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Showing 5 results for Formative Assessment
Volume 0, Issue 0 (2-2024)
Abstract
The present study aimed to investigate the elementary and advanced teachers’ formative assessment literacy of speaking skill in Teaching Persian to Non-Persian Speakers context. To this end, 26 teachers of teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers, mostly female, took part in this study. To collect data about their speaking assessment practices, they were primarily involved in a semi-structured interview related to the components of aims, contents, and methods of their speaking assessment. Afterward, they answered five scenarios. The interviews were based on Xu and Brown’s (2016) framework, and the scenarios were based on Chappius and Stiggins’ (2009) assessment quality and standards. In this phase, in addition to aims, content, and methods, and two additional components of giving feedback and students’ participation in assessing the speaking skill were examined. The interview results in relation to the aims for the instructors of elementary and advanced levels shed light on six criteria including comprehension, learning and progress, teaching method and curriculum efficacy, weak and strong points, communicative and practical competence, self-confidence and feedback; in relation to content, grammatical accuracy, pronunciation, fluency, interaction and communication, pragmatics, content, turn taking and participation, and spoken and written differences were recognized; and in relation to methods, class conversation, audio and video files, modeling and memorizing, game and competition, summary telling, question and response, playing roles, giving speech, problem solving and authentic activities were identified. Quantitative analysis of the interviews and scenarios indicated statistical differences among the two groups of elementary and advanced teachers.
Volume 0, Issue 0 (2-2024)
Abstract
Diagnostic Formative Assessment (DFA) has already established its applicability and necessity in second language teaching practice and research as a legitimate supplement to summative assessment. However, examples of practical implementations of DFA informing SLA research and an investigation of the detailed processes involved, especially when it comes to productive skills such as speaking in tertiary educational settings are rather scarce. Therefore, focusing on the formality dimension, as a rather neglected component in DFA, the present quasi-experimental study set out to compare the effects of formal and informal DFA on Iranian EFL learners’ oral fluency and accuracy at university level. For this purpose, a homogeneous group of 52 male and female L2 learners were assigned to two experimental conditions and after a speaking pre-test developed and scored based on IELTS speaking tasks, went through four months of formal and informal DFA based on four reiterative stages of Observation, Initial Assessment, Hypothesis Checking, and Decision Making. Upon the post-test, the results of ANCOVAs showed that both treatments equally contributed to learners’ development of oral fluency and accuracy, indicating that traditional skepticisms towards informal DFA must be revisited and they can serve as appropriate supplements to more formal approaches whenever necessitated by the instruction. EFL practitioners are recommended to take these rather broad, flexible, and convenient informal DFA practices into consideration and decide on their exact choices based on the particularities of the context, situation, and individual learners, which leads to an expansion in their pedagogical options.
Volume 13, Issue 4 (10-2022)
Abstract
Formative assessment has an important role in controlling the quality of teachers’ methodology in multicultural classes. Although many research studies have been conducted in the domain of formative assessment and the strategies used by English teachers, there is a dearth of research on teachers involved in Persian language instruction to non-Persian speakers. The present study aimed to recognize the most fruitful and invaluable formative assessment strategies used in the multicultural context of teaching Persian language classes and examine the relationship between the value and uses of formative assessment strategies and the teaching level of Persian language teachers. To this end, three Persian language teachers of the basic, intermediate, and advanced levels in the Persian language teaching center of Allameh Tabataba’i University were asked to answer the formative assessment strategies questionnaire (Jett, 2009). To gain more reliable results, other data collection methods based on class observation checklist (Jett, 2009; Stevens, 2012) and semi-structured interviews were used. To analyze the quantitative data, Pearson correlation (using SPSS version 25) was run. Descriptive statitics and content analysis were also applied for analyzing the interview data. Based on the results, self and peer assessment were found the mostly used strategy. The most invaluable strategy was also reported to be both self and peer assessment and involving language learners in their own learning. Although according to course observations the teachers’ practices were variant, there was a significant correlation between the teaching level and degree of use and value of formative assessment strategies. The findings of this study have implications for Persian language teachers and teacher educators in that they can raise their knowledge and awareness of classroom-based assessment through the use of effective formative assessment strategies in multicultural classes.
