Final Learning Log

This post is about most of the topics we learned in the assessment class. I just wanted to share some thoughts extracted from our theoritical framework and the recommendations for a teacher in our consultancy work. Note it is not a trick; I just wanted to share this and have a memory learning log for future subjects or studies.

       The assessment and the development of foreign language teaching and learning are firstly determined by pedagogical constructs that teachers reflect and apply on their practices (Brown, 2000). In any teaching context, most students’ affective filter is the first factor affected directly by their teachers, since they are the first contact with a foreign language, and learning a new issue is affected and permeable by pupils’ emotions and feelings (Krashen, 1981). In some cases, students show reluctance towards the teaching environment owing to some inaccurate teachers’ assessment constructs and practices.

Regarding these constructs, a paramount item to ponder is the discrepancy between evaluation and assessment (Scanlan, 2012). The former stems on the quantitative characteristic of measuring student outcomes at the end of a course, that is to say, a summative feature. In this type, we can observe the presence of a formal and convergent practice to assess students, which means they are aware of the evaluation itself that comes with boundaries or specific demands ( for grading, students’ reports, promotion and institutional ranking ). As consequence, student reluctance relies on teachers’ practices of evaluation as the unique way of measuring knowledge and performance, seen as a punishment that reflects negative, partial and discrete results.

Therefore, Scanlan (2012) and Brown (2000), consider a broader concept of assessment in learning teaching practices to ameliorate and complement the evaluation process. Then, assessment is shown as the qualitative and progressive measurement of learners’ performance in a continuous process, as Genesee and Upshur add (1996), at all times in instructional and non-instructional realms, that is to say, a formative feature. In this conception, assessment is characterized as an informal procedure to collect data of students’ achievement, or teachers’ effectiveness of planning and instruction so they can provide positive feedback on students’ performance. Thus, this process allows pupils to improve any particular ability, and teachers to make decisions to change objectives, purposes, plans and instructions when needed.

Now then, these decisions are the result of an on-going observational and reflective process of classroom environment and teaching performance. This is a process of systematization of gathered information that helps teachers improve their everyday practice, that is to say, their methodology and general performance. For this purpose, the observational practice should be focused on a specific scope  for all sessions and  limited to certain features of  teaching acts for each class, since “teaching is a complex and dynamic activity, and during a lesson many things occur simultaneously, so it is not possible to observe all of them” (Richards & Farrell, 2011, p. 90).

To manage this complexity, we can point out Genesee and Upshur (1996), who elucidate a four-step process of teaching and learning that play an important role in classroom-based evaluation and in our observation task. The first step to have in mind is identifying purposes; the second one is collecting information; the third step is interpreting the information, and the fourth one stems on making decisions. Furthermore, these authors propose a strategy for making decisions, by comparing those steps from input factors until learning outcomes in order to see the mismatches and to meet a solution based on reflection.

Then, we underpin our observation with these theories, which have been discussed in class. That is why this analysis covers the meaning of assessment on teaching methodology, bearing in mind input factors, instructional purposes, instructional plans and outcomes. As Genesee and Upshur advise (1996), teachers should focus on incongruences between the previous items, in other words, make a match between: student needs attitudes, abilities and instructional objectives; lesson planning and aims; class implementation and planned lessons, or outcomes with objectives and input factors. All of these reflections can be useful to give feedback, make decisions and changes in any of the stages before, in the spot and for future classes.

Thus, the awareness of classroom observation and self-assessment, and the consolidation of students’ abilities are arduous tasks of reflexive practitioners and transformative intellectuals.  On the contrary, if there is not reflection or changes in any of the stages, we can consider teachers as passive technicians enhancing inactive banking education (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, Chapter 1). This way, the conclusions of this analysis will contribute to our own teaching practice and the teacher observed, taking into account successful aspects in class and drawbacks. Apart from all the aspects aforementioned, we can consider an evaluation practice found in the classroom observed which is a test. In this sense, it is necessary to include the five testing criteria proposed by Brown (2000): practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity and washback effects.

