Continuous assessment

Continuous
Assessment

According to Baxter (1997)

It simply refers to how frequently you test or
evaluate the students.

The results of these samples are collected over a
period of time and the student is assessed on not
just one performance, but many performances.

Continuous
Assessment

Issues

How often should we
sample the students?

Which “performances

should we sample?

How do we put all the

different results together?

Baxter, A. (1997)

Continuous Assessment

With continuous assessment we keep formal
written records of the students’ ability to
perform.

How often should we sample
the

students?

How often we make notes will depend on the
size of the class.

If we are assessing over, say, a year, it will be
better to do lots of small assessments rather
than a lot of assessments the size of a formal
end-of-year test.

Baxter, A. (1997)

Continuous Assessment

The skills you need to formally assess will
depend on the state, your school, and your Head of Department, as well as your students' parents.

You can add criteria such as participation in group work, or using the target language.
The ones that may reflect the students' attitude that leads to better performance

Baxter, A. (1997)

Which “performances

should we sample?

Continuous Assessment

The state, your school, and your Head of Department, may require you to compile assessment information in a standardised way.

The final balance between a strong or weak performance  will depend on teacher’s judgement

Baxter, A. (1997)

How do we put all the different

results together?

Continuous Assessment

Baxter, A. (1997)

Language use rather than language components

Results of direct testing rather than indirect testing

Elements that are seen as valuable in the student’s final assessment process.

The student’s learning strategies.

In general, give priority to:

Record keeping

Mini – tests and

checktest over time

Test over time

Baxter, A. (1997)

Every teacher benefits from good record –keeping.
These benefits are most obvious when the student
moves to another teacher

Continuous Assessment

Test are the most common form of assessment

The most important thing for test is to:

• Make the test as good as possible
• Try to make the test as helpful to the teaching  process as possible

•Use the results in an intelligent way

Test over time

Continuous Assessment

A final test does not help the student learn. It is better to give test early and often.

This gives students the information they
need:
• How hard they have to work.
• Which areas they have to work on
• It also gives then them chance to improve

Baxter, A. (1997)

Mini – tests and

checktest over time

Instead of giving one large end-of-year test, it is better to divide it into a number of smaller mini-tests.

Continuous Assessment

Why should we do this?

Baxter, A. (1997)

It gives the chance to see the progress and build up their skills.

It encourages to review his /her work from time to time

Give each test a different focus to build up a componential list of the student’s abilities.

Continuous Assessment

Why should we do this?

Baxter, A. (1997)

It gives weaker students something to aim for and gives them lots of fresh starts.

It helps students set themselves more realistic goals

It creates more dialogue between teacher and student.

Continuous Assessment

References:

BAXTER,

A.

(1997),

Evaluating

your students. London. Richmond