Assessing Advanced Students

7/27/2019 Assessing Advanced Students

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Assessing advanced students' progress

In this article, we'll be looking at how to measure the progress ofadvanced level students. We'll be faced with the dual problem ofboth teacher assessment of student abilities and student self-assessment. While all of us are well aware that we are constantlydealing with mixed ability classes, we are also occasionally facedwith that mixed blessing, a class which at least looks, if notexactly is, a very level class. We'll try to offer some newinsights into using the traditional four skills as a tool formeasuring student progress, and to provide a few suggestions for

future work.

Teacher assessment of student abilities

Student self-assessment

Reading skills

Writing skills

Listening skills

Speaking skills

Using the traditional four skills as a tool

A few suggestions for future work

Teacher assessment of student abilitiesWhen you are faced with the fact that one of your classesproduces very good grammar and reading tests, writes letters andessays with few mistakes, achieves outstanding results in listeningcomprehension, and has no problems communicating with a nativespeaker, you are in effect faced with the need to help yourstudents realize how good they have become, under your expertguidance. As a teacher, you should also look for some tactful

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ways to let them see for themselves that one or two of theirnumber are actually much better than all the others, even if itseems to them that they are all at the same level.

Student self-assessmentSurprisingly, many students tend to under-estimate themselves.Without your help, they cannot be sure how good, or how bad,they are. Even those who consistently get top marks in every taskstill need some reassurance and/or confirmation. Naturally, thereare some weaker students who have a rather high opinion ofthemselves. With them, your tact is a must: you want to show

them that there is still room for improvement, without decreasingtheir desire to improve whatever aspect it is they are slightlyweaker at than their classmates.

Reading skillsAdvanced Level presupposes the ability to cope with FCE(Cambridge First Certificate Examination in English) and post-FCEexams, or an equivalent. There are many types of reading tasks

to choose from, to be found in any FCE textbook. I would suggestthat for an assessment lesson, you choose a combined task, e.g.Fill in the Gaps and put the word(s) into the necessary form, e.g.change the tense of a verb, or form an adjective from a noun,etc.

Writing skills

If your students feel confident when writing an essay or a letter,suggest a more complicated writing task. A typical extract from aletter which requires a reply may have some hidden points, like acertain number of veiled questions and requests for informationwhich have all to be mentioned in the reply. They may have towrite the same number of sentences, or twice the number ofsentences as there are in the letter, or just write a set numberof words. Be sure to tell them that spelling mistakes will count as

mistakes (sometimes, we disregard those when doing a grammartest).

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Listening skillsTake any FCE tape and play the part with multiple choicequestions. This task allows you to check their ability to scan atext, and to think logically in English, besides listeningcomprehension proper.

Speaking skillsHave cards ready, with the titles of the main topics you have hadwith your class. Explain the two basic rules,1) One cannot refuse to talk on a topic, or ask to change it

2) The phrase, "I don't know", cannot be used.

Using the traditional four skills as a toolBefore you distribute the tasks, be sure to do the following:

Each task should have a set number of points, e.g. 20 gapsand 25 words in Reading ( 20 points), 25 points for Writing(5 hidden questions, and twenty points if there are no

spelling mistakes 19 if there is one and so on). ListeningComprehension usually includes 8-10 dialogues. For Speaking,you may wish to use this simple Evaluation Chart:

Grammar | Relevance to Topic | Fluency | Use of Link Words| Pronunciation

Explain to your students what they are going to do

Set a time limit for each task, and for all the taskstogether, e.g. two periods of 45 minutes total

Trust your students: let them count the points themselves,then compare the results among the classmates.

A few suggestions for future workMy experience shows that if you do this type of lesson once, you

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will have to do it again. Those who considered themselves verygood in Speaking may discover that they do, in fact, tend topanic and say, "I don't know!", when they have to produce animpromptu speech; those who write well may forget all about thehidden questions. It may be wise to start collecting the materials,and to change the format of each test lesson slightly, so thatinstead of, say, Gap Fill they get "that boring grammar again" inReading, and instead of the standard Dialogues with A, B or C,they will have to fill some gaps. Offer your advanced studentssome really challenging tasks.

Remember: if you do not try, you do not succeed.

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Assessing Advanced Students