Inpidual tasks for the purpose of task-based assessment may better be designed with appropriate themes (theme-learning). If necessary, each task description includes a prompt and descriptions of ways to vary the task difficulty by making (linguistic) code , cognitive complexity, and communicative demand high or low (Norris et al, 1998). This general scheme of factors that can affect the difficulty of a given task. It can also be used to increase or decrease task difficulty. Now let’s explicate the three main features that might affect task difficulty.
1. Code complexity, which is “ concerned with traditional areas of syntactic and? range ” (Norris, et al. 1998: p.52).
2. Cognitive complexity, which is affected by both cognitive processing (the learner has to actively think through task content ) and cognitive familiarity. Cognitive familiarity involves the extent to which the task draws on ready-made or prepackaged solutions (Norris, et al. 1998: p.52).
3.? Communicative stress, which includes time pressure, modality (reading, writing, speaking, or listening), scale (number of participants or relationships involved), stakes (either low or high, depending on how important it is to do the task and to do it correctly), and control (how much learners can “control” or influence the task) (Norris et al. 1998:pp.52-53).
These task difficulty features comprise the ability requirements and task characteristic inherent in a given L2 task (Norris et al. 1998: p.50).
Ⅵ. Some Rewards of Performance Assessment
Through performance assessment in task-based language teaching and learning, students are? more likely to feel ownership over their language learning, resulting in greater self-confidence and intrinsic motivation to learn English. They also feel a sense of achievement and get inpidual attention from others. Teachers are less likely to grade as many papers or exercises and tend to monitor students’ daily progress as often.
Ⅶ. Factors That Affect Task-Based Assessment Practicality
In implementing task-based assessment, we should take the following factors into consideration: 1) time and effort; 2) teacher development; 3) public acceptance; 4) cost; 5) all parties’ (students, teachers, parents, communities, authorities, etc.) willingness to cooperate, It is time and effort consuming, especially at a beginning stage. Teachers are not used to giving students responsibilities or tasks to take and have to put special effort to design tasks and activities related to what the students are learning and to show their abilities. To design workable and meaningful tasks students can perform, teachers need to develop themselves and equip themselves with skills required in task-based language teaching and performance assessment. It takes time for the public to accept this kind of teaching or assessment for the majority of people believ3e that students go to school to listen to and learn from the teachers ------ if the students are doing all the work, what do the teachers do? They don’t realize the teachers’ effort in designing the activities that will bring out their children’s potentials and in preparing their children for more efficient and effective learning. The existing examination system hinders performance assessment practice, for, in the end students are to be enrolled by universities according to their examination scores. It is not an easy task for all parties to understand that as students’ language competence and proficiency grow, they are able to take any examination.
Ⅷ. Ethical Guidelines
During the classroom performance assessment, teachers should be aware of the basic rights of students: confidentiality, privacy, their rights to know and fair treatment. And it is the teachers’ responsibility to take learning and teaching into consideration. They are responsible also to report the assessment results of students’ achievement, progress, and to document further needs and future plans.
Here are the ethical guidelines teachers need to be aware of.(Adapted from Jerosky,1997:13)
1.Confidentiality: Teachers are responsible for the confidentiality of information collected by them in the assessment process.
2.Privacy: Generally assessment should not require the disclosure of sensitive information including personally-held beliefs and views on controversial issues. Teachers need to be sensitive to signals that students are not comfortable with something they have been asked to do or talk about.
3.Rights to know: Any student affected by the assessment has the rights to know the assessment results or to obtain information about the results. Teachers need to be responsive to questions from the student and parents.
4.Fair treatment: Throughout assessment activities involving members of a class, participants should be treated equally and receive equivalent learning opportunities. Also, if the assessment requires that students are selected from a large group, the selection process should be based in fair criteria.
Ⅸ.How to using performance assessment in task-based teaching
Performance assessment tools measure a student performance and/or learning within the context it was learned and will be performed and allow students to demonstrate or share their learning with others. The tools include observations, portfolios, conferences, dialogue journals, multimedia projects, cartoons, long-term projects, etc. The popularity and usefulness of performance assessment methods have led to the incorporation of the results the provide into students’ grades. But we also use these assessment tools for purposes of inpidualization of instructional planning.
1.The challenge of classroom observation is to plan observation and record keeping of observations in a manner that will benefit instruction and ultimately student learning.
2.Portfolios and conferences involve learners as active collaborators in documenting and monitoring their own progress and in identifying learning goals. They give students opportunities to use language with teachers in ways that rarely occur during regular class time and for student self-assessment.
3.Journals and interviews are used to collect information about teaching and learning processes; about students’ educational backgrounds and experiences; their attitudes, goals, likes and dislikes. They are also used to collect information about language proficiency: writing in the case of journals and speaking in the case of interviews.
Performance assessment promotes reflection on both a teacher’s teaching performance and a student’s learning performance as a means to develop and improve themselves constantly. Classroom performance assessment involves the school, community, parents and students themselves and challenges both students and teachers in making decisions themselves.
We need all kinds of information such as student achievement, student behavior, student attitudes towards schools or themselves, student goals and needs concerning the outcomes of foreign language learning, student wording habits, learning styles and strategies to assess our students and to improve the chances of educational success.
Performance assessment requires a change in curriculum priorities from coverage of content to mastery of skills. Content becomes a way for students to develop intellectually, to generalize, to recontextualize, to synthesize and to apply this learning to new situations. This change in curriculum will empower students to take responsibility for their own learning.
Most important, at the heart of an integrated teaching, learning, and assessment system is creativity. Performance assessment is an effective way to get a better “picture “ of what students have really learned and also what they value in their learning.
Now give a Sample Item: Guidelines and Examples
Theme: Dinner at a restaurant
This (common) theme could pose effective circumstances for eliciting performances on numerous relatively low-level tasks that require a certain amount of pragmatic, strategic, and quite a certain amount of pragmatic, strategic, and formal knowledge /ability of using the language in real communicative situation.
