Language Testing in Colombia

One of the biggest misconceptions regarding teaching and learning is without any doubt the meaning given to the term assessment.  Assessing has become one of the greatest fears for both teachers and students since the only connotation they give to this word is that of testing for grading instead of that of assessing for getting information about students' processes and teaching practices in order to make decisions which will generate improvements. 

The article about Language Testing in Colombia by Alexis López and Ricardo Bernal clearly shows the perceptions teachers have towards assessment. It is quite surprising to find out that professionals in education do not know what assessment really is for since this function is one of the most important aspects of education.  

Assessment is not only a great tool to improve learning successfully, but also an innovative way to encourage students to use self-assessment and peer-review in order to monitor their learning processes.

When it comes to enhance instruction and learning processes in students, the implementation of assessment is  crucial. Teachers definitely need to be aware of how relevant this topic is. In order to create effective instruction and to form competent educators, teachers need to receive a high quality training. Teachers need to be capable of measuring achievement, keeping track of the students' learning processes and of course teachers need to be skillful enough to provide detailed and meaningful feedback to students.

TEACHER AND STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS REGARDING PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT IN AN EFL CONTEXT

I have always thought of portfolios as a great tool for implementing teaching practices, specially when it comes to English teaching. Portfolios offer a really wide and complete set of advantages for both students and teachers. 

Keeping a portfolio not only means keeping track and having evidence of students' work, but also promoting learners' autonomy and ability to self assess. Portfolios are excellent for assessing since they provide meaningful information about student performance and make monitoring students a lot easier for teachers. 

Although there are many strong aspects that make portfolios one of the best options to alternative assessment, there are certain important points to take into account at the time of considering the implementation of portfolios in the classroom. 

"An incoherent and disorganized alternative assessment tool may progressively reduce students' enthusiasm and enervate portfolio's authenticity and tendency to promote autonomy of learners" (Soruç, 2011) keeping a portfolio sometimes may generate a series of issues; stress, heavy workloads, lack of confidence, limited time and distrust are some of the aspects teachers and students could face when carrying out a portfolio. 

In order to launch this kind of assessment, teachers as well as students need to be trained on how to use portfolios property, so there is no unreliability at the time of the implementation. Teachers need to be subjective when it comes to assessing portfolio presentations; they need to take into account students' fluency, listening, grammar, vocabulary and writing and there must be always set a clear purpose indicating why the portfolio has been carried out.

 

By taking into account all the previous aspects, keeping portfolios in the classroom will be a lot easier and effective; students will be able to share their ideas, parents will be able to monitor and contribute in the process, teachers and students will assess themselves and if there is any trouble along the way, they will be able to change it or to improve it.

PORTFOLIOS IN EDUCATION

Portfolios are made of a collection of everything students have been working on over a period of time. Samples of writing, lists of books, book reports, tape recordings, favorite short stories are the most common samples of works kept in portfolios. Portfolios keep a continuous record of students' development and if teachers and students constantly review portfolios together, the teacher will have for sure an idea of what students perceive and think about their own learning process and also they will know what strategies students apply when studying. The use of portfolios easily demonstrate to students and others their efforts, progress and achievements in certain field. 

Record of language development, holistic view of students learning, tangible evidence of learning and opportunities for collaborative assessment and goal-setting with students are just some of the benefits teachers can get from the implementation of portfolios in teaching practices. Students' ability to think critically about schoolwork is one of the most important and strong purposes when implementing portfolios. In addition to this, there are many other reasons for teachers to start promoting portfolios as a way of assessment.


Although I consider keeping portfolios is a great alternative to assessment and a useful tool for students to see their performance, I have never tried to implement my teaching practices with it, but I am really thinking about starting to keep record of students this way. Do you guys use portfolios at work? If you do, how has been the experience like? and if you haven't , would you give it a try? 

To finish with my entry I am leaving you with this interesting sample of how to use portfolios in ESL conversation classes written by Eileen Master a teaching associate/ instructor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I hope you guys read it because it can be very useful for you as teachers if you ever thought about using this tool for the improvement of your classes. 

Portfolios in ESL Classes by

PLANNING EVALUATION 

Decision making is a really essential, but complex leadership skill. Learning how to make well-considered and correct decisions is actually a tough task, since there is not an automatic process to perform this activity. However, by evaluating constantly and carefully you can lead a team or yourself to well-deserved success.

In the field of Education decision making is an important factor since teachers are the ones who educate all people. It is certain that teachers do not make all decisions when it comes to setting objectives, the government instead and the corresponding institutions are the ones in charge of considering what to teach. Although sometimes teachers are told to follow specific rules, there are also situations in which teachers have the right to decide according to their wish.

Since there are no precise decision rules, a strategy for decision making is needed. There are some very useful steps for correct decision making. The first one is Identifying the purpose of evaluation, the second is collecting information pertinent to these decisions, the third one consists of analyzing the data in order to finally reach the fourth and last step, decision making. 

There are certain components and aspects of teaching and learning that play a really important role in classroom-based evaluation. In order to evaluate correctly, we need to take into account that the Instructional purposes, instructional plans and instructional practices match the students' needs, moreover the matching among components has to exist as well .By following these steps and taking into account these components it will be a lot easier for teachers to make smart decisions and to offer students a well-design, interesting and effective education.