Language Assessments in Education

Paper details:

Respond to each question to form the response

Discuss all of the responsibilities teachers have each day in their classrooms. Place these responsibilities in list order. Where does assessment appear on your list? Explain your rationale for where you placed assessment on your list.

What are some of the constraints of national and state assessments? For example, are the grading systems fair and consistent across all of these exams? Are scores reported in the same way across these various assessments?

What do you think are some of the biggest problems facing the developers of large-scale international tests? How are these similar or different to the problems facing teachers?

Think about a place where you have taught or learned language. What do learners expect their assessments to be like?

Think about a place where you have taught or learned language. How are scores usually reported? Through letter grades? As percentages? As verbal descriptions? How might these different methods of reporting be problematic?

Keeping the idea of measurement error in mind, discuss the following scenario: Student A has scored 60 points on a language test and student B has scored a 52. It may be assumed that Student A has greater ability than Student B. Why is this not a reasonable assumption?