Going Beyond Traditional Assessment: Alternative Assessment and Indian ESL Classroom
Amlanjyoti Sengupta, India
Amlanjyoti Sengupta is presently serving as an assistant professor at the Department of English, Assam University (Diphu Campus), Diphu, Assam, India. He is the author and co-author of many books on Business Communication and English communication skills. He has presented papers on several ELT topics in many international conferences. His area of interest includes English Language Teaching (ELT), Second Language Acquisition and Discourse Analysis. E-mail: amlanashok17@yahoo.co.in
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Abstract
Introductory note
A contrastive view on alternative and traditional assessment
Why alternative assessment in Indian ESL classroom?
Purposes and uses of alternative assessment
Alternative assessment tools
Concluding remark
References
The National Curriculum Framework (2005) by the "National Council of Educational Research and Training" (NCERT) India, makes a clear distinction between knowledge that is fluid and that which is reproduced. The former can never be given and must be reconstructed by the learner. For this to happen, learning can no longer be the memorization and reproduction of facts. Unfortunately, in most of the cases in India, academic programmes use closed book, memory-based examinations as part of summative assessment which has focused on the assessment of learning. But there is the necessity to shift the focus from ‘assessment of learning’ to ‘assessment for learning’. In order to make assessment as ‘a tool for learning’, the existing assessment system must be rejuvenated by incorporating alternative assessment techniques.
With this aim, the present paper will discuss possibilities of alternative assessment in the context of Indian ESL classroom. The paper also intends to justify the relevance of alternative assessment in the language classroom in order to ensure that knowledge is not merely reproduced but applied, synthesized and evaluated.
One of the primary purposes of assessment is to be summative. In its summative role, the purpose of assessment is to judge the quality and characteristics of the student and summarize these in a clear and widely acceptable format. Traditionally, the principal mechanism for summative assessment is the end-of-module examination. Assessment also has a formative function. In this role, assessment is intimately linked with students’ learning processes, helping to guide them in their studies, motivating them, providing feedback on areas of learning requiring further work, and generally promoting the desired learning outcome. In India, often it is seen that the summative function increasingly predominates in a way that adversely affects student learning.
Two opposing forces are influencing educational assessment today. On the one hand are the proponents of more and more standardized testing. This view sees the curriculum as only consisting of a body of knowledge and facts that can easily be transferred from teachers to students. The primary instrument of assessment for this paradigm is the standardized test. Standardized tests attempt to measure the amount of knowledge acquired by a student over a period of time. This view implies that knowledge exists separately from the learner. Therefore, students work to accumulate knowledge rather than to construct it. This belief is grounded in a traditional approach to the educational endeavor based on Behaviorist theories. While standardized tests may be easy to administer, easy to score and easy to interpret, they do not provide teachers with all the information they need to make decisions about their students’ instructional needs or progress. Additionally, viewing content as the only component of the curriculum is an incomplete and shortsighted position.
The curriculum is made up of four parts: content, process, product, and environment. This view indicates that how students learn, how they demonstrate what they have learned and the circumstances in which they learn are as important as what they learn. This paradigm, based on the Constructivist theory, therefore, requires alternatives testing to assess student learning. Alternative assessment is a way for ‘Assessment for Learning’ which is a process by which teachers gather information that they will use to make instructional decisions. In this regard, Assessment for Learning is a modality of constant assessment that enables teachers to adjust their practice so that every student succeeds. On the other hand, Assessment of Learning is a unidirectional process with little room for retrofitting.
In present time, education has become a mass phenomenon in India. The load on education system has become very high but the policies and procedures related to admission, teaching, infrastructure and examination have not been streamlined to handle this vast load. The century old traditional examination patterns are still in practice. Even language skills are assessed like content subjects in most of the Indian classrooms and as a result of which the learners know the rules of swimming but cannot swim. Language education and assessment should prepare learners not just to score good grades, but to enable them to use the language effectively outside the classroom. In language assessment the employment of traditional standardized tests can hardly measure the student holistically. Consequently, standardized testing often benefits students who perform well in a certain area of language (for example, vocabulary memorization and grammar translation), as well as those who can perform well under time pressure. Therefore, even though this type of testing is usually viewed as objective, the results can be misleading in terms of communicative language competence. Consequently, students with good communicative competence might perform poorly on standardized tests if they lack the memorization skills that these require.
Alternative assessment is an effective tool to get educational reform. According to Bailey (1998), traditional assessments are indirect and inauthentic. She also adds that traditional assessment is standardized and for that reason, they are one-shot, speed-based, and norm-referenced. Such an assessment procedure is decontextualized and mostly they assess only the lower-order thinking skills of the learner. Traditional assessment often focuses on learner’s ability of memorization and recall, which are lower level of cognition skills. Alternative assessments, on the other hand, assess higher-order thinking skills. Students have the opportunity to demonstrate what they learned. This type of assessment tools focus on the growth and the performance of the student. That is, if a learner fails to perform a given task at a particular time, s/he still has the opportunity to demonstrate his/her ability at a different time and different situation. Since alternative assessment is developed in context and over time, the teacher has a chance to measure the strengths and weaknesses of the student in a variety of areas and situations.
Alternative assessment procedures are based on activities that have authentic communicative function rather than ones with little or no intrinsic communicative value. Its procedures are based on the notion that the interrelationships among the various aspects of language, such as phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, cannot be ignored. Also, the four skills of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—are seen to be parts of a structurally integrated whole. Through alternative assessment approaches, language can be assessed not so much as structure but rather as a tool for communication and self-expression. Moreover, alternative assessment procedures set expectations that are appropriate within the cognitive, social, and academic development of the learner (Grace and Shores 1991, Tierney, Carter and Desai 1991). Assessment practices should therefore recognize students as individuals who will grow and learn in different ways, at different times, and evaluate them holistically.
