summary chapter 5 from book language assessment principles and classroom practices

Standards based assessment

The construction of such standards makes possible a concordance between standardized test specifications and the goals and objective of educational programs. And so, in the board domain of language arts, teachers and educational administrators began the painstaking process of carefully examining existing curricular goals, concluding needs assessments among students, and designing appropriate assessments of those standards. A sub field of language arts that is of increasing importance in the united states, with its millions of non-native users of English, is English as a second language ()ESL, also known as English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English language learners (ELLs), and English language development (ELD).

ELD STANDARDS

            The process of designing and conducting appropriate periodic reviews of ELD standards involves dozens of curriculum and assessment specialists, teachers, and researchers (fields, 200; kuhlman, 2001). In creating such “benchmarks for accountability”(O’Malley & Valdez Pierce,1996), tremendous responsibility to carry out a comprehensive study of a number of domains:

·        Literally thousands of categories of language ranging from phonology at one end of a continuum to discourse, pragmatic, functional, and sociolinguistic elements at the other end;

·        Specification of what ELD students’ needs are, at thirteen different grade levels, for succeeding in their academic and social development;

·        A consideration of what is a realistic number and scope of standards to be included within a given curriculum;

·        A separate set of standards (qualifications, expertise, training) for teachers to teach ELD students successfully in their classrooms; and

·        A thorough analysis of the means available to assess student attainment of those standards.

The Listening and Speaking standards for English-language learners (ELLs) identify a student's competency to understand the English language and to produce the language orally. Students must be prepared to use English effectively in social and academic settings. Listening and speaking skills provide one of the most important building blocks for the foundation of second language acquisition. These skills are essential for developing reading and writing skills in English; however. to ensure that ELLS acquire proficiency in English listening, speaking, reading, and writing, it is important that students receive reading and writing instruction in English while they are developing fluency in oral English.

To ensure that El I s develop the skills and concepts needed to demonstrate proficiency on the English-Language Arts (HA) Listening and Speaking standards, teachers must concurrently use both the ELD and the standards. ELLS achieving at the Advanced ELI) proficiency level should demonstrate proficiency on the ELA standards for their own and all prior grade levels. This means that all prerequisite skills needed to achieve the ELA standards must be learned by the Early Advanced El D proficiency level. El-is must develop both fluency in English and proficiency on the ELA standards. Teachers must ensure that ETS receive instruction in listening and speaking that will enable them to demonstrate proficiency on the ELA Speaking Applications standards.

ELD ASSESSMENT

The process of administering a comprehensive, valid, and fair assessment of ELD students continues to be perfected. Stringent budgets within departments of education worldwide predispose many in decision-making positions to rely on traditional standardized tests for ELI) assessment, but rays of hope lie in the exploration of more student-centered approaches to learner assessment. Stack, Stack, and Fern (2002), for example, reported on a portfolio assessment system in the San Francisco Unified School District called the Language and Literacy Assessment Rubric (LAI-AR), in which multiple forms of evidence of students' work are collecte Teachers observe students year-round and record their observations on scannable forms, The use of the LALAR system provides useful data on students' performance at all grade levels for oral production, and for reading and writing performance in elementary and middle school grades (1-8). Further research is ongoing for high school levels (grades 9-12).

CASAS AND SCANS

At the higher levels of education (colleges, community colleges, adult schools language schools, and workplace settings), standards-based assessment systems have also had an enormous impact-The Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS), for example, is a program designed to provide broadly based assessments of ESL curricula across the United States. The system includes more than 80 standardized assessment instruments used to place learners in programs diagnose learners' needs, monitor progress, and certify mastery of function: basic skills. CASAS assessment instruments are used to measure function: reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills, and higher-order thinking skills CASAS scaled scores report learners' language ability levels in employment and adult life skills contexts.

A similar set of standards compiled by the U. S. Department of Labor, nov known as the Secretary's Commission in Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), OL' lines competencies necessary for language in the workplace. The competencies cover language functions in terms of

·        resources (allocating time, materials, staff, etc.),

·        interpersonal skills, teamwork, customer service, etc.,

·        information processing, evaluating data, organizing files, etc.,

·        systems (e.g., understanding social and organizational systems), and

·        technology use and application

TEACHER STANDARDS

In addition to the movement to create standards for learning, an equally strong movement has emerged to design standards for teaching. Cloud (2001 , p. 3) noted that a student's "performance [on an assessment] depends on the quality of the instructional program provided, . . . which depends on the quality of professional development." Kuhlman (2001) emphasized the importance of teacher standards in three domains:

1.      linguistics and language development

2.      culture and the interrelationship between language and culture

3.      planning and managing instruction.

