Standard-Based Assessment

Although we could think that standardized tests are nowadays a trend, they have been aroudn for a while, and for this reason they have suffered changes through the pass of time. This type of test is a very useful instrument at the moment of assessing our students since they provide the same criteria for evaluating them, they are easy to grade and they aim to measure the same amount of knowledge in the same way for all of the test-takers. Another possitive aspect of standardized assessment is the fact that based on those established standards,  students of all ages and backgrounds can be evaluated and classified into a level, which will give institutions worldwide information about the knowledge of language test-takers have. This makes things easier, and we can't deny it, but... do these kind of tests really assess what we want to obtain in our objectives, or in the objectives of the institution?


Years ago, it was proved that those standardized tests that were applied did not match the students' needs, the instructional objectives or the practices carried out in class themselves. This shows that, in those cases, standardized tests were worthless, and did not manage to assess students in the right manner. 


Nowadays, through experience and research more accurate standardized tests have been created, and they are a tool for this globalized society that demands knowing, understanding and using the language. In this cases, these tests provide the necessary information to classify, monitor progress or prove mastery of the language; and, since the different skills of the language are included in those tests, they do not exclude the possible strengths or weaknesses students may have.
It seems to me that, eventhough the students' performance on these tests may be influenced by a lot of external factors, they are really helpful in our current learning environment, they are reliable and they try to put every test-taker under the same circumstances and rules.


I know there are negative aspects about these tests too, but at the same time, I think that they exist because of a reason, and that is, classifying students according to their knowledge in order to teach them what they need, or helping them improving, or simply to prove what they learnt.

Designing Classroom Language Tests

When considering the critical questions we should ask ourselves as teachers when assessing students by means of tests, it is necessary to think about the first thing that we must try to avoid, and it is that a lot of teachers don’t even think of others apart from themselves, they do not devote time to set the purpose or the objectives of what they have to assess, and they do not go through the necessary process that leads into effective assessment practices. As teachers we already know unconsciously that the tests are made to evaluate students’ performance and to know if they are learning what is being taught during the lesson; what we sometimes ignore is the different kinds of tests that can be applied to students according to their needs and also our needs as tutors. This lack of information and instruction about tests can lead us to assess our students in ways that do not match the purposes, and to obtain results that are not reliable.

The language aptitude tests seem unreliable to me… I don’t think that in a few questions anyone can determine whether you are good or not for something like languages –or anything-. There are plenty of factors that influence your process, such as your attitude and disposition to decide to learn, the time you spent studying, and so on and so forth. I’ve had many students that, although they don’t seem very “talented” (maybe their intelligences point towards other areas), they study a lot and manage to accomplish things that many others who seem to have aptitudes for the language don’t.

I do agree with the placement and diagnostic tests, since these are indeed helpful for the teachers. It is great to know that you have a group in which all students have the same level, this fact reduces the great number of concerns you have at the moment of teaching during a lesson and gives you some kind of confidence at the moment of challenging your students. Apart from that, if you also know the different outstanding abilities of each of the students, it is easier to plan the lesson taking into account those aspects.

It seems to me that although we are more familiar with proficiency, placement and diagnostic tests –as students and teachers- we still need to pay more attention to the way those test are designed and to the situations in which each one of them is taken by students, we must always try to assess them in the proper way so that better results in their processes are achieved. 

Observation in the classroom

Since classrooms are a mixture of several aspects, the one related to observation could not be forgotten, instead, it should be mentioned and explained spacially when talking about assessment. It is unavoidable to observe what happens inside of our classrooms and during our classes, due to the fact that they are never static or empty... on the contrary, we are always dealing with different ways of behaving, different strategies and with our own thoughts as well.
Observation is a useful tool that teachers use in order to analyze, understand and improve the practices and happennings inside the classrooms, it is fundamental at the moment of assessing the students, the groups, the activities and the plans made at the begginning.


Through observation teachers can assess what students have learnt, the students' learning strategies, the effectiveness of the teaching strategies and the materials that are being used, which is fundamental in the day-to-day practices; in this way according to what has been recorded decisions can be made and solutions match to the needs that have been identified.


