{"id":6450,"date":"2014-04-13T16:58:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-13T16:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltchat.org\/wordpress\/?p=6450"},"modified":"2014-04-13T16:58:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-13T16:58:01","slug":"learner-oriented-assessment-eltchat-summary-4122014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/2014\/04\/13\/learner-oriented-assessment-eltchat-summary-4122014\/","title":{"rendered":"Learner Oriented Assessment – #ELTchat Summary 19\/03\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

This ELT 1200GMT chat took place on Wednesday 19th of March. It involved a lot of healthy discussion and ELT professionals sharing, adapting and evaluating a variety of ideas and approaches to assessment in ELT. Here\u2019s a summary of what was said.<\/p>\n

Getting Started<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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\u00a0\"assessment\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Initially, the discussion was taken slightly in the wrong direction to begin with, as I said that I understood LOA to be the idea of not testing learners on \u201cwhat they should know\u201d but on what \u201cthey do know\u201d and gave the example of tests which involve productive tasks so that learners can demonstrate their linguistic skills. This sort of assessment was later referred to throughout the chat as \u2018can-dos\u2019.<\/p>\n

@teflgeek quickly pointed out that while it was a valid point, I was rather looking at LOA from the wrong perspective: LOA is rather about using data collected from summative and formative testing to inform teaching.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit:\u00a0giulia.forsythe<\/a>\u00a0via\u00a0Compfight<\/a>\u00a0cc<\/a><\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

@Marisa_C was very helpful in setting the scene by posting a link to a Cambridge English video which takes a 42\u201d look at answering the question: how can assessment support learning?<\/p>\n

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The video is available here:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

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_______________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

@SueAnnan kicked started the discussion by asking: what do we understand by Learner Oriented Assessment (henceforth LOA)<\/p>\n

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What type of assessment?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

<\/h2>\n

The comments above naturally led on to @SueAnnan\u2019s next question: are we more used to using formative or summative assessment?<\/p>\n

After a quick reminder of the difference between the two – formative is continuous assessment and summative assessment often takes the form of final exams – teachers pointed out which form of assessment they prefer.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, @SueAnnan pointed out that formative and summative are \u201ctwo ends of a continuum\u201d and involve teachers \u201cwatching in class\u201d and \u201ctesting at the end of the course.\u201d This further led on to the suggestion of learners carrying out their own self-assessment with \u201cteacher oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

@Marisa-C quickly highlighted that this type of assessment would fall under \u201cprogress testing\u201d and would \u201cinform future lessons\u201d, which is exactly what LOA is all about. I also added I prefer formative assessment as it gives a continuously developing picture of how learners are getting on and which areas needed to be worked on or even revisited.<\/p>\n

Syllabus Design and the Learners\u2019 Abilities<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the participants really took this topic to pieces, worked through each segment and put it back together with a better understanding.<\/p>\n

Basically, as it had been previously mentioned by others, assessment should really be looking at what learners can do and not what they can\u2019t do. A question by @Marisa_C really demonstrated the basic idea to this approach: is there any point in slavishly following a syllabus if students are unable to do it?<\/p>\n

The judgement in the end was that ELT professional should be using the data collected from formative assessment to constantly redesign course syllabi so that it is responsive to the learners\u2019 ever changing needs. Covering the past perfect once and then moving on to another topic when most of the class clearly failed some form of continuous assessment on it is not fruitful for anyone involved.<\/p>\n

It quickly came to the fore that some educators will be bound by syllabi, with little room for manoeuvre. However, @teflgeek highlighted the fact that the syllabus \u201cdescribes\u201d the learning goals, \u201chow you get there\u201d and \u201chow long\u201d it takes is another question.<\/p>\n

So who\u2019s for LOA?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So, nearing the end @SueAnnan posed the big question: How many of you actually use LOA as standard?<\/p>\n

The question seemed to fall on deaf ears, with only some asking exactly how it works.<\/p>\n

There were several links posted to try to explain how LOA works. It will come as no surprise there are rather large tomes out there on the topic (see 1 below) ) as well as shorter blog posts (see 2 below).<\/p>\n

In short, however, we could safely bring the chat to an end with the understanding that LOA is nothing too special or radical, but simply the idea that a teacher takes the results of continuous assessment to inform their learning goals of the course.<\/p>\n

(1) \u00a0Language Assessment – Principles & Classroom Practice<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0Larry Ferlazzo – Assessing English language learners<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the author<\/h3>\n

\"Anthony\u00a0 \u00a0Anthony Ash \u00a0is a\u00a0Senior Teacher at\u00a0International House Torun<\/p>\n

He is \u00a0@ashowski on Twitter and this post is from his blog\u00a0www.ashowski.wordpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This ELT 1200GMT chat took place on Wednesday 19th of March. It involved a lot of healthy discussion and ELT professionals sharing, adapting and evaluating a variety of ideas and approaches to assessment in ELT. Here\u2019s a summary of what was said. Getting Started   \u00a0 Initially, the discussion was taken slightly in the wrong…
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