Identifying an Effective Teaching Context

Teaching practices could be carried out in various different contexts within the process of learning.  It is very important for the teachers to identify and assess an effective teaching context so that to make the students learn with higher efficiencies and better results. There are different contexts identifies for both the reading and listening assessment in teaching. In respect to the current teaching context, I would make use of the intensive and selective listening tasks and responsive and interactive speaking tasks for the students (Noble and Nwanekezie, 2017).  The teaching context provides with the opportunities for the learners to think, listen, set goals, evaluate tasks and process feedback from the teachers for the skills they are been taught.

Language abilities mainly focus upon the understanding of the language being taught and the ability to make use of the language appropriately and accurately while interacting with others. These are the capabilities which allow the learners to understand and construct the spoken language for effective and proper interpersonal communication. The assessment of language provides an individual with a working knowledge of the principles of assessment and the practical application of the same in classrooms (Xu and Brown, 2016). There are mainly four types of skills or abilities of language which allows the individual to initiate communication with others. These abilities are listening, reading, speaking and writing. The present assessment would include mainly listening and speaking abilities of the language.  It has been observed that listening is considered to be the first language ability or skills which we acquire in the native language.

 It is also known as the passive or receptive skills as it needs to make use of our ears and brains to understand the language being spoken by the others.  Another language ability or skill is speaking and is also known as the active or productive skill. This ability requires us to make use of the vocal tracts and brains to produce the language correctly through sound. It is the second most important skill of two natural language abilities (Vogt and  Tsagari, 2014).

Language assessment or testing is basically a field of studying under the concepts of applied linguistics. The major focus of the assessment is the evaluation of first, second and other languages being used in schools, colleges or universities. The language assessment might involve speaking, listening, writing, reading, combination of these two or more skills or any other language abilities.  There are five fundamental principles of language assessment such as practicality, validity, reliability, authenticity and washback. These principles mainly highly assist in designing good assessment to the teachers and conduct effective language assessments (Krahé and Vanwesenbeeck, 2016). Following are the principles which could be applied to design my assessment of future teaching context:

Practicality: This principle is mainly defined as the relationship between the available resources for the assessment like time, human resources, material resources and other resources being needed in the development, design and use of the assessment. The practicality is been specified mainly in terms of time, cost, administration and evaluation.  

Assessment of Language Ability

Reliability: It has been identified that an assessment is considered to be reliable when it is consistent and dependable. This basically means that if a student is been given with same test on two different occasions, the assessment must yield same results. The major factors that affect the reliability are student related reliability, test administration reliability, test reliability, etc (Chin and  Hayes, 2015).

Validity: This principle is been considered as an integrated evaluative result of the degree to which the theoretical rationales and the empirical evidences supports the appropriateness of the actions and suppositions depending on the test score or other related modes of assessment.

Authenticity : This principle deals with the real world where it is the degree of association of the features of given language test to the characteristics of target language tasks. It is very important for the teachers to ensure that the topics involved in the tests are meaningful to the learners.

Washback: Washback is mainly defined as the effect of test on the learning and teaching out of the classrooms (Verdon, McLeod and Wong, 2015). It is been identified that the teachers must design the tests which serves as learning devices through which washback is achieved. This principle enhances self confidence, intrinsic motivation, language ego and strategic investments among the students.

However, these principles would prove to be beneficial in design the current assessment and extract effective results out of the same.

The language assessment is the act of evaluating the learning and the language abilities of the students within the classrooms. The assessment places an equal emphasis over the knowledge and the theoretical understanding of the language and the proficiency of the language.  It is essential for the teachers to assess the language and make the students understand the concepts accordingly (Shohamy, 2014). Following are the different tools and techniques which could be used for assessing the language:

Standardised assessment:  This assessment is practically developed assessment tools which constructs statistical reliability and validity out of the test. There are mainly two types of standardised assessment tool i.e. criterion referenced and non referenced tests.

Self report measures: The teacher, parent and self report measures mainly involves the checklists, rating scales and the questionnaires filled by the family members, teachers and other individuals.  This technique is been considered as one of the modern technique for assessing the personality and abilities of a student.

Observation: This technique is basically a direct means of assessing the skills of people and make relevant results out of the same. Observation includes different types such as systematic observation, naturalistic observation, analog tasks, etc (Grubiši? and et al, 2019).

Language sampling: The language sampling technique is used to bring out the unstructured language in different communication contexts like dialogue, conversation, narration and expository speeches and then derive the end measures accordingly.

Curriculum based assessment: This technique is mainly used to identify the demands of language of the curriculum and assess the abilities of students for meeting those demands specifically. It is mainly based upon the curriculum which is been mastered by the student currently and might use the materials being used in the classrooms.

Basic Concept of Language Assessment

In reference to the current assessment, the tools would be used on the basis of the teaching context and their applicability to the classrooms.

The teaching context in current assessment is been considered as the intensive and selective listening tasks and responsive and interactive speaking tasks. The tools and techniques which could be applied in this context are observation, self report measures and curriculum based assessment which would help in availing an effective result out of the assessment. The observation technique would help the teacher in collecting sufficient information related to the responses provided by the students upon the questionnaire or other interactions (Ishihara and Cohen, 2014). Assessing the communication skills and responses towards the understanding of the teaching in the class would help in extracting better assessment results in the classrooms. The self report measures technique is also considered to be an effective method of assessment in the classroom. This technique facilitates the teacher with a checklist, rating scale or questionnaire stating the abilities recorded by the teacher or the family members. The students are been rated on the basis of their communication skills performed in either schools or at home.

