English assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

English assessment - Essay Example cording to Garrison and Ehringhaus, relying on one of the two procedures more may lead to students’ needs becoming unclear since one form of assessment cannot provide a full picture of the situation. Summative assessment is used to evaluate certain students’ needs, and usually has a form of tests, semester exams, end of unit or end of chapter tests, etc. (Gao, 2002). Bloom, Hastings and Madhaus (1971) define summative assessment as evaluation conducted at the ends of certain periods of time in order to judge the sufficiency of students’ knowledge. Such an assessment is to define the final grade of the students, as well as help educators to make corrections and adjustment in the current curriculum, where needed, in order for the learning needs to be met in future. At the same time a summative assessment cannot reflect the efficiency of teaching in its process because assessment is carried out only after the instruction – so any curriculum or methodological improvements can be implemented in future practice only. Therefore, formative assessment is the one to evaluate the process of learning in its process, and, consequently, is a part of the teaching process. Incorporated into the educational process, it is to discover gaps and adjust both teaching and learning processes to the students’ needs immediately in the process of learning. Besides, such an approach enables educators to raise the learning standards (Black & Wiliam, 1998) right in the process of teaching: having evaluated the current needs of each individual student, including those with lower abilities, a teacher can address them immediately. The information provided by formative assessment is to be used for modifying the teaching and learning activities in the classroom in order to get the best possible learning results (Black & William, 1998). This idea is also supported by Fennell & Maccoll (1983), who point out that formative assessment is important and useful for getting feedback on