Trends and Best Practices in Chinese Language Assessment K-16 Na Liu, PhD

1. Trends and Best Practices in Chinese Language Assessment K-16 Na Liu, PhD Chinese Language and Assessment Specialist Center for Applied Linguistics

2. Ice-breaker • What is the image in your head when you hear “assessment?”

3. End Goals • Expand your understanding of assessment • Emphasize formative and performance assessment

4. What is assessment? • As instructors, we need to be able to track our students' language growth. Assessment is how we do this. • Assessment = the opportunity to enhance, empower, and celebrate students’ learning while giving guidance to instructors.

5. Expanding #1 • People still think that assessment is what you do after teaching and learning are over as opposed to thinking of assessment as giving feedback to help you to achieve your goal. - Grant Wiggins, Educational Consultant

7. STARTALK Lesson Plan Template

8. Expanding #2 Formative Assessment Summative Assessment Performance Assessment Achievement Assessment

9. Types of Assessment Formative Assessment: monitor students' daily progress Summative assessment: check in on student progress at key points in the school year Formative assessment Summative Assessment

10. Formative and summative assessment

12. Formative Assessment

13. Examples of Formative Assessment • Formative assessments may take many forms, such as: • exit ticket • class presentations • class activities • projects • portfolios   • self assessments  • Checklist • Examples from classroom teacher

14. Foreign Language Assessment Directory (Resources for Summative Assessment) • Free, searchable directory of information on nearly 200 tests in over 90 languages • www.cal.org/flad

15. National Standardized Chinese Language Tests

17. How to Select a Test

18. Types of Assessment • Achievement Assessment: Checks student language knowledge of specific content • Performance Assessment: Checks what students can do with the language

19. Achievement Assessment:

20. Performance-based Assessment Performance assessment allows instructors to assess students' language performance using real-world tasks. Often these tasks reflect the way students learn and provide a way to build and assess authentic communication.

22. Examples of Performance-based Assessment Tasks • Leaving a voicemail message • Buying a bus ticket • Sending back food at a restaurant • Planning a trip • Applying for a job • Writing a newspaper article

23. Characteristics of good tasks (adapted from Norris et al, 1998): 1. Based on needs2. As authentic as possible3. Contextualized4. Appropriate for the level of the students being assessed5. Includes clear standards

24. Sample Rubric: Intermediate Presentational Speaking

25. 5 C’s and 3 Modes of Communication

26. Integrated Performance Assessment

27. An Example:

28. Expanding #2 Formative Assessment Summative Assessment Performance Assessment Achievement Assessment 27

29. Resources • World Language Assessment: 3 modes http://www.ecb.org/worldlanguageassessment/ • STARTALK Proficiency Assessment Training Program by CAL http://startalk.umd.edu/programs/search?sort=name&year=2011&participant-type=teacher&state=DC

30. Resources (Cont’d) • Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA): http://www.carla.umn.edu/assessment/index.html • Assessment Strategies: http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/assessment • LinguaFolio Assessments: http://www.ncssfl.org/links/index.php?self-assessments

31. End Goals • Expand your understanding of assessment • Emphasize formative and performance assessment

32. Thank You! • Q & A • nliu@cal.org