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ASSESSMENT IN EFL CLASSES: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES
Arustamyan Yana Yurevna
PhD,
Associate Professor at the National University of Uzbekistan
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13969049
Abstract
. The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept assessment
and its implications into the real-life educational process. It is emphasized in the
article that there is a strong necessity of redesigning instructions for objective
assessment.
Key words
: assessment, EFL, ESP, redesigning instructions, evaluation of
language skills.
In the last few decades, it has been widely acknowledged that the benefits
of education to society extended beyond the monetary domain. This observation
is not new. In Ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle identified the key role of
education in contributing to personal fulfillment and social well-being. Research
strongly supports this and has demonstrated that education as a proxy for
‘human capital’ not only provided individuals with the knowledge and skills to
enhance their performance in the labour market and promote growth, but also
contributed to socialization in modern societies by improving social capital
defined as the complementary norms, values, attitudes and beliefs that govern
interactions among people and institutions and predispose them to cooperation,
mutual assistance and trust. [1]
Empirical evidence suggests that educational attainment nurtures people's
social outcomes and promotes active participation in society and stability.
However, it is unclear to what extent other types of human capital also correlate
with social outcomes. In this way teachers sometimes cannot decide to what
extent they should elaborate their assessment rubrics as well as techniques
themselves. The main question here is “what we should pay attention to:
knowledge or skills”. On the one hand, this question does not seem to be serious
as, certainly, giving an academic education our primary goal is to deliver
knowledge. On the other hand, modern labour market requirements demand,
mostly, a certain set of skills that are necessary for successful career. Therefore,
the problem of assessment in EFL classes is rather topical here.
In Yerevan in May 2015, the Education Ministers identified four key
priorities for the future:
1.
enhancing the quality and relevance of learning and teaching;
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International scientific-online conference
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2.
fostering the employability of graduates throughout their working
lives;
3.
making our systems more inclusive;
4.
implementing agreed structural reforms. [2]
Educators promoting student development as self-transformers create
assignments which involve choices, explicitly related to an understanding of the
contexts of the students. For example, students may choose to work in groups or
individually. Students are able to choose from the choices provided or are able
to come up with their own representation as long as it has been approved by the
lecturer and meets the outcomes of the unit. It is assessed against the process of
learning rather than just the product. For example, there may be a place where
the students talk about what they learned from the assignment rather than what
they got right in it. The rubric is related more to key ideas rather than particular
content. [3]
In this case the urgent necessity to develop and re-structure the system of
assessment in EFL classes claims for immediate measures, like elaboration of
creative tasks that can help intellectual, creative, and critical skills of a student.
However, first, we should identify the concept assessment itself. For
example, L.Bachman defined assessment as “a process of collecting information
about something that we are interested in, according to procedures that are
systematic and substantially grounded”. [4, p. 6-7] The result of an assessment
procedure can be a score or a verbal description. Ari Huhta referred to
assessment as “all kinds of procedures used to assess individuals (e.g., informal
observations, self-assessments, quizzes, interviews, tests)”. [5, p. 469] Teachers
assess their students every session. However, testing is a way of conducting
assessment which is technically associated with definite timing and settled
procedures. As A.Huhta defined “tests denote a particular type of formal, often
carefully designed instruments”. [5, p. 469]
The very first use of language assessment is to make decisions for
individuals (micro-evaluation), programs (macroevaluation), and other take-
holders. [6] It can be used to select individuals, place them into appropriate
course of study, make changes in instruction, predict future performance of
test-takers, make changes in educational programs (formative or summative
decisions), to formulate new research questions, and modify the understanding
of a specific language phenomenon. [4] Therefore, the decision going to be made
is so essential that it can define type of assessment.
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Meanwhile, assessment is more apparent in the form of summative testing in
educational world rather than informal formative tasks. Students look for ways
to be the “top student” through assessment and they rarely try to see a
connection between
assessment and learning.
References:
1.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/exportCitation/doi/10.1111/ej
ed.12211
2.
http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/Education/eurydice/documents/thematic_repo
rts/182EN.pdf
3.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/exportCitation/doi/10.1111/m
be.12126
4.
Bachman L. Statistical analysis for language assessment. – Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
5.
Huhta A. Diagnostic and Formative Assessment. // Spolsky B., Hult F.M.
(Ed.) The Handbook of Educational Linguistics. – Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.
6.
Bachman L.F., Palmer, A.S. Language testing in practice. – Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996.
