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>> My topic today is language assessment.

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And I'd like to start defining it and I think it
helps to think of assessment when we're talking

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about teaching as sort of an umbrella term.

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So there are a lot of things that we do in
the classroom to evaluate students' learning,

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to evaluate their language
ability, and language knowledge.

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And there are some things that we do formally
like tests, pop quizzes, presentations.

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And there are other things that we do
informally like ask students questions

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and see if they understood something
or have them do a skit or a role-play.

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So we're assessing maybe more than
we think we are, in classrooms.

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But today we're really focused on formal
assessment, things like test and quizzes.

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And when you think about assessment its good
to have three questions in mind, I think.

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The first question is why.

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So thinking about why you're assessing
students, are you trying to place them

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into different levels, are you trying to do a
diagnostic test to see where their strengths

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and weaknesses are, do you want to
know if they've learned the material

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up through the midterm, or if they're able to
listen to a 30-minute lecture and comprehend it.

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So always thinking about what are you
trying to find out about the students?

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And that actually leads to the second question
of what, what are you trying to measure?

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So once you know why you're assessing them,

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you need to think about what is
it you're trying to find out.

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So going back to listening
comprehension, in that case,

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you're thinking about what
is involved in listening.

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Is it understanding when people
are pausing, why they're pausing,

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is it being able to comprehend certain
vocabularies, certain genres but really trying

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to define what it is you
want to measure or assess?

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And once you know why and what, that helps
with the third question, how is really the test

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and how we get to the assessment instrument.

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And often times that's where we like to
start but actually thinking about why

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and what should help us make a lot of
the decisions we need to make with how.