Assessing Young Learners

Assessing young language learners from Silvia Ariza

Test Design

I have already posted about the different ways we can assess students without using tests, exams, quizes, etc. I have highlighted the importance of the use of the alternative methods in education, as they are useful for teacher to give formative feedback to students inmediately and also aiming to encourage other teachers to use them too.

However, I can not deny that tests and summative assessment are important as well.

Tests are a measurement tool to keep track of students´ performance in certain domain. It is important that test are practical, reliable, that they have face validity, that they are authentic and also that they provide students with washback.

It is important that when we are designing a test, we take into account aspects such us the purpose of the tests, the specific goals we want students to achieve with the test, clear instructions, how the scoring is going to be and finally how feedback is going to be given to students.

There are different types of tests:

• Language Aptitude tests: focus on predict if a student will or will be not successful at learninig a language. It doesn´t mean that peopla can´t learn a language but these can of exams mainly want to see ¨how well ¨ learning will be.
• Proficiency tests: they assess the aspects of the language, how good or how bad a student is in the language. They are summative and feedback is very difficult to provide.
• Placement tests: they are useful to locate students is certain level of the language program or school taking into account their performance. 
• Diagnostic tests:  they help the teacher and learners to identify problems that they may have with the language. For example, in the first day of class at school or in an institute the teacher may apply a diagnotic test to see what areas of languega should be skipped and which ones should be included in the syllabus.
• Achievement tests: their main function is to find out if the objectives have been met. They are directly related to the classroom lesson, units or even a total curriculum.

    Steps to take into account:

• Assess clear, unambigous Objectives:  examining the objectives and determining the approìatness of them.
• Draw up test specification: making a broad outline of the test, establishing which skills are going to be tested, and deciding how items will look like.
• Devise test task:  take into account face validity to see how students oerceive the test, real-life contexts and language, cultural shock and potencial difficulties.

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