Lesson 18. Methods and criteria for evaluating language skills: writing, reading, listening, speaking, vocabulary, grammar.
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Types and criteria of language knowledge assessment
Methods and criteria for evaluating language skills: writing, reading, listening..
80 minutes
To let students analyse how to test/assess writing
1. Hughes, A. (2003) Testing for Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Charts, laptop with speakers, audio recordings, handouts, video clips, white board
Handout 1. How to test/assess writing Writing is a medium of communication that represents language through the inscription or recording of signs and symbols.
Common tasks for writing tests include:
(1) gap filling;
(2) form completion;
(3) making corrections;
(4) letter writing;
(5) essay writing.
Any chosen task should be evaluated for its relevance to the student's eventual use of the language. When assessing students at intermediate and advanced levels, test makers must consider the instructions, the choice of topics, the choice of tasks, and the level of difficulty and time allowed. All of these considerations must go into making a test that is appropriate for the learner, and then the test maker must attempt to ensure that marking the test, which will always be at least somewhat subjective, is as objective as possible.
Activity 1. Narrative Writing 1. A narrative answers the question _______________.
A) Who did it?
B) What happened?
C) What went wrong?
D) How do you do this?
2. Another word for narrative is ____________.
A) poem
B) story
C) play
D) title
3. The most important thing to do when you start a narrative is to _____________.
A) name all the characters
B) say when the action took place
C) make the reader want to read on
D) explain where the action took place
4. One way to keep events in order when you write a narrative is to ____________.
A) write about a real-life event
B) use consistent verb tenses
C) look in a family scrapbook for story ideas
D) choose an interesting place to write about
5. When choosing details for your story, you should _______________.
A) use as few details as possible
B) include as many details as you can
C) choose only the most important details
D) write the details in the order in which you think of them
6.Narratives are often organized by ________________.
A) time order
B) place order
C) character order
D) alphabetical order
7. The words spoken by the characters in a story are called ___________.
A) action
B) setting
C) dialogue
D) chronological order
8. To show which words a character speaks, put quotation marks ____________.
A) at the end of the character’s exact words
B) before and after the character’s exact words
C) at the beginning of the character’s exact words
D) at the beginning and the end of the entire paragraph
9. The best way to show that a different character is speaking is to ______________.
A) use an identifying phrase such as he said
B) use quotation marks around a speaker’s exact words
C) write, "Now a different character is talking"
D) start a new paragraph whenever a different character speaks
10. The story of a person’s life, written by someone else, is a(n) _______________.
A) primary source
B) autobiography
C) biography
D) dialogue
