F - Testing and evaluation

Summary

Effective lesson and course design is informed by an ongoing assessment of its impact, which is traditionally mediated by testing, both formal and informal, but also by cycles of planning and reflection. This is particularly the case on teacher training courses, where the teacher may be observed by an external assessor. Less formally, the capacity to evaluate the effect of one's teaching decisions – both pre-flight and in-flight – is an essential component of a teacher's continuous professional development.

• 64 Assessment

• 65 Teaching an observed lesson

• 66 Evaluating the lesson plan

Assessment

Regular testing of learners’ progress provides feedback for the teacher and the learners, but – given the slippery nature of language, and the complex nature of learning – deciding when to test, what to test, and how, is challenging.

Language assessment is normally done at three stages: before the course, in the form of some kind of diagnostic or placement test; during the course, in the form of regular but informal progress tests (known as formative testing); and, more formally, at the end of the course – what is called summative testing. Most teachers don't have much control over placement or summative tests (even if they have to live with the consequences of them), but they do have a say in how students are regularly tested throughout a course. And, importantly, it is these tests that provide feedback to learners (see 57), helping to make their learning ‘visible’, and suggesting pathways to further learning – what is called testing for learning, as opposed to simply testing of learning (Jones and Saville, 2016). These tests are often factored into the overall course plan.

In an ends-means approach to lesson planning (see 18), where the lesson is the means by which prespecified ends – or objectives – are achieved, it makes sense to allow time at the end of the lesson (and maybe at the beginning of the next) to see if, in fact, the objectives have been achieved. In my experience, teachers seldom do this, for three possible reasons: first, if they are observant, they can usually tell the extent to which the lesson has been successful, without having to go to the bother of a formal test;