Alternative assessment bears tremendous benefit for all the possible clients of assessment. For students, alternative assessment allows them to see their own accomplishments in terms that they can understand and, consequently, it allows them to assume responsibility for their learning. For teachers, the primary advantage of alternative assessment is that it provides data on their students and their classroom for educational decision-making. In addition, it chronicles the success of the curriculum and provides teachers with a framework for organizing students’ work. Traditionally, testing and assessment have been used primarily for the purposes of evaluating the learner. It is only recently that a second purpose is being called for—evaluating instruction (Genesee and Hamayan 1994). Alternative assessment lends itself well to both purposes, especially the latter. Moreover, it addresses the cognitive, affective and physical strands of assessment tasks.
According to Simonson and others, there are three approaches in alternative assessment: Authentic assessment, performance-based assessment, and constructivist assessment. Researchers and educators use the term performance-based, alternative, and authentic assessment interchangeably. Alternative assessment strategies include open-ended questions, exhibits,demonstrations, hands-on execution of experiments, portfolios etc. Some such strategies are briefly discussed below:
- Oral Examination
Many student activities that are traditionally examined through written reports or essays may alternatively be examined orally in the form of a viva. Potentially, this approach can give a much clearer idea of the depth of students’ understanding. There is no scope for plagiarism, and little scope for regurgitation of material, at least in carefully managed interviews. These are also helpful in terms of development of interpersonal skills and interview technique.
- Portfolios
The definition of a portfolio indicates that it is merely a container for carrying documents, but in educational circles is refers to a collection of samples of a student’s work used to give evidence of progress in learning. Portfolios are an opportunity for students to provide documentation of their learning activities, ideas and reflections. Portfolios help students take more responsibility for their own learning. By making decisions about what to include in their portfolios, students become knowledge producers rather than knowledge receivers. Thus, portfolios help students construct their own knowledge base (constructivism) as opposed to reacting to a teaching stimulus provided by the teacher (behaviorism).
- Conferences
A peer conference is composed of a group of five to six students who meet together to assess the written work of the group members. Students are to provide help, feedback, and ideas to each other in a non-threatening atmosphere, before work is turned in the teacher for grading.
- Projects
With projects, students are often free to choose the topic, title and methodology to be studied. Projects are useful in developing independence, organizational skills, resourcefulness and a sense of ownership over work, and may induce a deeper level of learning.
- Literature/article review
This develops a number of research-type skills, encouraging students to source material, use search engines and be able to assimilate large amounts of material and select the most important.
- Self- and peer assessment
The basic idea behind self- and peer assessment is to provide mechanisms that help students to evaluate themselves and their work more critically. An ability to assess one’s own strengths and weaknesses is an essential life-skill that facilitates personal development whether in study or in the workplace.
- Testing skills and not simply knowledge
One of the problems with unseen examination is that questions are so closely related to the material covered in the course and in the textbook that students tend to memorize and reproduce without any deep understanding. An alternative approach involves testing students with questions relating to issues or material that is not familiar, and it does require the kind of approach to problem solving that is developed in the module.
- Diaries, Journals, and Writing Folders
Students should be encouraged to write across the curriculum. Student writings may take several forms. Students may be encouraged to make daily entries summarizing their progress in a particular study in a diary. Many teachers require students to compile a journal that is also known as a learning log. The purpose of writing in learning logs is to have students reflect on what they are learning. Writing folders show the different styles of writing that students accomplish such as first drafts, current writing, finished drafts, new writing ideas, and students' reflections on material.
- Poster Sessions
A Poster session advertises student’s research. It combines text and graphics to make a visually pleasing presentation.
- Open-Book Examinations
The most immediate result of Open-Book Examinations on students will be that they will stop "mugging" or rote learning. Such examinations focus on a set of intellectual skills, rather than on the information content.
Alternative assessment has incontestable advantages over traditional testing methods, as it takes into consideration the learning of each student, as well as each student’s cultural background and level of knowledge. The focus is definitely placed on what the students know and can do and not on what they do not know. Nevertheless, alternative assessment approaches have yet to come of age. As long as they are referred to as "alternative" or "informal," they maintain their status as non-mainstream in spite of having their effectiveness and value. In this regard, Worthen (1993) identifies a number of major issues for the future of alternative assessment. First, conceptual clarity is needed to ensure consistency in the applications of alternative assessment. Second, until a mechanism for evaluation and self-criticism is established, alternative assessment cannot become a viable force in education. Third, the users of alternative assessment, whether they are teachers or administrators, need to become well versed in issues of assessment and measurement. Fourth, although one of the most significant advantages of alternative assessment is its flexibility and its allowance for diversity, unless some standardization is introduced, the future of alternative assessment for high-stakes decisions is questionable. As Worthen (1993) suggests, unless these issues are resolved, alternative assessment cannot reach its full potential in education.
Bailey, K. M. (1998). Learning about language assessment: dilemmas, decisions, and directions. Heinle& Heinle: US.
Baskwill, J. and P. Whitman. (1988). Evaluation: Whole language, whole child. New York: Scholastic.
Law, B. & Eckes, M. (1995). Assessment and ESL. Peguis publishers: Manitoba, Canada.
Reeves, T. C. (2000). Alternative assessment approaches for online learning environments in higher education. Educational Computing Research, 3(1) pp. 101-111.
Simonson M., Smaldino, S, Albright, M. and Zvacek, S. (2000). Assessment for distance education (ch 11). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Worthen, B. R. (1993). Critical issues that will determine the future of alternative assessment. Phi Delta Kappan. 74.444-456.
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