AMEP Assessment Task Bank
Professional Development Kit
General Issues and Principles
Developed by Marian Hargreaves for NEAS 2013
© NEAS Ltd 2014
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Workshop aims
• To review the key issues in assessment
• The principles of assessment and how they
apply in the context of the AMEP
© NEAS Ltd 2014
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Part 1. Key issues
• The stakeholders: who has an interest in this
activity of assessment?
• The different purposes of assessment: why
do we assess anyway?
• The stages of assessment: when do we
assess?
• How do we assess?
• The focus of assessment: what do we assess?
© NEAS Ltd 2014
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The Stakeholders (who?)
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Students
Teachers
Management
Administrators
DIAC (sponsors)
Rest of the world (eg employers)
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Purposes of Assessment (why?)
• Assessment prior
to learning
– diagnostic or placement
• Assessment as learning
– progress, formative or continuous
• Assessment of learning
– summative
• Assessment for learning
– continuous, inclusive, student-centred
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Stages of assessment (when?)
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The focus of assessment (what?)
• What exactly is it that we are trying to
assess?
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Styles of assessment (How?)
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Self assessment
Formal tests/exams
Informal, in-class and/or observation
Group assessment
Peer assessment
Continuous
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• Certificate I Module D Learning Outcome 2:
Demonstrate understanding of written
information text –
requires a formal test
• Certificate II Module A Learning Outcome 2:
Participate in and contribute to the formal
learning environment –
calls for more informal, in-class
observation with a checklist
• Certificate III Module A Learning Outcome 3:
Demonstrate capacity for independent
learning –
suggests the need for a portfolio and
some self assessment
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Part 2. Best practice
• Identify clear learning outcomes.
• Promote active student engagement in
learning.
• Recognise and value student diversity.
• Provide an opportunity for success for all
students.
• Embody high quality, timely feedback.
• Meet expectations and standards.
• Require the involvement of leaders and
managers.
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The three cornerstones
• Validity
• Reliability
• Practicality
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Validity
Does the assessment task measure what
you want it to measure?
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Validity
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Construct
Cognitive
Context
Face
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Reliability
• Internal: Is the assessment consistent
across tasks and raters and assessors?
• External: Are the results of the
assessment reliable predictors of
performance in the real world?
© NEAS Ltd 2014
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Learner card 1
You want information about English classes for yourself. You inquire at a local teaching centre.
Ask about the following and write the information in the spaces provided.
Cost _______________________________________________________________________________________
Starting dates_______________________________________________________________________________
Class times _________________________________________________________________________________
Length _____________________________________________________________________________________
Class size __________________________________________________________________________________
Certificate __________________________________________________________________________________
Learner card 2
You want information about English classes for yourself. You enquire at a local teaching centre.
Ask for the information you need and write it on the lines below.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
© NEAS Ltd 2014
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Scoring a test: Marking and Rating
• Marking
(receptive skills, reading and listening)
• Rating
(productive skills, writing and speaking)
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Practicality
How practical is it to develop, administer
and mark the tasks?
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Impact and Fairness
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Task-based language performance
assessment (TBLPA)
• Using language in an appropriate and
effective way
– Language ability in general
– Language ability for specific tasks
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Authenticity
• situational
• interactional
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Questions
• Essential part of tasks to assess reading and
listening skills
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Feedback
• An essential part of the teaching and learning
cycle
• For everyone involved in assessment “Assessment is only useful if it leads to
appropriate action – at the level of the
individual student, the class, the school, or the
system”
(Westwood, 2008)
© NEAS Ltd 2014
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and finally …
• You need to be humble to write assessment
tasks!
• Always get a new task evaluated by other
teachers, and
• Piloted by the students themselves.
• Modify the task and it’s ready for use.
• Send the task to the Assessment Task Bank
for further development and use by teachers
across Australia.
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References
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Alderson, J. C. (2000). Assessing reading. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
69.
Bachman, L.F. & A. S. Palmer (1996) Language Testing in Practice, Oxford
University Press.
Brindley, G.P. (1995) Language Assessment in Action. NCELTR.
Hughes, A. (1989). Testing for language teachers. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, pp. 59–140.
Khalifa, H. & C. Weir (2009) General Marking: performance management, in
Examining Reading: Research and practice in assessing second language
reading(Studies in Language Testing, vol 29, pp. 276-280.
Manual for Language Test Development and Examining (2011) Language Policy
division, Council of Europe.
Messick, S (1989) Validity, in Linn, R.L. (Ed) Educational Measurement (3rd Ed.)
New York; Macmillan, pp.13-103.
Mislevey et al. (2001) Design and Analysis in Task-Based Language Assessment.
Language Assessment.
Shohamy, E. (1985). A practical handbook in language testing for the second
language teacher. Israel: Internal Press.
Weir, C. J. (1997). The testing of reading in a second language. In C.Clapham & D.
Corson (Eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education (pp. 39-50). Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
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