Professional teaching standards have also been the focus of several committees in the international association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

How to assess whether teachers have met standards remains a complex issue. Can pedagogical expertise be assessed through a traditional standardized test? In the first of Kuhlman's domains—linguistics and language development—knowledge can perhaps be so evaluated, but the cultural and interactive characteristics of effective teaching are less able to be appropriately assessed in such a test. TESOL's standards committee advocates performance-based assessment of teachers for the following reasons:

·        Teachers can demonstrate the standards in their teaching.

·        Teaching can be assessed through what teachers do with their learners in their classrooms or virtual classrooms (their performance).

·        This performance can be detailed in what are called "indicators^” :examples of evidence that the teacher can meet a part of a standard.

·        The processes used to assess teachers need to draw on complex evidence of performance. In other words, indicators are more than simple "how to" statements.

·        Performance-based assessment of the standards is an integrated system. It is neither a checklist nor a series of discrete assessments.

·        Each assessment within the system has performance criteria against which the performance can be measured.

·        Performance criteria identify to what extent the teacher meets the standard.

·        Student learning is at the heart of the teacher's performance.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF STANDARDS-BASED AND STANDARDIZED TESTING

University admissions offices around world have relied on the results of tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (S; the Graduate Record Exam (GRÜ), and the TOEFL to screen applicants respectably moderate correlations between these tests and academic perform.

are used to justify determining the future of students' lives on the basis of one relatively inexpensive sit-down multiple-choice test. Thus has emerged the term high-stakes testing. based on the gate-keeping function that standardized tests perform.

Are the institutions that produce and utilize high-stakes standardized tests justified in their decisions? An impressive array of research would seem to say yes. Consider the fact that correlations between TOEFL scores and academic performance in the first year of college are impressively high (Henning & Cascallar, 1992). Are tests that lack a high level of content validity appropriate assessments of ability? A good deal of research says yes to this question as well.A study of the correlation of TOEFL results with oral and written production, for example, showed that years before TOEFL's current use of an essay and oral production section, significant positive correlations were obtained between all subsections of the TOEFL and independent direct measures of oral and written production (Henning & Cascallar, 1992).Test promoters commonly use such findings to support their claims for the efficacy of their tests.

But several nagging, persistent issues emerge from the arguments about the con. sequences of standardized testing. Consider the following interrelated questions:

·        Should the educational and business world be satisfied with high but not perfect probabilities of accurately assessing test-takers on standardized instruments? In other words, what about the small minority who are not fairly assessed?

·        Regardless of construct validation studies and correlation statistics, should further m'es of performance be elicited in order to get a more comprehensive picture of the test-taker?

·        Does the proliferation of standardized tests throughout a young person's life give rise to test-driven curricula, diverting the attention of students from creative or personal interests and in-depth pursuits?

·        Is the standardized test industry in effect promoting a cultural, social, and political agenda that maintains existing power structures by assuring opportunity to an elite (wealthy) class of people?

 

TEST BIAS

It is no secret that standardized tests involve a number of types of test bias, That bias comes in many forms: language, culture, race, gender, and learning styles (Medina & Neill, 1990). The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, in its bimonthly newsletter Fair Test, every year offers dozens of instances of claims of test bias from teachers, parents, students, and legal consultants.

In an era when we seek to recognize the multiple intelligences present within every student (Gardner, 1983, 1999), is it not likely that standardized tests promote logical-mathematical and verbal-linguistic intelligences to the virtual exclusion of the other contextualized, integrative intelligences? Only very recently have traditionally receptive tests begun to include written and oral production in their test battery—a positive sign. But is it enough? It is also clear that many otherwise "smart" people do not perform well on standardized tests. may excel in cognitive styles that are not amenable to a standardized format. Perhaps they need to be assessed by such performance-based evaluation as interviews, portfolios, samples of work, demonstrations, and observation reports? Perhaps, as Weir (2001, p. 122) suggested, learners and teachers need to be given the freedom to choose more formative assessment rather than the summative assessment inherent in standardized tests.

