Name : Martos Alfitri

NIM : 10714000764
Language Testing

Assessment of Young Learners

Assessment is a wider concept than ‘testing’, and a different thing from

evaluation. It is a systematic approach to collecting information and making
inferences about the ability of a student or the quality or success of a teaching
course on the basis of various sources of evidence (Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics) So, we can say that assessment of
young learners is an approach to collecting information and making inferences
about the ability of young learners. Assessment is any systematic way of finding
out about people’s levels of knowledge or skills, in our case the people are
Young Language Learners.
Last two decades have witnessed a marked increase in the teaching of
English as a foreign language at the primary level in any countries. (Rixon:
1992). It means that the experts have concerned about this case since long time
ago, and we can think how important this case is.
The assessment of student progress and achievement in ESL/ EFL
classes should be carried out in a manner that does not make students be
anxiety. EFL/ESL curricula have move in direction of developing communicative
skills through the integration of language and content as well as language skills
integration, etc.

Importance of assessment
In all academic settings, assessment is viewed as closely related to
instruction. Assessment is needed to help teachers and administrators to make
decisions about students’ linguistics abilities. By knowing it, they can place the
students in an appropriate level. They can also know about the students’
achievement. The success of any assessment depends on the effectives
selection and use of appropriate tools and procedures as well as on the proper
interpretation of students’ performance.

Assessment can take place for different purposes:

Formative purposes - directed towards helping teachers to adjust their
teaching in order to support the learners better, or towards advising learners
how to adjust their own approaches and this would take place throughout a
course of teaching.
Summative purposes - to see how well learners have done at the end of a
period of teaching. The results of summative assessment are often used to
affect learners’ chances (e.g. selection or rejection for the next stage of
learning, deciding who wins the prize, who gets the scholarship money).

Alternatives in Assessment
Pierce and O’Malley define alternatives assessment as any method of finding out
what a student know or can do that is intended to show growth and inform
instructions and is not a standardized or traditional test (1992:2). Specifically,
alternatives in students’ assessment take into account variation in students’
needs, interests, and learning styles; and they attempt to integrate assessment
and learning activities. Traditional modes of assessment are thought not to
capture important information about test takers’ abilities in second language and
are also not thought to reflect real-life conditions. The characteristic of alternative
assessment for young learners is that they are performance-based; it is an
approach to assessment that seeks to measure student learning based on how
well the learner can perform on a practical real-world task. These techniques can
include traditional classroom activities such as the ability to write an essay or
carry out a short conversation or non-traditional tasks, such as cooperative group
work, problem solving etc. teacher score task performances holistically. Students
performance should be measured against standard previously discussed in the
class.
Types of Student Responses
Many techniques of alternatives assessment were developed in line with the
taxonomy of students’ response types identified by Krashen and Terrel, which
suggests that there are four stages of language development in FL/SL learners.
1. Preproduction; the learners have silent period, and their Performance
Indicators are Kinesthetic in nature. The teacher may ask students to
Point, act out, choose, mark, gesture, and follow instruction.
2. Early speech; their Performance Indicators are Kinesthetic responses and
one and two-word utterances. The teacher may ask students to Name,
number, list, group words or phrases.
3. Speech emergence; their Performance Indicators are one and two-word
utterances, plus phrases and simple sentences. The teacher may ask
students to Describe, define, recall, retell, summarize, compare, and
contrast.
4. Fluency emergence; their Performance Indicators are Words, phrases,
and complete sentences. The teacher may ask students to Justify, create,
give opinions, debate, defend, analyze, and evaluate.
The types of responses are:
a. Selected response (true-false, matching, multiple choice);
b. Constructed response (fill-in, short answers, performance);
c. Personal response (conferences, portfolios, self, and peer assessments).
Another Assessment procedure:
o Recognition: preproduction, early speech
o Replication: early speech, fluency emergence
o Reorganization: accommodating the various levels.

Techniques :
a) Nonverbal Responses
• Assessments : Physical performances, producing or manipulating
drawings, dioramas, charts, etc
• Addition : Very well for young Learner
b) Oral Interview
• Assessments: Talking about a picture, etc.
• Addition : Very well in early speech emergence stage
c) Role-play
• Assessments: Demonstrating a basic concept, representing
historical event, etc.
• Addition : Informal assessment
d) Written Narratives
• Assessments: Writing a story about experience, modifying a story,
etc.
• Addition : Young learner enjoy story telling as well as listen to a
story
e) Presentations
• Assessments : Poetry reading, dramatization, class
presentation, etc.
f) Students-teacher Conferences
• Assessments : Structured interview, cooperative learning
group
g) Self-assessment
1. KWL-charts
• Assessments : What learners know what learners
wonder, and what learner have learned.
2. Learning Logs
• Assessments: Recording about students’ experiences
outside classroom.
h) Dialogue Journals
• Assessments: Ongoing written dialogue between
teacher and student
i) Peer and Group Assessment
• Assessments: activities in which learners assess each
 other’s performance
j) Student Portfolios
• Assessment :Making a portfolio

Questions :
1. What are the advantages of portfolios than
traditional form of assessment?
2. Why should teachers use variety of types of
alternative assessment?
3. What is the importance of assessment?