According to this taxonomy, a test is practical when it does not cost a lot, has appropriate time constraints and a time efficient scoring evaluation procedure, and is easy to administer.  Reliability consists of considering students’ physical and psychological status, test administrator’s ability and rater’s scoring performance. To prove the validity of a test,  we can think of  the congruence between the content of tests and that taught in class,  the comparison between the different assessed performances of students,  the  relationship between teachers’ theoretical constructs and test designing,  its impacts on  learners and students’ perceptions of the test. Then, authenticity claims for natural language, contextualized items, interesting situations, real world tasks and sources. Finally, testing can cause effects on teaching and learning process, which are called washback effects.

Furthermore, Genesee and Upshur (1996) recommend choosing and devising tests according to the level of student proficiency. In our case, these authors advise teachers to design close-ended tests or highly structured tasks with multiple choice questions, intended to evaluate receptive skills (reading and listening) for beginning levels.  The questions should be composed by simple concise valid stems, and suitable balanced stem-related distractors or choices so tests can be appropriate or authentic, understandable and feasible or attainable. To prove this, test may be constructed, edited, tried out and revised to be reliable and valid. These authors also suggest educators must grade, having in mind two types of scoring: holistic and analytic to make teachers evaluate overall performances and apply a rubric with specific criteria, respectively.

         However, evaluators and test makers must consider that tests are not a way of making high-stake decisions (Mckay, 2012), since success in language learning is not predicted by any test but achieved with ‘appropriate self-knowledge, active strategic involvement in learning and strategic-based instruction’ (Genesee and Upshur, 1996, p. 44). When assessing young learners, McKay (2012) suggests considering cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth and the learning environment, pondering the kind of language program: second or foreign. This way, teachers can elide the negative effects from the assessment power relationships, and stop perpetuating the position of those in power.

This is because Educational policy makers generate laws incongruent with our context because they have imposed English as a foreign language in education to accomplish the Free Trade Agreement with Great Britain and the USA, through the adaptation of the Common European Framework to our language learning realm, transformed into the National Bilingualism Plan, which favors these foreign countries (García’s talks on estándares, 2013). Based on this philosophy, they have established National Standards to fulfill  emergent external requirements and they check its implementation through standardized tests that have the power of gatekeeping and marking a difference among socio-economical strata, favoring those in power (McKay, 2008).  Although government paradoxically advises teachers to be ethical with assessment and evaluation practices, they are forced to prepare students for external assessment rather than for meaningful learning. This can be an assertive way to  make students succeed in the system, since teachers ‘ have a  hard task to influence other stake-holders since the only real influences on them are their own prejudices and personal experiences’ (cited on Lopez and Bernal, 2009, p.10).

Anyways, administrative stake-holders need to consider making changes in order to provide a meaningful learning environment and achieve successful outcomes (López and Bernal, 2009). Firstly, educational policy makers must provide coherent educational laws, contextual goals and appropriate tools and human resources for teaching and learning processes and assessment practices. As Messick (cited on López and Bernal, 2009) state, policy makers must dialogue with teachers about school and student needs before creating any law. Only this way, we can demand teachers, as mediators, to be reflective on their practices, pondering the several aforementioned factors involving assessment of teaching and learning process to make good low and high-stake decisions (McKay, 2008).

 Colombian educational ministries must prepare teachers with the appropriate knowledge for the specific area, since many teachers are randomly set in different realms, as the observed teacher that has to give an English course, regardless her major on Educational Administration. Moreover, they should establish affordable goals, since our system presents still difficulties about school enrollment, resources, and teachers’ training on methodology and assessment. This way, they can be coherent, equitable and reliable on the policies made, the budget invested and the impact of their high-stake decisions on education, in favor of all educational stake-holders, especially students, parents and teachers.

By Silvia Arias and César Cristancho