Assessment is becoming increasingly important in language education. Understand it better with this course for language teachers.

Improve your knowledge of and skills in language assessment

In the last 15 years, assessment has had an increasingly significant impact on education policy globally. Consequently, there is a growing need among teachers to understand how assessment works.

In this course, you will learn about the principles of sound language assessment. You will develop an understanding of the ideas in developing different types of test and how they can be applied. With guidance from experienced test developers and international assessment experts, you will explore practical ways of assessing language and skills which you can use in your classroom.

What topics will you cover?

• Principles of language assessment

• Formative and summative assessment

• Positive washback

• Assessment and testing

• Assessing speaking

• Formats, tasks and settings

• Rating scales

• Assessing writing

• Assessment tasks

• Marking criteria

• Feedback

• Assessing reading

• Meaningfulness and authenticity

• Developing reading tests

• Scoring reading tests

• Assessing listening

• Task types for listening assessment

• Scoring listening tests

• Assessing grammar and vocabulary

• Principles of testing grammar and vocabulary

• Test development

• Assessment and course planning

• Approaches to testing

• The test development cycle

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a test

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

• Identify the basic principles involved in reliable and valid test design

• Demonstrate an understanding of different types of tests and how they can be used

• Evaluate assessment needs of students within a given context

• Explain some practical techniques for assessing different language skills and knowledge

Who is the course for?

This course is aimed at language teachers in secondary or high schools around the world, and anyone interested in understanding how language assessment works.

You will need to have English language proficiency at a minimum CEFR B1 level to get most benefit from the course.

The course does not presume or require any previous knowledge of assessment issues.

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