四技英語四甲 497c0040 鄭惠勻
Summary:
Language assessment refers to the act of collecting information and making
judgments about a language learner’s knowledge of a language and ability to use it.
The assessment should include what a student should learn in their courses and goals
they should meet by the end of their courses. There are two purposes in assessment.
One is proficiency assessment which is concerned with measuring a person’s general
ability, typically for gate keeping decisions. The other assessment is achievement
assessment which focuses on determining what has been learned as part of a specific
program of instruction, usually for assigning marks. In language programmes,
Broadfoot identifies some assessment purposes: “assessment for curriculum”、
“assessment for communication” 、“assessment for accountability” And there are two
approaches：One is ability approach and the other is performance approach. Ability
approach defines the construct as an unobservable concept that is not tie to any
particular context of language use. Ability testing is based on the point of view that
performance on a test is the result of some underlying capacities, which are also
responsible for performance in non-test settings. The other performance approach
aims to make inferences more directly from test performance to performance outside
the test setting. Assessment should have includes the reliability and the validity. The
reliability test results have to be consistent whenever a test is given to a group of
test-takers. The validity is a test has to measure what it is supposed to measure.
Comment：
After I read this article, I think many teachers always let students just become do a
good grade in tests not to focuses on their real knowledge and language skills. So,
nowadays we need to change our way about tests. The most important of the test is
helping our students to know what they learn and what parts they need to work hard.
Also test or assessment could help students develop their language skills and thinking
in their life. We can use the purposes of the assessment in this article to sing the
reliability and validity test. Another point I notice is the relationships between
assessment and context in teaching. We can know some new topics can arouse the
interests from our students and then they would work hard to learn. So, a good
language teaching can increase the validity of learning and the tests. So, teachers
should choose the practical contexts in teaching to increase students’ interests and
confidences on their learning and testing. Next, I think over some alternative
assessment parts. Sometimes, we can use different ways to replace the tests like dairy
or the Internet and so on. I think students could use the Internet to learn more different
things rather than just on books. Teachers may use the source to increase the
abundance of teaching. The test on the Internet can also prevent students to cheat.