Daniela Tapia's E-portfolio
Evaluacion de la competencia omunicativa en Ingles
This course develops many concepts about assessment which will help the future English teacher to develop assessing work in a more accurate way. This course gives emphasis on concepts and techniques that give the assessing of the four linguists skills a central role in the educational process. This subject must be taught in English.
One of the main objectives of this course is to develop the capacity to analyze the process of assessing as a source of information about students’ performance. Additionally, this course aimed to develop the capacity of analyzing the several ways of assessing that help not only the teacher but also the student to develop the English communicative competence.
Evidence of learning outcomes
Unit 1: Theoretical Framework
In this unit the language testing principles were cover under the gaze of different authors such as Brown, Coombe et al. and Bachman and Palmer. Every author gives emphasis to different qualities that a test must accomplish in order to be Reliable, valid, authentic, interactive, practical and cause impact. Click on the pictures bellow so you can see in detail the content, assignment's instructions and the theoretical framework.
Language testing principles
Assignment 1 instructions
Theoretical Framework
Reflections
At first it could be said that it was very difficult to understand every quality specially validity and reliability. Eventhough, the content was put in practice by developing many exercises in classes, so that every student could solve their doubts about those concepts. When talking about the assignment there can be no doubt that it was demanding to deal with it, mainly because to construct a framework considering every author can be a little tedious, however an opportunity to fix the first delivered theoretical framework was given in which the feedback played an important role, because students could edit their work according to the feedback given.
It is very important to have knowledge about this topic because as a future teacher one must constantly create tests which will have to carry out with all those qualities in order to be coherent, and also to consider that students need to feel very confident at the moment of taking a test.
Unit 2: Rubric design
In this unit it was necessary to cover the different types of scoring instruments for performance assessment such as check list, rating scales, and rubrics such as Analytic rubrics and holistic rubrics.
The assessment was based on designing one rubric for productive skill and one for receptive skill. It was completely necessary to specify the aim, skill and task that will be assess so that the rubric should measure what coherently dimensions related to the task. Click on the pictures bellow so you can see in detail the content, assignment's instructions and finally the rubric design.
Types of rubrics
Assignment 2 instructions
Rubric design assessment
Reflections
The most difficult issue to deal with was the construction of the task, mainly because it must demonstrate ideally real context, and the specifications required for completing this task. Personally I had to edit at least 3 time my task, even though, in terms of designing the rubric one could say that it was not so completed due to one was advised to check rubistar.com which is an online page in which teachers can design rubrics according to what they want to evaluate.
There can be no doubt that the construction of the rubric benefited me in abundance, mainly because it was a practical task more than theoretical so that I could analyze which were the specific dimensions that I wanted to measure. It is important to highlight that as teachers we will have to design rubrics for the rest of our life and those rubrics ought to be reliable for our students so that we can give them confidence at the moment of evaluating their performances.
Unit 3: Speaking test design
In order to design the speaking test it was necessary to follow not only Luoma’s specifications list but also Fulcher’s task specifications. Click on the pictures bellow so you can see in detail the content, assignment's instructions and finally the speaking test design.
Speaking specifications
Assignment 3 instructions
Speaking test design
Reflections
From my perspective the most difficult part of the speaking design were the completion of some Luoma’s specifications such as Definition of construct and also I made some mistakes in which I should specify the that the part one of the speaking test was a warm-up and not a task. Another important point to mention is that the rubrics designed for the speaking test had some incomplete points that made it not very reliable. Additionally, in the part where the instructions are given to the students there was a lack of one word that is mention in the task but not in the instructions. There can be no doubt that the idea of piloting the test was completely useful due to one could realize what were the weakness and strength of the test.
This assignment demonstrated me that one must be very careful at the moment of applying a speaking test every detail must be review before applying this, because students can get confused with the instructions or what the teacher expect from them.
Unit 4: Online performance-based assessment instruments
In this unit was necessary to cover the different systems of the language which are pragmatics, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Furthermore, the essential aspects needed at the moment of assessing them. Click on the pictures bellow so you can see in detail the content.
Assessing voabulary
Assessing grammar
Assessing pronunciation
Assessing pragmatics
The assignment was based principally on selecting 2 online performance-based assessment instruments to assess 2 system of the language. It was particularly significant to describe, support the choice and the most important to thing to analyze them according principles of the language assessment. Additionally, a cmap was required based on one article related to ICT assessing system of the language taken from this page http://languagetesting.info/articles/artlt.html. Click on the pictures bellow so you can see in detail assignment's instructions and the Online performance-based assessment instruments analysis.
Assignment 4 instructions
Online instruments
Cmap
Reflections
This assessment required a review about previous classes related to principles of the language assessment, because it was essential to analyze the online instrument according to all those authors. It goes without saying that as the principles of the language demanded a lot of effort for me, at the beginning it was difficult to try to be critical and try to find lacks in the online instrument, however at last I realized that being objective was the clue.
I would say that to have knowledge about the systems of the language is something completely relevant to my professional development, because at the moment of assessing those systems it is very important to analyze every quality of the instrument before applying it, due to as teachers we need to be very sure that this instrument will accomplish with all the qualities that every system is composed.
Final Reflection
There can be no doubt that every content cover in this course has helped me in my professional development as a future teacher. This course is taught just one semester before starting my professional practice so that all those weaknesses related to assessing students are polished while taken it. It is quite clear that while developing every assignment one could realize what were my strengths and weaknesses due to after every evaluation the teacher provided feedback. Assessing is a relevant part of the teaching process that is why one must give real importance to every content delivered because if it is assimilated one will become a better teacher.