TSL3123 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

ISSUES AND CONCERNS RELATED TO

ASSESSMENT IN MALAYSIAN PRIMARY
SCHOOLS

ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT

Group 9
Mohd Arif bin Anor
Noramaliah binti Mohd Rahim

 Alternative assessments are assessment procedures that

differ from the traditional notions and practice of tests with
respect to format, performance, or implementation.
It is likely that alternative assessment found its roots in
writing assessment because of the need to provide
continuous assessment rather than a single impromptu
evaluation (Alderson & Banerjee, 2001).

Traditional Assessment

Alternative Assessment

One-shot tests

Continuous, longitudinal assessment

Indirect tests

Direct tests

Inauthentic tests

Authentic assessment

Individual projects

Group projects

No feedback to learners

Feedback provided to learners

Speeded exams

Power exams

Decontextualised test tasks

Contextualised test tasks

Norm-referenced score reporting

Criterion-referenced score reporting

Standardised tests

Classroom-based tests

Summative

Formative

Product of instruction

Process of instruction

Intrusive

Integrated

Judgmental

Developmental

Teacher proof

Teacher mediated

The characteristics of alternative

assessments:
Ask the students to perform, create, produce, or do
something.
Tap higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills.
Use tasks that represent meaningful instructional activities.
Invoke real-world applications.
People, not machines, do the scoring, using human
judgment.
Require new instructional and assessment roles for teachers.

The limitations of alternative

assessments:
Tend to be descriptive and persuasive, rather than researchbased.
Limited to the classroom and has not become part of
mainstream assessment.

The examples of alternative

assessment formats:
Physical demonstration
Pictorial products
Reading response logs
K-W-L (what I know/what I want to know/what Ive learned) charts
Dialogue journals
Checklists
Teacher-pupils conferences
Interviews
Performance tasks
Portfolios
Self assessment
Peer assessment

Portfolios
The contents of the portfolio become evidence of abilities much
like how we would use a test to measure the abilities of our
students.
It should have an introduction to the portfolio provides an overview to
the content of the portfolio.
An academic works section meant to demonstrate the students
improvement or achievement in the major skill areas.
A personal section in which students may wish to include their
journals, score reports of tests that they have sat for.
An assessment section may contain evaluations made by peers,
teachers as well as self evaluations.

 The portfolio can be said to be a students personal

documentation that helps demonstrate his or her ability and
successes in the language.
Advantages in using portfolios in assessment:
enhances student and teacher involvement in assessment;
provides opportunities for teachers to observe students using
meaningful language;
provide opportunities for both students and teachers to work
together and reflect on what it means to assess students
language growth;
increase the variety of information collected on students; and
make teachers ways of assessing student work more systematic.