1. Introduction
One of the essential features of any educational system is assessment to investigate needs, determine goals and strategies and measure performances (Sadler, 1998). Usually, teachers use two kinds of assessment to measure class activities for learning: Formative assessment and summative assessment. Summative assessment, which lays a seal of approval on learning and usually takes place at the end of an educational program, compares the amount of knowledge or skills of students with specific standards and criteria (States et al., 2018). Formative assessment, however, has attracted attention of many educational researchers over recent years. Black and Wiliam (1998) provides a clear-cut definition on formative assessment as “all those activities undertaken by teachers-and by their students in assessing themselves- that provide information to be used as feedback, to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs” (p. 140).
William and Thompson (2008) offered a conceptual framework based on the definition, provided by Black and Williams (1998, p. 8), which presented five fundamental strategies for formative assessment. The framework introduces an instructor to have the role of designing and establishing an effective environment for learning and the language learners in such environment are responsible for their and their peers’ learning. Nowadays, due to extensive physical and virtual exchanges and internationalization of education, especially in the field of language teaching, classrooms are held in multicultural contexts, deserving special strategies for formative assessment. Regarding expansion of Persian language teaching and growth in number of those learning Persian language all over the world, teachers in the centers to teach Persian language to speakers of other languages, experience multicultural contexts thanks to presence of language learners, who represent different nationalities and cultures in a single classroom. Therefore, regarding importance of using formative assessment strategies in the classes for teaching Persian language to speakers of other languages, that are multi-cultural in nature, and also regarding considerable gap in the literature, the writers of this research, relying on the conceptual framework William and Thompson (2008) regarding formative assessment strategies, tried to address three questions as follows:
1. Which formative assessment strategy is the most usable in the multicultural classrooms from the viewpoint of the teachers of Persian language in three elementary, intermediate and advanced levels?
2. Which formative assessment strategy is the most valuable in the multicultural classes from the viewpoint of the teachers of Persian language in three elementary, intermediate and advanced levels?
3. To what extent is there any relationship between the use and value of the formative assessment strategies and the educational level of the teachers?
2. Literature Review
There has been many research on the use and value of the formative assessment strategies, applied by teachers of English language and of schools and other educational centers; however, there has been handful of such research on teachers of Persian language to speakers of other languages, who are present in class and represent different cultures. Yadegarzadeh (2005) in a study focused on the extent of teachers’ awareness of the strategies of formative assessment and the degree of their application in classroom. Estaji and Fasihi (2016) in research investigated the relationship between the use of formative assessment strategies and self-efficacy of the male and female teachers in the English language teaching centers in Tehran and also the effect of their gender and experience. Jett’s (2009) two-phase research concerned the perception of the elementary school teachers in a region in Louisville (in the state of Kentucky) on the most valuable and usable strategies of formative assessment. Setevens’ (2012) research aimed to investigate perception of teachers on cultural responsiveness, formative assessment and the inquiry-based teaching of math and science for American native students in a school in Montana state. To study the perceptions of teachers on formative assessment, Hue and Kennedy (2015) dealt with the perception and view of the native teachers of Hong Kong on formative assessment. In a study, conducted in the Philippines recently, Cagasan et al. (2020) tried to offer a framework to investigate the pattern of teachers’ formative assessment function in class, using the class observation instrument.