Another technique which is been applied in the teaching context is the curriculum based assessment. This assessment includes the evaluation of the demands of language required to the students in the classrooms. For instance, the students would be assessed on the basis of the learning and understanding over the English language being taught in the classrooms. Moreover, these techniques would highly facilitate the teacher in meeting the teaching context effectively and make the students learn in classrooms (Hinkel, 2015).

In order to design the assessment for current teaching context, the most appropriate language assessment tools is identified as the self report measure technique. This technique is been selected as it provides with the accurate and effective outcomes for the students. The techniques allows the involvement of teachers, parents and other related individual to measure the ability of the students and develop a report over it (Qian, 2014). This option is been considered to be most relevant with the current context as compared to the others due to its effectiveness and flexibility of the assessment out of the responses.

 The technique would help the teacher in assessing the ability of speaking and listening the language at both the home and classroom of the students and measure the outcome effectively. The parents and family members would be provided with the questionnaire to observe and assess the students’ responses towards the communication and other activities. The teaching contexts would also include specific check list, report and rating scale which would make the assessment more effective and reliable out of the responses. The techniques would be beneficial in making effective judgment out of the results and make the student learn accordingly (Antoni, 2015).  

For language assessment, there are various principles used by the institutes and an individual to meet the objectives. According to an analysis of own classroom activities and language assessment practices, it has been carried out that learning of issues and lessons is appropriate and not excessively expensive. The classroom learning is helpful for understanding and implementing the activities according to specific procedure and time. For example, the test of language proficiency and one-on-one interview in every five hours is helping to identify the problems and offering the support that could support in the improvement (Morrow, 2018). The own language assessment also suggests that the teaching from my teachers is related to the student learning approach and have the proper consideration of the physical and psychological factors. However, there are some human errors that influence the approach of an individual to meet the objectives. Apart from that, the differences that are identified between own and other language assessment functions involve the authenticity of the language testing. At my classroom, the teaching concept is not including the proper consideration of the testing tools for analyzing the corresponding and characteristics of the chosen language (Savignon, 2018). This is influencing approach of learning and selection of language.

Language Assessment Tools and Techniques

The application of principles for language assessment for own classroom activities is involving the proper validity and wash-back process that making the learning reliable and practical. The effective utilization of wash-back principle is useful for diagnosing the strength and weakness of the language and teaching. In spite of that, the other’s are doing prior preparation for the assessment of the language and testing their specialization (Dörnyei, 2014). The analysis of consequential validity is also acceptable and considered for the management potential consideration for the improvement in the accuracy in measuring the intended criteria.  

The above assessment meets the criteria of language assessment fundamental principles effectively.  The assessment is practical as it lies within the appropriate time constraints and do not exceeds its limits. In order to fulfil the principle of reliability, the assessment had focused upon the student related reliability aspects which include the efficient test making strategies.  The assessment is valid as it includes the specific measure of classroom objectives and predetermined levels of performances are been implied which are been expected to be reached by the students (Edwards, 2015). The criterion related evidence is been included to justify the validity of the assessment.  The assessment is authentic as it would provide with an agenda to determine the target language tasks and transform them into the valid tests items. Moreover, the assessment would create a positive wash back as it includes the classroom assessment on teaching and learning among the students.

References 

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Chin, F., & Hayes, S. C. (2015). Cognition, Assessment, and Psychopathology: Basic Behavioral Principles and Applied Model. In The Act in Context (pp. 155-157). Routledge.

Dörnyei, Z. (2014). The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Routledge.                  

Edwards, S. (2015). Assessment of English language learners in New Zealand primary schools: Purposes, principles and practices.

Grubiši?, A., Stankov, S., Žitko, B., Tomaš, S., Brajkovi?, E., Volari?, T., … & Dodaj, A. (2019). Principles of Natural Language Processing and Adaptive Courseware in E-Assessments: Empirical Evaluations. In Handbook of Research on E-Assessment in Higher Education (pp. 335-366). IGI Global.

Hinkel, E. (2015). Effective curriculum for teaching L2 writing: Principles and techniques. Routledge.

Ishihara, N., & Cohen, A. D. (2014). Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. Routledge.

Krahé, B., & Vanwesenbeeck, I. (2016). Mapping an agenda for the study of youth sexual aggression in Europe: Assessment, principles of good practice, and the multilevel analysis of risk factors. Journal of sexual aggression, 22(2), 161-176.

Morrow, C. K. (2018). Communicative language testing. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, 1-7.

Noble, B., & Nwanekezie, K. (2017). Conceptualizing strategic environmental assessment: Principles, approaches and research directions. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 62, 165-173.

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Savignon, S. J. (2018). Communicative competence. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, 1-7.

Shohamy, E. (2014). The power of tests: A critical perspective on the uses of language tests. Routledge.

Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Wong, S. (2015). Supporting culturally and linguistically diverse children with speech, language and communication needs: Overarching principles, individual approaches. Journal of communication disorders, 58, 74-90.

Vogt, K., & Tsagari, D. (2014). Assessment literacy of foreign language teachers: Findings of a European study. Language Assessment Quarterly, 11(4), 374-402.

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