Assessment

- In this post you will find how assessment, testing and teaching relate in a classroom situation.

  When working as a teacher, and particularly as a language teacher, it is quite important to understand how the terms teaching, assessment and testing relate to each other and how they take place in the classroom. However, it is not that simple to come up with a conclusion, especially because the three terms are linked but they are unique at the same time.

First of all, it is important to explain how each of those terms work in the classroom. Therefore we have that assessment “measure the performance of the students and the progress they make… diagnose problems and provide feedback”. The interesting part in here is that when we read this definition the first thing that comes to mind is testing, and according to Trussell-Cullen this is totally normal, because testing is usually used as a synonym of assessment. Yet, testing do have place in assessment strategies, but it only covers a small part of the whole assessment process. Now, when it comes to teaching, it is said that teachers facilitate changes in the knowledge and understanding. But, it may occur that while teaching, one can be testing or vice versa, especially when teaching a language.

 As we can see, assessment, teaching and testing are closely related. In order to teach, we need to assess, which leads to testing and at the same time we may be teaching and testing at once. It is important to keep in mind that in order for our students to learn successfully, we need to assess, test and teach effectively without losing the idea of each term and of course with teamwork, as learning is a process that involves not just the learner, but the teacher, classmates and even parents.