Ode to Assessment

This is a poem on what we have learned before vacations--- sort of a learning log

Tabula rasa wasn’t I

Said the great Brazilian pedagogue

That, in his time, was exiled;

Now his thoughts are in vogue

But professor said once

In one of his marvelous class

If no acquaintance with the topic

Just we have to grasp it; we don’t know it

So Vygotsky states that

previous knowledge with the new one

With a peer knowing more than us

Also Vygostsky and Krashen’s i+1

In the zone of proximal development

We’ll have a great knowledge construct.

This experience of mine

Tremendous and petrifying

Can tell it is worth it

To have known the following topics

The first issue that impacts

is the great difference between two facts

Evaluation and assessment are not alike

Cause the former is to quantify

And the latter is to qualify

The former reflects on a result

The latter, the entire pedagogical route

Scanlan concerning evaluation traits

The different types he portrays

Summative to grade a final task though

Formal to make students aware and stressed

Final to value the result of the whole

or product to evaluate the outcome

convergent to have an only response.

Then we have a superficial evaluation

It’s not a great idea to leave it alone

That’s why we use the assessment form

With the diverse types that come across

Formative to follow the learning process

Giving feedback to the learners involved

with informal to make classes cool

Process to assist procedures to boot

Improving a particular ability in performance

And divergent with several answers too.

Knowing the disparity between those terms

We can move on to the next step.

Now Brown will be our next expert

To talk about principles of assessment.

Starting with practicality or effectiveness

Neither expensive is a word on tests

Nor time will become endless

Nor administering one must be a mess

Nor scoring, a time consuming mayhem.

Going on with reliability

Students’ mixed emotions concerned

When taking any subject test

But the rater matters as well

Either the criteria or the fatigue

Bearing in mind his subjectivity

Test administration also counts

To liven up the current crowd.

And test nature also minds

Even more the concern is the time.

Moving on validity principle

Being the most complex criterion

Congruence in results and purposes

Effective tests are not in the oblivion.

The first aspect: content related evidence,

Being coherent with the subject evaluated

And the expected results as consequence

with direct tests, assessing what’s associated.

The second one, criterion related evidence

Comparing results of assessment with others

Validating with a concurrent performance

Or predicting future success of test takers.

The third kind, construct related evidence

Bearing in mind theoretical constructs

Getting assessment controlled by thoughts

Can affect the validity of tests though.

The fourth is consequential validity

Considering the impacts on students

Also the social consequences indeed

Of interpretations of a test, be prudent.

Face validity is the final one

Improving learning must be the aim

If test has real familiar tasks

Items, time and directions acclaimed

By students that want a real defiance.

Continuing with authenticity

Natural language will predominate

Items, we should not isolate

Topics are meaningful , not insane

Disorder must come to an end

And tasks for aliens are not the way.

Washback, the final component

The effect on teaching and learning process

The negative effects could be opponent

To the real assessment Brown proposes.

This same author also claims

To assess linguistic abilities in several ways

As an amalgam of receptive and productive

Skills that can never be separate.

Starting with listening skills

Of which process non-observable

Can be reflected on a product;

The link with speaking skills, undeniable.

Processes flashing in your brain

Storing sounds in short memories

Speech’s type, context and content

With bottom-up or top-down processes

To interpret the message point

Recording so in the long-term memory

Keeping auditory stages joined:

surface, pragmatics and semantics mastery.

Now the categories appear

Being intensive the first one;

Perception of components is a gear

Moving forward to the other ones.

In the responsive domain

Found questions and answers short

In the selective, to scan for information

Extensive for global and gist comprehension.

If micro and macro skills are mentioned

Humboldt can help us in this section

Macro, the content plan for the meaning

Micro, for the form, the plan of expression.

In this pace, difficulties may arise

As clustering, the accurate language chunk

Redundancy, repetitions spoken to recognize

And with reduce forms, many people flunk.

Performance variables, in natural speech to get by

Colloquial language become a real chaos

Rate of delivery is a mess for slow guys

Prosodic elements we have to understand

With the flow of interaction you must run.

Linked to this skill we are to state

That speaking is not from listening far away

Speaking activities with aural ones: non-split

stimulus, target and product must be linked .

To assess this skill, there’re some basic types

Imitative speaking as the Phone pass test goes

For some, audio-lingual method, fruitless though

For others, balanced repetition make discourse accuracy thrive.

We find intensive speaking as well

With short parts of discourse, a sentence

Limited response and mechanical tasks dwell

With controlled responses in speaking tests.

Then responsive speaking is to appear

With interaction and test comprehension

Spoken prompts are not a big deal

In limited level of short conversations.

Alike this type, there’s interaction

With longer and more complex ideas;

Transactional to exchange information

Interpersonal for social relations, so near.

The last type of this productive skill

Strictly stem on oral monologues

Restricting the interaction mainstream;

Oral production, more demanding though.

The micro and macro skills of speaking

Somehow, resembles those of listening

So we can move on to the next combination

Of productive and receptive skills, that’s the question.

Reading skill is on this pace

Counting on bottom-up strategies for superficial forms

And top-down processes for semantic traits;

Schemata of social background should be a norm.

For assessing reading skills in a realistic way

We can’t see this process through other’s eyes

What we can do, to question and to infer

Formative process of comprehension as well

That’s why reading genres we must know

If academic with style we ought to cope

If job-related more specific documents involved

If personal, including images and dances as Yury Lotman taught.

We have some types of reading too

Perceptive to capture words and graphemic symbols

With bottom-up processes, some tools

To determine tasks for this axle.

Selective, the next category

To reckon grammar and lexical features

Picture cued-tasks and multiple choice,

Stimuli for short stretches, the answer.

About interactive, we can include

More extended stretches of language

The writer and the reader negotiate

The meaning that’s in texts.

Extensive reading is a real challenge

'Coz of more prolonged stretches of discourse

Global understanding , we scavenge

From books, essays and technical reports.

Finally, when assessing writing, several genres we find

Academic with formal and educational texts

Other documents related to jobs, a request

Personal, the most important one, don’t forget.

As personal writing concerns,

Don’t be oblivious of digital writing as well

Don’t punish peoples’ apparent mistakes

Cause this tendency, a new variety, creates.

There are also four basic writing types

Imitative, the basic level of this skill

where to spell correctly and reckon phonemes

a paramount plan: superficial level of Noam Chomsky.

As for intensive, other characteristics are shown

Collocations, idioms and grammar features

Focusing on the form is the issue

Context and meaning also important though.

Going on with responsive category

Logical cohesion, in paragraphs, is needed,

List of criteria and guidelines a priori

Focusing at a discourse level on context and meaning.

To wind up this section

we have extensive category

it's the most complex action

but it's not a philosophical mistery.

Succesful Management of all the processes

and strategies of writing for all purposes;

focusing on ideas and arguments is the aim

so multiple drafts, a long document, can generate.

To review micro and macros skills, you want

You can check them on page 221

From Brown’s Language assessment book

If you ever would like to reboot.

For now, the explanation is over

Don’t want deadline any longer

This was what we learned before vacations

If you want to read more, see you in the next session.