Assessment and evaluation of young learners

Assessment focuses on learning, teaching and outcomes. It provides information for improving learning and teaching. Assessment is an interactive process between students and teachers that informs the teachers how well their students are learning. The information is used by the teachers to make changes in the learning process. This information is learner-centered, course based and not graded.

Evaluation focuses on grades.

Purposes of language assessment:

-to assist placement of students

-to diagnose students' strengths and weaknesses

-to see how far the students have achieved the objectives of the course of study

-to measure language proficiency independently of any course followed.

Principles for assessing children’s language learning

-Assessment should be seen from a learning-centered perspective (Vygotsky: we cannot get a true assessment by testing what the child can do alone)

-Assessment should support learning and teaching (the process and outcomes of assessment can motivate learners;

-Assessment activity and feedback from it can support further learning, the outcomes of assessment can help teachers plan more effective lessons and can inform the evaluation and improvement of courses and programs.

-Assessment is more than testing: The test results do not reflect the big picture.

-Assessment should be in harmony with learning; interactional rather than isolated.

-Children and parents should understand assessment issues: Parents need to know what teachers are doing and why.

Assessment types

In teaching young learners we distinguish between formal and informal assessment.

Formal assessment

Formal assessment uses formal tests or structured continuous assessment to evaluate a learner's level of language. For example, at the end of the course the learners have a final exam to see if they pass to the next course or not. Alternatively, the results of a structured continuous assessment process are used to make the same decision. Standardized tests are formal tools for measuring student progress. Standardized test is a test in which all the questions, format, instructions, scoring and reporting of scores are the same for all test takers.

Informal assessment

In formal assessment is a way of collecting information about students performance in normal classroom conditions. Often the students don’t realize that they are being assessed.

Informal and formal assessments are both useful for making valid and useful assessments of learners' knowledge and performance. Many teachers combine the two, for example by evaluating one skill using informal assessment such as observing group work, and another using formal tools, for example a discrete item grammar test.