Expanding test batteries to include such measures would help to solve the problem of test bias (which is extremely difficult to control for in standardized items) and to account for the small but significant number of test-takers who are not accurately assessed by standardized tests. Those who are using the tests for gate-keeping purposes, with few if any other assessments, would do well to consider multiple measures before attributing infallible predictive power to standardized tests.

TEST-DRIVEN LEARNING AND TEACHING

Yet another consequence of standardized testing is the danger of test-driver learning and teaching. When students and other test-takers know that one single measure of performance will determine their lives, they are less likely to take a positive attitude toward learning. The motives in such a context are almost exclusive; extrinsic, with little likelihood of stirring intrinsic interests. Test-driven learning is a worldwide issue. In Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, to name just a few countries, students approaching their last year of secondary school focus obsessively on passing the year-end college entrance examination, a major section of which is English (Kuku 2002). Little attention is given to any topic or task that does not directly contribute to passing that one exam. In the United States, high school seniors are forced to give almost as much attention to SAT scores.

ETHICAL ISSUES: CRITICAL IANGUAGE TESTING

Shohamy (1997) and others (such as Spolsky, 1997; Hamp-Lyons, 2001) see the ethics of testing as an extension of what educators call critical pedagogy. or more precisely in this case, critical language testing (see TBR Chapter 23, for some comments on critical language pedagogy in general). Proponents of a critical approach to language testing claim that large-scale standardized testing is not an unbiased process. but rather is the "agent of cultural, social. political, educational, and ideological agendas that shape the lives of individual participants. teachers, and learners" (Shohamy, 1997, p. 3),             issues of critical language testing are numerous:

·        Psychometric traditions are challenged by interpretive, individualized procedures for predicting success and evaluating ability.

·        Test designers have a responsibility to offer multiple modes of performance to account for varying styles and abilities among test-takers.

·        Tests are deeply embedded in culture and ideology.

·        Test-takers are political subjects in a political context.

These issues are not new. More than a century ago, British educator E Y. Edgeworth (1888) challenged the potential inaccuracy of contemporary qualifying examinations for university entrance. In recent years, the debate has heated up. In 1997, an entire issue of the journal Language Testing was devoted to questions about ethics in language testing.

One of the problems highlighted by the push for critical language testing is the widespread conviction, already alluded to above, that carefully constructed standarc€ ized tests designed by reputable test manufacturers are infallible in their predictive validity. One standardized test is deemed to be sufficient; follow-up measures are cory sidered to be too costly

A further problem with our test-oriented culture lies in the agendas of those wbc design and those who utilize the tests. Tests are used in some countries to deny city zenship (Shohamy, 1997, p. 10). Tests may by nature be culture-biased and therefor may disenfranchise members of a nonmainstream value system.Test givers are always in a position of power over test-takers and therefore can impose social and political ideologies on test-takers through standards of acceptable and unacceptable items. Test promote the notion that answers to real-world problems have unambiguous right are wrong answers with no shades of gray. A corollary to the latter is that tests presume to reflect an appropriate core of common knowledge, such as the competencies reflected in the standards discussed earlier in this chapter. Logic would therefore dictate that the test-taker must buy in to such a system of beliefs in order to make the cut.  

Language tests, some may argue, are less susceptible than general-knowledge to such sociopolitical overtones. The research process that undergirds the TOEFL to great lengths to screen out Western cultural bias, monocultural belief systems, other potential agendas. Nevertheless, even the process of the selection of co alone for the TOEFL involves certain standards that may not be universal, and the fact that the TOEFL is used as an absolute standard of English proficiency by most universities does not exonerate this particular standardized test.

As a language teacher, you might be able to exercise some influence in ways tests are used and interpreted in your own milieu. If you are offered variety of choices in standardized tests, you could choose a test that offers least degree of cultural bias. Better yet, you might encourage the use of multiple  measures of performance (varying item types, oral and written production other alternatives to traditional assessment) even though this might cost money. Further, you and your co-teachers might help establish an institutional system of evaluation that places less emphasis on standardized tests and emphasis on an ongoing process of formative evaluation. In so doing, you be offering educational opportunity to a few more people who would otherwise be eliminated from contention.

reference :

Brown,H. Douglas. 2004. language assessment: principle and classroom practice. New York: Pearson Education.