RUNNING HEADER: PHILOSOPHY OF ASSESSMENT

Kathleen Hamel

Assessments serve many purposes, such as providing feedback to teachers and

administrators, informing students about the progress of their learning, and helping shape
instruction to meet students needs (Bachman & Palmer, 2010). Despite these benefits,
assessments can also be associated with feelings of anxiety, for teachers and students. In order to
circumvent this issue, its imperative to provide an assessment program that incorporates
nontraditional assessments with the traditional assessments that are often used. When doing this,
I find it important to provide assessment that reflect the target language use domain in order to
promote communicative practice in differing contexts. These facets in my philosophy of
assessment directly align with my philosophy as a teacher. That is, my belief in creating
assessments by collaborating with others, reducing students anxieties in learning a new
language, and promoting student autonomy.
From my past experiences, the type of assessment thats most anxiety-prone is the use of
traditional assessments, mainly tests (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). Nevertheless, testing is
still necessary in a majority of teaching contexts and it is vital to be knowledgeable of how to
best use these tests to enhance the learning process. Most importantly, I believe that it is
important to evaluate whether or not a test is: a) being used for its intended purposes, b)
appropriate for its intended users, and c) a reliable means of assessing students knowledge.
Conversely to that, from my teaching experiences, Ive learned how to create a fair, reliable test,
by sharing varying perspectives with other teachers. This collaboration has promoted an equal
opportunity for each student to succeed, based upon what theyve been learning throughout the
class. Also, having multiple insights on the purpose and administration of these assessments
ensures that the assessment matches the appropriate target language use domain.

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Another way in which progress of learning can be determined is through the

implementation of nontraditional classroom-based assessments. In my classroom, nontraditional
assessments focus on tying together multiple skills, like working with others and using language
appropriately across contexts. These skills are realized in my classroom-based assessments by
having students use language in various communicative situations. For example, students have
performed role plays in front of the class, talked one-on-one with fellow classmates, or even had
a classroom discussion via an online platform. Since each task requires different skills and
communicative purposes, students have the opportunity to practice communicating in different
ways. This enables students to be assessed in a variety of ways, so as to not single out the most
difficult aspect of language for them over and over.
The overall goal of all types of assessment, whether it be standardized or by
nontraditional means, is to provide the students and the teachers with an understanding of what is
being acquired and what needs more time and effort. Through using the assessments previously
mentioned, the results, that are acquired, are then used to continue shaping how and what is
being taught in my classroom. One way I hope to include my students in shaping how they can
improve their weaker skills, in hopes of becoming autonomous learners, is by incorporating selfassessments. From my studies, I have seen great value in self-assessments and their potential to
ignite students learning (Louma, 2012). By using self-assessments, we each can take a role of
assessing students and where they are in the learning process.
As previously mentioned, assessments show many invested parties, i.e. teachers and
students, the progress of students learning. By using both traditional and nontraditional
assessments, students will be fairly and appropriately graded, and ultimately their student anxiety

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can be lowered. This can be done by working with other teachers, when given the opportunity, so
that the test results can shape how teaching is conducted.

References
Bachman, L., and Palmer, A. (2010). Language assessment in practice. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Horwitz, E, K., Horwitz, M. B., and Cope, J. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. The
Modern Language Journal 70(2). Pp. 125- 132
Louma, S. (2012). Self-assessment, from the EAL