Assessment

When it comes to assess students language performance this institute does not use a Task Based Assessment approach as it is suggested by the literature review I did. I can assure this because I took a look at the final exams these students took, and there was not much change from the exams I used to proctor there 4 years ago. This is another big issue I found through this field experience, nothing new to its teachers.

Students in this language institute are to take three or two exams before the final one. These exams follow the same description: the first item involves listening (listening and answering questions given by the teacher, or just listening to a conversation and answering comprehension questions), next is one item that evaluates specific grammar points (most of the times embedded in context), other item for reading and questions for comprehension, and finally one last item for testing writing (almost always with context). All exams are taken in 45 minutes or so, all instructions are written in English, and the scoring scale goes from 1 to 5. By policy, no student can get a 2 (because the affective filter may raise dangerously), and the minimum grade to pass is 3.5.

In the last exam of this class I noticed a "speaking" item that was being tested. Students had to conduct a short interview with a classmate and write down a report. I talked to their teacher and this is something the institute has implemented recently and that has been done once a semester for each class. It is an attempt to match -somehow- teaching and assessment, but some teachers don't like it because it can lead to cheating. For example this teacher didn't allow students to interact in the middle of the exam, instead she created and had students practice a similar activity before, and asked students to remember it and from there create the composition.