This year at IATEFL, Ben Knight from our Language Research Team will be giving a talk, with Clare Harrison from Cambridge Assessment on how we can improve the way we evaluate our students’ progress in learning English, on Tuesday April 2nd at 14:10-14:40 in Hall 1C. If you’re at IATEFL, please do come along! Here, Ben gives further insights into what you can expect. Our talk sets out to help teachers who struggle with the question ‘how much progress are your students making in learning English?’.
The challenges of evaluating progress in language learning
We’ll start by looking at what makes this a difficult question – the complexity of language competence, the non-linear nature of learning, and the variation in what different learners are aiming for.
Learning oriented assessment
Then we will look at how Cambridge approaches this question, using the Learning Oriented Assessment model: setting clear learning objectives, setting relevant tasks, evaluating progress against the learning objectives, and keeping track of those evaluations over time. As part of this, we will look at how to produce effective learning objectives that support this kind of evaluation.
Models of performance
We’ll then take a more detailed look at one way of evaluating progress: comparing to models of performance for specific learning outcomes. This will include a peak at how this process of comparison can be automated, as in the Cambridge app ‘Write & Improve’.
Feedback
Finally, we’ll link this up with how evaluation makes an impact on learning – through effective feedback. What does research say are the ways of improving your feedback to support learning more successfully?
We are excited to share this research with you all, so please do attend our talk if you’re at IATEFL.
We’ll have more information to share on the topic after the conference too. Read about the talk from Delia Kidd and Dr. Claire Dembry on play in the primary ELT classroom and find out what to expect on our stand at IATEFL 2019.