Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 1

A Critical Reflection on Assessment

Andrew Hill

The University of Texas at San Antonio

Assessment in Bilingual and ESL Programs

April 1, 2017
Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 2

This course has proven enlightening and instructive. Weve studied sundry aspects of

assessment (and its superset-relationship to testing) and how to consider or employ each in a

classroom context. Appreciating the distinction between assessment and testing something that

untrained teachers fail to recognize is of critical importance. I have learned to value this

distinction (as well as our many classroom experiences1). Herein I describe those aspects I found

most compelling. I do so in the context of prior classroom experiences, namely my stint teaching

EFL in South Korea.

Assessment and testing in contrast to what many a hagwon (Korea) or eikeiwa (Japan)

teacher may believe are not synonymous. Testing is, in fact, a subcategory of assessment. Per

Brown and Abeywickrama (2010), tests are prepared administrative procedures (Brown and

Abeywickrama, 2010, p. 3) that occur at given times and locations whereat test-takers must tap

into all they have learned. A given test a method must quantify a test-takers performance

according to explicit procedures or rules (p. 3). Texas public school students of multiple

generations are familiar with standardized tests: TAAS, TAKS, and STAAR, among others.

My Korean friends and coworkers diligent students all spent countless hours studying for the

TOEIC and TOEFL, two more examples.

Assessment according to Mousavi (2009) is simply the appraisal or estimation of the

level or magnitude of some attribute of a person (p. 3). A formal test, then, is clearly an

assessment. But so are more informal activities. If I am teaching irregular past tense verbs to my

students and I see one struggling, I might informally assess her: JiWon, what is the past tense of

1
I truly appreciated the group work assignments in this course. I had never worked in
conjunction with classmates to write a single cohesive paper and work to establish a unifying
voice. I often wondered how academics and researchers collaborated on a single academic paper.
These group work projects helped me to understand how to effectively do so.
Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 3

fly? If she answers flew then I may determine that she understands this concept. If she

answers flied then I will know I must adjust my instruction to help her course-correct. This is

an example of formative assessment. It informs and shapes my teaching. This stands in contrast

to summative assessment (typical traditional testing), which customarily occurs at the end of a

unit, semester, or course and assesses a sizable chunk of what students have learned. I employed

summative assessment in the South Korean classroom (expounded in this papers fifth

paragraph) and formative assessment (the aforementioned daily targeted questioning of students

that helped me gauge how well they understood my instruction). I also used formative

assessment while leading our own class in my quickshare (Powerwalk Dictation) and reading

presentation (Assessing Listening). Both proved excellent opportunities to employ techniques

we studied in class. For example, at the end of my reading presentation, I asked students to 1)

recall a type of listening assessment, 2) paraphrase that type in tweet form, and 3) tweet out

appropriate and designated hashtags2. By monitoring each students work, I could assess how

well they had understood my presentation. I could, theoretically, use this information to prepare

subsequent instruction to make sure that students understood the material.

I truly enjoyed these student-led activities. It strikes me that they served several purposes:

1) They gave students an opportunity to practice leading a class and engaging in clear and

coherent communication, a necessary skill for any instructor. 2) They gave us an opportunity to

discover new and relevant classroom exercise; activities we might employ as future teachers of

ESL, EFL, and Bilingual Education. Digressing a bit, but only slightly, I use a great file-storing

application called Evernote3. It permits users to take notes within the application, to store files in

2
I loved this opportunity to practice digital/multimodal literacy activities.
3
I have often contemplated how I might use this program, interactively or educationally, with
my students.
Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 4

an easily accessible way, and to clip web pages. Each saved file can then be tagged, indexed, and

easily found again. I have a wonderfully complex system of filling and tagging materials from

every class so that I may find again once I begin teaching with my MA-TESL. I have saved

every quickshare (and key assessment-information) as I know I can use it at a later date.