In order to find observation useful and practical it should be organized with reference to specified language objectives, since in this way he attention is focused on the part of language learning that us relevant to and the instruction is organized according to the objectives. All these obtained inferences and observations help teachers to explain what happens inside their classes and to look for new ways of dealing with students, instructional plans and practices.


Finally, observations can be made through anecdotal records, checklists and rating scales, all these ways are different among each other, but in general what should be decided in all of the cases is the purpose of the observation, the kind of observation that will be used, the way in which the observation will be made and the information will be collected, which methods for record information will be implemented and finally the preparation of report forms in which the explanations are exposed.


I think observation is crucial in every classroom we enter... From it we can infer how students feel, theways they use to try to overcome their problems with the language, their thoughst and reactions towards the activities we take them and most of all we can get to know their personalities and the multiple intelligences we can help them explore and explode in our classes.

A framework for evaluation

It is necessary to be aware of the importance of our decisions as teachers. This is the reason we always need a strategy for making sound decisions that eventually will provide better results for our students.
Since evaluation is a four-step process, which includes identifying purposes, collecting information, interpreting that information and finally reaching a decision, it requires taking a deeper look at what these steps mean, and most of all it requires finding or building the necessary conections among the aspects of classroom-based evaluation so that positive results are drawn.


One of the most important things to take into account at the moment of making a decision is the effect it will have on students' outcome related to language learning, obviously. This implies observing, analyzing and studying the components of evaluation and based on those analysis making a decision. For example, if at the moment when instructional objectives are being assessed students' needs must be taken into account; and if there is a mismatch between these two categories a change must be implemented, so that the purposes of the course match with the students' needs. Another case in which decisions must be made is at the moment of assesing the instructional plans versus instructional objectives; in here, it is necessary to be conscious of what the objective is so that the way it is intended to be attained matches with it... If not, it would be contradictory to -for isntance- teache speaking by means fo writing long paragraphs. Objectives must provide the basis to assess students' acievement, so, in the former example if the objective was related to speaking, then the way to asses those students was related to that skill as well. Decisions are required also when instructional plans are judged against instructional practices; if things are not going as planned the teacher must act immediately . Finally, another component of classroom's assesment is what students can decide or are able to decide at the moment of comparing what they need to the objectives of the course they are taking; all those thoughts will end up in affecting their learning strategies and their study habits.


The strategy for evaluating consists on keep on comparing all the aspects involved in it, plus the input factos that have an effect on students performance. A lot of people base their evaluation practices on comparing just the achievements at the end of the course versus the beginning-of-the-course objectives, but it goes beyond that. Evaluation requeries an on-going analysis of what happens in the classroom, what was planned, and what is being achieved, in this way improvements can be made and, teachers and students can take advantages of the decisions that assesment involves.

Testing, Assessing and Teaching

Being able to create, provide and live learning experiences from testing and assessing should define the new generation of teachers that is about to start their labour as well as the new generations of students who will receive lots of benefits from these experiences.

It is mandatory to keep on looking for new ways of integrating former theories with new happenings and tools around the world, and this is the reason why it becomes so important to know that the role of teachers and tests nowadays has transformed into a wider and flexible practice, and that we should take advantage of that and start working on improving the way test and assessment is carried out in our classrooms.

The continuous assessment that we -as teachers- do on each class, from all the comments and opinions that our students give is nothing more than the proof of the commitment and dedication that we have to our profession and to our students. On the other hand, it is necessary to be aware of the responsibility that we have at the moment of giving feedback to our students... As I said before, it is time to turn some ancient practices and start looking for more effective ways of helping our students, so that their learning process goes beyond what they expected and we give them the chance to overcome whatever difficulty they find.

Finally, I find very important to know the difference between testing and assessment, since it gives us enough clarification to understand what we need to do and what students need to do in each one, and, in this way do the one that fits our needs the most, without forgetting our students as well.