2007 [BORM 293,
published on December 21st 2007]ii state that there are several aims to be
considered at the moment of assessing our students:
- Inform the students of their learning progress by means of
formative assessment
- Test the progress of each student by means of a summative
assessment
- Guide the teacher to adapt the teaching unit to the students progress
According to the new tendencies in establishing the assessment criteria
and aims, in our days assessment should be for learning in classrooms and
elsewhere, not just of learning, as in formal, standardized tests. Moreover, in
an active and participative systems, assessment can also be included, as an
extra tool, in the learning techniques.
Assessment for learning design and practice have as highest priority the
purpose of promoting students learning. It thus differ from assessment
designed primarily to account, rank or certify competence.
The assessment for learning should be based on the sound principles iii.
We have selected some of the most relevant ones
1. Assessment for learning should be recognized as central to
classroom practice. Much of what teachers and learners do in
classrooms can be described as assessment. That is, tasks and
questions prompt learners to demonstrate their knowledge,
understanding, and skills.
2. Assessment for learning should be sensitive and constructive
because any assessment has an emotional impact. Teachers should
be aware of the impact that comments, marks, and grades can have on
learners' confidence and enthusiasm and should be as constructive as
possible in the feedback that they give.
3. Assessment for learning should take account of the importance
of learner motivation. Assessment that encourages learning fosters
motivation by emphasizing progress and achievement rather than failure.
4. Learners should receive constructive guidance about how to
improve. Learners need information and guidance in order to plan the
next steps in their learning. Teachers should pinpoint the learner's
strengths and offer advice about how to develop those strengths.
Feedback should be clear and constructive about any weaknesses and
how they might be addressed.
The first thing we should take into account is that in the assessment for
learning the starting point is the student. Since students generally construct

knowledge from what they already know, we will start with a diagnostic
assessment of previous knowledge, learning styles and dominant intelligences
in order to adapt the teaching contents to the students skills. Once again, the
teaching plan has to be seen as an open proposal which can be adjusted or
modified when necessary and actualized frequently.
A second reflections focus on the types of assessment we are going to
use, mainly continuous and periodic evaluation.
On the one hand, formative assessment evaluates students in the
process of forming their key and area competences. It is based on systematic
observation, on day-to-day monitoring and recording of students performances.
On the other hand, the summative assessment aims to measure or
reflect what a student has grasped through a period of time, in our case through
each unit. This kind of formal assessment is thought to help students acquire
the habit of constant study, which is crucial when learning a foreign language.
Constant tests will benefit the slower students too, because they will cover less
content and they will test fresh acquired and practiced contents. Other
advantages of periodical testing, according to cognitive psychologist Henry
Roediger (2011)iv, Professor of Psychology at Washington University, include
identifying gaps in knowledge and giving feedback to the instructor;
producing a better organization of knowledge and improving the transfer
of knowledge to new contents.
Assessment criteria
The assessment criteria will follow the objectives legally stated for 3 rd of
CSE (Murcian Decree 291/2007):
1. Understand and extract global and specific information (main ideas
and relevant details) from oral text on concrete and known topics and
from simple and clear audiovisual messages.
2. Take part in communicative interactions related to general situations
or topics of their interest, with different communicative aims, and use
conversation conventions and strategies for coping with incidental
difficulties that might arise during the oral interaction.
3. Read in a comprehensive and autonomous way different types of real
or graded written texts with the aim of extracting global and specific
information. Differentiate facts and opinions and identify the authors
communicative intention.
4. Write under guidance different types of texts, paying attention to
lexicon, structures and to the cohesive and coherence devices
necessary to produce a comprehensible text with interconnected
ideas.
5. Use consciously the previous knowledge of the English linguistic
system, in different communication contexts, as a means of selfcorrection and self-assessment of their personal oral and written
productions and as a means of understanding others productions.
6. Identify and use consciously different strategies to make progress in
learning.
7. Use Information and Communication Technologies in a progressive
autonomous way to search and select information, produce texts
following a model, send and receive emails, and to establish oral and
written personal relationships showing interest in their use.

8. Identify the most relevant cultural aspects from those countries where
the foreign language is spoken; signal the most significant
characteristics of the customs, attitudes and values of the society
whose language is being learned and value positively cultural norms
that are different to ours.
Assessment tools
Systematic observation. Daily observation and monitoring of the
students progress in learning and attitudes is the keystone of the evaluation
process. By its own nature, it has an important subjective component. However,
it is a vital tool since teachers should not take into account only the final goal,
but also the whole learning process. That is why 50% of the final grade will be
based on everyday work, both through the activities carried out in the classroom
and the individual or group work through the Moodle platform.
At this point, the main aspects to be taken into consideration are the Area
competences (70%) and the participation in (30%).
For the content areas section, the assessment will concern: English
production through the four skills (read and write, listen and speak) [3
points]; Grammar and vocabulary [2 points, because English production
englobes grammar and vocabulary in use] and Cultural aspects [2 points].
The rest of 3 points form this section will be distributed as following: use of
IT (1 point), social and civic competence (1 point) and sense of initiative and
participation (1 point).
Unit tests will be taken through the Moodle Platform, in the IT laboratory,
and will consist of a one minute listening (with no restrictions on the times they
reproduce it] with several tasks, freely finish sentences using a grammatical
pattern, reorder scrambled chunks of language, rewrites of different kind [order
paragraphs and insert connectors; change the end of the story, finish the
paragraphs so the whole text have a meaning etc.] and cultural questions with
T/F/ or T and F answers based on the materials worked during the reading
session. They will check three of the four skills: reading comprehension, writing
and listening, as well as vocabulary and grammar. The test will take 30 minutes
and after all the students have sent the exam to the Moodle Platform, feedback
will be given. Students can see their exam, but they cannot modify it. A general
knowledge quiz will follow for reducing stress. For the speaking, they will be
evaluated in the class production and they will have separate evaluations
through different exercises on Moodle [practicing pronunciation and record their
production; answering different questions on the topics discussed in the
classroom or recording themselves interacting in pairs or groups on a topic of
their choice].

http://www.docv.gva.es/datos/2007/12/21/pdf/2007_15520.pdf
http://www.borm.es/borm/documento?obj=anu&id=329911
iii
http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/A_Grand_Bargain/31_assessmentlearning.html
iv
Roediger, H. L., Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their applications to educational
practice. In J. Mestre & B. Ross (Eds.), Psychology of learning and motivation: Cognition in education (pp. 1-36)
[Available online:
http://www.hfmboces.org/hfmdistrictservices/techyes/prenskydigitalnatives.pdf ]
http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/BC_Roediger%20et%20al
%20%282011%29_PLM.pdf]
ii