http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.

htm

When asked to decide between traditional and new, institutionalised and alternative, I would always
choose a mixture of both because I see value in established ideas, methods and suggestions, but I
also think that their should be some dialectic and development. In other words, I believe in
expanding and enriching existing experiences so that they may fit the new environment and vice
verse, adapt the new teaching environment to include existing traditions. That is why I think it is
important English language teachers should know about alternative assessment (AA) options.

The most important aspect of alternative assessment is that it is performance based as it implements
activities that reveal what students can do with language, emphasizing their strengths instead of
their weaknesses. This means that the teacher can adapt AA to the students and that means that the
teacher can actually create the kinds of situations and challenges that the learners are most probably
going to encounter in real-life communication. Most important of all is that students can evaluate
their own learning and learn from the evaluation process by applying the assessment criteria their
teacher has defined for them either on their own performance or on a peer’s performance.
Therefore, a further positive aspect of AA is that it can foster both self-assessment and peer
assessment.

Prior to choosing a particular AA instrument, a rather essential characteristic about AA in general

should be focused on – AA instruments are not only designed and structured differently from
traditional tests, but are also marked (graded) differently. That again implies that the teacher
familiarises themselves with the various marking strategies available within the area of AA. This
basically means that the teacher must pre-define the criteria according to which the assessment shall
be performed and the scale according to which the assessed performance shall be evaluated.

Well, the scale part is easy. Yet, it has to be pre-defined as the teacher needs to have some outcomes
in mind and points to be allocated to them.

Regarding criteria, teachers should start by planning authentic content based on which the criteria
will be defined. For starters, here is a list of possible authentic content that might be integrated into
an AA instrument:

1. Discussion topics or issues of interest to the students provoking critical thinking and
individual opinions;
2. Audio/ video material representing real-world communication contexts and situations;
3. Real problem solutions requiring the creative use of language rather than simple repetition.

Such content can easily be analysed in terms of assessment criteria and there are several ways to
achieve it. A possible list of criteria might include:

1. Learners produce a quality product or performance (written or spoken) based on the

proposed discussion topic;
2. Students are able to reproduce real-world dialogues based on suggested situations;
3. Students provide independent solutions to proposed problems.

And last but not least, the scale should be defined horisontally and vertically, meaning that each
criterion is assessed and evaluated separtately against a certain scale. For instance, the first criterion
supplied above, assuming spoken production is expected, could be marked on a scale from 1 (the
lowest mark) – 5 (the highest mark) in the following way:
 1 2 3 4 5
learner produces a learner produces a learner produces a learner produces a learner produces a
poor quality product of product of solid product by high quality
product as they are sufficient quality satisfactory stating their product by stating
hardly able to state as they are able to quality by stating opinion in their opinion in
their opinion and state their opinion their opinion coherent coherent
manage to supply at least remotely rather clearly and sentences while sentences,
only one argument and manage to by supplying at substantiating it substantiating it
to substantiate it. supply two least two different with more than with several solid
different arguments to two solid arguments and
arguments to substantiate it. arguments. linking it to a real-
substantiate it. life example.

Personally, I am a fan of Rubistar, an AA instrument based on rubrics which can easily be used for
the evaluation of both written and spoken performance. Another rather useful AA instrument is the
K-W-L Chart. This AA instrument is based on three assessment stages as it is meant to assess ‘what
the student knows’, ‘what the student wants to know’ and ‘what the student has learnt’. Both rubrics
and the K-W-L chart may be implemented as self-assessment tools.

Sample K-W-L Chart

Knows Wants to know Has learnt
Lincoln was important. Why is Lincoln Lincoln was President of the U.S.
His face is on a penny. famous? He was the 16th President.
He's dead now. Was he a good There was a war in America when Lincoln
I think Lincoln was a President? was President.
President. Why is he on a He let the slaves go free.
He was a tall person. penny? Two of his sons died while he was still alive.
Did he have a family?
How did he die?