5 Strategies for Assessing English Language Learners' Progress
Assessing English language learners' progress is essential to determining the effectiveness of instruction and to help guide decisions about future instruction. In this blog post, we will explore five strategies for assessing English language learners' progress.
Formative assessment: Formative assessment is an ongoing process of gathering data to inform instruction. This can include observations, questioning, and informal assessments such as exit tickets, quizzes, and writing samples. Formative assessments can provide valuable information about what students know, what they are struggling with, and where they need more support.
Summative assessment: Summative assessment is used to evaluate student learning at the end of a unit or instruction. This can include standardised tests, such as the TOEFL or TOEIC, or teacher-made tests and exams. Summative assessments provide a snapshot of student learning and can be used to determine if students have met learning goals.
Self-assessment: Self-assessment is an important strategy for helping English language learners to become more self-directed learners. Self-assessment can include rubrics, checklists, or other tools that students can use to evaluate their own work. Self-assessment can also include reflection journals, where students can reflect on their learning and set goals for future learning.
Peer-assessment: Peer-assessment is a valuable strategy for helping English language learners to become more aware of their own learning, as well as the learning of others. Peer-assessment can include peer-editing of writing, peer-review of oral presentations, or peer-evaluation of group work.
Authentic assessment: Authentic assessment is a way to measure student learning in real-world contexts. This can include performance tasks, such as giving a presentation, writing a letter, or participating in a debate, or portfolio assessment, where students compile a collection of their work over a period of time.
In conclusion, assessing English language learners' progress is an important part of language instruction. By using a variety of assessment strategies, such as formative, summative, self-assessment, peer-assessment, and authentic assessment, teachers can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their students' progress and adapt instruction to meet their needs. Additionally, by involving students in the assessment process through self-assessment and peer-assessment, teachers can help to develop students' autonomy and self-directness.