Moving on: Early in this course, we considered the five foremost principles of language

assessment: Practicality*, reliability*, validity, authenticity, and washback. It would be easy to

expound on these cardinal criteria (p. 25), but for requisite brevity and substance I will focus

on two I found myself frequently reflecting on, asterisked above. Per Brown and Abeywickrama,

practicality refers to the logical, down-to-earth, administrative issues involved in making,

giving, and scoring an assessment instrument (p. 25). I know from personal experience that

myriad educational institutions particularly private academies (or hagwons) in South Korea

demand EFL teachers administer tests under acutely impractical conditions. For example: In

Korea, I proctored summative tests monthly to elementary students. These tests had five

components (Listening, Reading, Vocabulary, Grammar, and Writing). The instructors test

guidelines specified that students would require 100 minutes to complete this comprehensive

test. Unfortunately, test-takers had only 80 minutes (two class periods) to do so. In other words,

this test was a far cry from practical. The critical time crunch triggered student anxiety, raised

the affective filter, and thus hindered student-related reliability (one of four reliability4 forms).

These tests also lacked test-administration reliability. The classroom walls were paper-thin. As

each teacher played the listening sections audio, students and teachers alike (in each classroom)

could hear the loud and echoing audio through the walls. Students could not listen well enough

to answer correctly. Test reliability was thus negatively affected. I appreciated Pophams (2007)

4
Per Brown and Abeywickrama (2010), a reliable test is consistent and dependable (p. 27).
Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 5

practical advice to teachers: We need not devote any time calculating the reliability of our own

classroom tests and risk hypertension (Popham, 2007, p. 42); we should simply understand its

general consequence. I can safely say: I do.

I wish I could travel back in time and evaluate each tests validity, what Gronlund (1998)

generally defines as the extent to which inferences made from assessment results are

appropriate, meaningful, and useful in terms of the purpose of the assessment [emphasis added]

(Brown and Abeywickrama, 2010, p. 29) and authenticity, what Bachmann and Palmer (1996)

generally define as the degree of correspondence of the characteristics of a given language test

task to the features of a target language task (p. 36). Finally, monthly tests had scant washback,

what Hughes (2003) refers to as the effect of testing on teaching and learning (p. 37). I had no

real opportunity to review and discuss test results with students (or incorporate relevant and

helpful measures in subsequent classroom instruction). In retrospect, I would love to have

organized quality review sessions. We were, unfortunately, afforded no time for this. Our class

has helped me to see the importance of positive washback.

As I reflect on assessment in the context of Korean EFL classrooms, I must mention

Huang and Juns (2015) compelling look at the influence of rater differences. Native English

Speaking (NES) and Non-Native English Speaking (NNES) teachers may evaluate their

students work differently, which has direct implications for the reliability, validity, and fairness

of assessments (Huang and Jun, 2015, p. 3). Per Kim (2009), NES raters paid special heed to a

select group of Korean students language use, pronunciation, and vocabulary whereas NNES

raters emphasized pronunciation, vocabulary, and intelligibility (p. 3). While working in Korea

I met many NES teachers (from countries like the US, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and India)

and many NNES teachers (from countries like Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Thailand). At that
Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 6

time, I gave little thought to how differences among these groups might unduly influence the

fairness of an assessment. I will pay special mind to that now.

Finally, I wish to make note the virtue of alternative assessments, particularly the e-

portfolio. This is what Genesee and Upshur (1996) refer to as a purposeful collection of

students work that demonstrates their efforts, progress, and achievement in given areas

(Brown and Abeywickrama, 2010, p. 130). Done electronically, students engage in effective

multimodal and digital literacy. As aforementioned, this is a compelling arena. I am personally

excited to engage in this assignment at the end of this course and in the future. I want my

students, as they prepare for their own future final portfolio assignments, to recognize their

growth over the course of the academic semester or year. I wish that I had the opportunity to

engage in a project like this when I was younger.

I could easily write a thesis-length reflection on my time in this course. Admittedly, I

experienced some dread when my advisor recommended I enroll. I believe this was due to my

own prior experience with assessments. High-school Andrew would have declared

assessments to be stressful boring panic-inducing and, ultimately, disappointing. I was

a student who believed standardized tests were the metric by which I was deemed a good or

poor student. I want my own students (past and future) to suffer from little anxiety. I want(ed)

to assess them in a traditional or alternative fashion and make them feel valued as students.

This course has given me so much information and will help me to effectively do this.
Running Head: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT 7

Works Cited

Brown, H.D., & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language assessment principles and classroom
nd
practices (2 ed.). White Plains, New York: Pearson.

Huang, B., & Jun, S. (2015). Age matters, and so may raters. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition,1-28.

Popham, .J. (2007). Classroom assessment: what teachers need to know. Boston: Allyn & Bacon