Assessment

The article stresses the importance of discourse as a part of communicative competence. There is a need for testers to come up with different ways to assess discourse skills. I thought the quote at the beginning by McNamara was very true. It spoke about how oral assessment models focus on a candidate instead of on how they interact. Since the language tester is seeing how the candidate can orally communicate, it is important that the tester is studying the interaction part. Assessments need to be in context, because if they aren't  the tester cannot truly understand how the candidate communicates. The use of direct tests proves this. When a candidate is orally tested using a direct test, he/she uses more elaborate and indirect language and involves more pragmatic and social devices.

            Chapter 23 was about language assessment. It outlined different assessment types, such as performance based. These portfolios, projects, and experiments show how students progress without them having to memorize facts to copy down onto a pencil/paper test. Even though traditional testing offers higher levels of practicality, those types of tests are not individualized. This does not mean that they cannot be used. More authentic assessment types take longer to create, implement, and grade. I suggest placing more emphasis on alternative assessment methods because they show more of what a student is capable of doing.

            Brown’s chapter 24 went into detail on classroom based assessment. It also gave practical steps to creating a test, my favorite one being “form your objectives, draw up test specifications” because it gave a sample outline of a test. It encompassed many domains by including listening, multiple choice, and writing production. When it comes to alternative assessment types, I think that portfolios truly show the progress of a student from the beginning of the year until the end. It allows the student, instructor, and parents to see the work of the student in the beginning of the course and how/if they improved with various assignments.