3. Methodology
To conduct this research, three teachers of the Centre for Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages of Allameh Tabataba’i University, participated in this study teaching in three elementary, intermediate and advanced levels. Two of the teachers were female and one male, who were introduced by the Education Department Director, with respect to their educational level and the multi-cultural context of the classroom. The two elementary and intermediate teachers were female, while the advanced level teacher was male. All the three teachers were young (aged 26 on average) and were novice regarding their background of teaching Persian to speakers of other languages. However, all the three teachers enjoyed enough knowledge and skill to teach in the specified levels. Three sources were used to collect data for this study: The Questionnaire of Use and Value of Formative Assessment Strategies of Jett (2009) (for the quantitative part); interview with instructors (for the qualitative part) and class observations by using the checklist of Stevens (2012) and checklist of Jett (2009) (for the qualitative part). The SPSS software version 25 was used for analysis of the quantitative data and for Pearson correlation test, while descriptive indexes and content analysis were used for investigation of the interview data.
4. Results
This research was conducted to investigate the use and value of the formative assessment strategies, that are applied by teachers of the Persian language to speakers of other languages in three elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels in the multi-cultural contexts. Three sources were used to collect data for this study: Questionnaire, interview, and class observations. Research findings showed that the three instructors of the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels believed that the self/peer assessment strategy was the most prevalent and the most valuable strategy, that is used for formative assessment in multicultural contexts. Analysis of the data also confirmed the correlation between the use and value of the strategy of setting work of language learners as a model (for other peers), offering feedback, and the self/peer assessment. Furthermore, the results of this study showed a significant correlation between the educational levels of the instructors and the use and value of the formative assessment strategies, and the use and value of the formative assessment strategies grow alongside promotion in the educational level. Content analysis of the interview data showed that in the instructors’ point of view, the self/peer assessment, contribution of the language learners into their own learning, and presentation of feedback were hierarchically the most effective class strategies. Based on the class observation checklist data (1), the highest degree of support was provided to the elementary level and the least one to the advanced level. In terms of enforcement of the formative assessment strategies in the multi-cultural classes and with respect to the checklist, feedback reserved the highest number of frequencies, while the specification of the learning goals gained the least frequency in the list. Results of this research also showed that the instructors were aware of the use and value of the formative assessment strategies, but they were not fully in agreement on operationalizing the strategy. However, their ability to create and establish a supportive and fair environment, which is requisite for such assessments, should not be underestimated.
Volume 14, Issue 1 (3-2023)
Abstract
In this research, English was instructed to learners with mild intellectual disabilities (IDs) in Iran (2017-2018). In this single-group post-test study, 32 seventh-graders with IDs were selected using convenience sampling. The teaching material was a validated researcher-made pamphlet. Four teachers of special schools instructed the pamphlet for 14 sessions of 45 minutes for four months in the school setting and completed formative assessment forms for each student using descriptive terms. The students’ achievements were compared using the chi-squared test. A significantly higher number of students had a successful performance on listening, reading, and writing compared to those with a relatively successful and unsuccessful performance (p ≤ 0.05), while no significant difference was observed in the case of speaking. Learners with IDs can successfully learn EFL with the aid of methods, techniques, and materials tailored to their needs. Learners with IDs can successfully learn English as a foreign language. Speaking is the most difficult language skill for learners with IDs. The difference in orthographic systems does not affect writing skill development considering the objectives designed in this project. The results encourage foreign learning by learners with IDs and, thereby promoting inclusion.
Reza Nejati,
Volume 23, Issue 2 (4-2016)
Volume 23, Issue 2 (4-2016)
Abstract
Frequent quizzes followed by feedback on students’ strengths and weaknesses may enhance learning. Hence, the possible effect of weekly quizzes on language learning might be of interest in Iranian EFL context, especially in high schools. In order to understand the importance of weekly short quizzes, 88 students from four classes of high school second graders were selected through available sampling to form the experimental and control groups. The treatment went for twelve weeks during which the experimental group received 10 weekly quizzes while the control group did not have any quizzes. The study was carried out through a pretest- posttest- delayed posttest control- experimental intact groups. The results, analysed through Mixed Models ANOVA, revealed that both within and between group’s differences were in favour of the experimental group. It is safe to claim that weekly quizzes improve students’ performance on vocabulary and the effect of the treatment is durable.
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