8/11/2019 PART 1 lng assestment assignment

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PART 1

On 8th September 2014, I have been observing the teacher advisor of Sekolah

Kebangsaan Batu Bertangkup teaching in 2 Mulia. She focussed on listening and speaking skill. I

have to pay special attention to the test type employed by the teacher to assess any language

skill(s) or language content. I have to take note of the test employed and evaluate it with regardsto four basic principles of language assessment. With the teachers permission, I have recorded

an audio of the lesson to document pertinent points with regards to the assessment. Based on

my observation, I have to make a report of my observation and comment on the strengths and

weaknesses of the test and suggest improvements to make it more effective.

Firstly I would like to highlight what is the meaning of assessment? In general,

assessment is the process of gathering information for the purpose of making a decision

(McLoughlin and Lewis (2008, p.1). These researchers argue that, although everyone engages in

assessment, it is particularly important skill for those of us who work with young learners. Since

the definition of assessment has been understood, the next items for teachers to comprehend

are principles of language assessment. To design good assessment, teachers should payattention to validity, reliability, practicality, authenticity, and washback. Each of them is further

explained below. The first strength that I have discovered is the teacher was doing the story

telling session every time to start the lesson. This could be her classroom routine to attract

pupils focus and gear pupils attention to the teaching and learning session. By doing this

routine, I can see that she is practising the pupils of word recognition skill instead of the meaning

itself. Reliability refers to consistency and dependability. Here I can see that she was using a

reliable teaching technique which used a common classroom activity such as language drilling

for pronunciation practice. However, the weakness of this activity is the teacher could not be able

to prepare a good teaching material which suits the target group. This is because the teaching

material used (story books) are not contextualised to the pupils themselves. The teacher should

use story book which contain appropriate language level for the target group. Other than that, theteacher should make a book with a bigger font so that the pupils will see clearly.

The second strength is the teacher managed to identify the individual differences among

the pupils. I can see this when the teacher called out names to do the speaking activity which I

believe these are the weaker students. The teacher was able to give extra attention to them to

show that she knew her students well. Some pupils are capable of learning much more, and at a

much faster rate than they normally do. Learning involves subconscious and conscious

processes where the pupils are still learning while the teacher was correcting the others. But

unfortunately, there are still pupils who left out during this activity. The teacher should prepare

other extra task for those who have done the previous activity.