Authentic & Multiplism in Assessment

Designing Authentic Assessment, O’Malley & Pierce
Language Assessment Process: A “Multiplism Perpective, E. Shohamy & O. Inbar

Multiplism in language assessment looks at different ways a language is to be assessed: the purposes to assessment, defining language knowledge, and the types of instruments to elicit language knowledge. And both the readings say that assessment has to be valid in that the assessment and instruction are aligned. O’Malley included that thinking skills be incorporated into content validity. So if the purpose of the test is to find out if a student is able to interact in the target language, and how much, an interview or an oral test would be more valid than giving a written test. While reading this I thought of the time I was interviewed for the kindergarten position at the immersion school. One activity I had to perform was to do a quick write for 3 minutes. I knew the purpose was to see how literate I was in Yugtun.

One way to look at authentic assessment is that the assessment is aligned with instruction, or what is being taught is what should be assessed. The example I liked about authentic assessment is the way we interact with others is by listening, speaking, and sometimes reading notes. And that is how language should be assessed: production (writing, speaking) and receptive (listening, reading) skills combined. I was thinking of how comprehension was tested in the running records and how limiting it was, because aren’t we as immersion teachers supposed to ask a question in several different ways? If the student isn’t answering, does it mean that the student didn’t understand what was read or the question being asked? If it’s the question, do we mark down that the student didn’t comprehend what was read? What if that same student is able to answer questions during reading time (maybe not in so many words, or using props) or story time?

I would like to become more familiar with self-assessment, and how to incorporate it into kindergarten immersion students. One interesting comment I heard over the weekend was when an immersion teacher and a foreign language teacher stated that some kids aren’t confident that they can speak in their target language until they hear themselves speak in a recording. It made me wonder if some of my students feel that way.