4.

2 Continuous assessment versus summative assessment

Before you begin considering the type of assessment you want to use, you need to familiarise
yourself with any formal assessment procedure used in your school. Of course, you will have to
adhere to this, but you should also evaluate it and consider supplementing it with your own
assessment procedures if you consider it inadequate.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of assessment commonly used by teachers

Continuous assessment
This is a well-rounded approach to assessment and lends itself more easily to diagnosis of problem
areas and recognition of pupils strengths. This type of assessment is done on a continuous basis
through communicative activities in class. In your lesson plan you should include an evaluation stage
to see the results of the lesson presented.

Summative assessment
It is quick and convenient, and it can give a clear indication of a pupils ability to recall information,
but is incomplete in terms of providing an indication of progress.

Summative tests can test:

recognition of vocabulary items

simple grammar
ability to match questions with answers
listening and reading comprehension

But it is difficult to test communicative ability or aural skills.

This is an important issue in many countries now, where there is a conflict between traditional
testing methods and the aims and objectives of modern methodologies and language programmes.
As communicative competence is hard to quantify there is a danger of simply teaching the test.

As we do not look at young learners literacy skills in their L2, but devote more time to singing,
teaching rhymes and short dialogues, it is difficult to see how we can test language ability, rather
than simply judging memorisation and an ability to recite.
So, what do we need to consider when designing a test?

Context and contextualization is vital - pictures should be shown or drawn, set the
scene by giving descriptions and engage pupils with the material they are going to
encounter.
 Look at language skills, and their ability to use and select appropriate language, not just
specific vocabulary or language items.

Make use of prior knowledge, ask pupils to predict context and content.

Use extended texts, dialogues and short descriptions in tests to evaluate vital skills of
deduction, but do not overload pupils and make the material inaccessible.

Avoid favouring learners with linguistic, logical mathematical or special intelligence, as

traditional testing methods do.

Remember that one aim of introducing language learning at a young age is to foster a positive
attitude and assessment should never interfere with this. Make it realistic, use layout and design to
aid pupils comprehension and ensure they understand the objective of the task.

4.3 Peer assessment

Peer assessment requires a certain level of social and communicative competence, so although it is
a good idea to encourage pupils to praise each others work from a much earlier age, formal peer
assessment only becomes effective from around the age of ten.

The advantages:

Can lead to a supportive atmosphere

Can be less intimidating than teacher assessment
Motivating for pupils when their peers recognise their achievements
Can save time
Can be enlightening for the teacher, in terms of pupils recognising things they have
missed

The disadvantages:

Can be intimidating
Teacher needs to ensure that pairs work well together
Can be time consuming in terms of preparation
May be misleading as pupils may feel under pressure to say something, therefore not
give true feedback

The role of the teacher should be to ensure that there is no bullying and that assessment is
positive, ensuring pupils begin with praise and discuss and fully explain their criticisms.