7th Refresher Course in English Language, Literature, and CuLture: the interfaCe (From 3rd September, 2012 to 25th

September, 2012)

SEMINAR PRESENTATION
EXPLORING THE ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUES IN TESTING /

ASSESSING THE STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH

Mr. C. G. Lakshmi Prasad,

Lecturer in English, M.A.L.D. Govt. Degree College, Gadwal, Mahaboobnagar Dist. cglp1973@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
Traditional Assessment:

Students are passive receivers of information and expected to give it back in the test. This method has been in vogue for several years and continues even today. Proved successful in a small class room.

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Problems with Traditional Assessment

Large Class rooms:

The teacher is compelled to limit to class room instruction. Continuous assessment of the students is totally neglected. Standards in Valuation is being diluted. The Traditional assessment encourages the students to be negligent towards learning language.

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IN SEARCH OF ALTERNATIVES . . . .
How

to overcome the issue of large class room? I tried Peer Assessment in a class of 100+ students. I found that it is advantageous. I try to present advantages, disadvantages, Limitations of Peer Assessment and Self Assessment.
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PEER ASSESSMENT
Wikipedia defines: Peer Assessment, or Self Assessment, is a process whereby students or their peers grade assignments or tests based on a teachers benchmarks. The practice is employed to save teachers time and improve students understanding of course materials as well as improve their metacognitive skills
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My Experiences:
At

the beginning the students were not so cooperative. Later they found that they would learn grammar better this way. They started questioning why so and so expression is right or wrong. The class has become dramatically student centred. They improved grammar and made less spelling mistakes.
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ADVANTAGES
Saves

teachers time:

Entire

class room can be graded in the time that it would take a teacher to grade one paper. Student can spend more time on a paper and do a more thorough job.
Faster

Feed back:

Students

/ as well as Teacher gets feed back immediately. In traditional assessment student gets back his script after he has totally forgotten what he has written in the exam.
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 Pedagogical:
In

Traditional assessment the student focus on the grades than on feedback. In Peer assessment students learn from grading the papers of others. Peer assessment helps sutdents understand the mistakes that they have made. Sadler and Good found that: Students who self-graded their tests did better on later tests. The students could see what they had done wrong and were able to correct such errors in later assignments.
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 Metacognitive:
Students

can learn their own strengths and weaknesses. Students learn how to prepare for the test, how to complete assignments more accurately.
Attitude:
Students

consider exams not as punishments bust as useful feedback. It creates a co-operative atmosphere.

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 Fosters
It

Motivation:

encourages them to become independents learners and it increases their motivation.

Students

Autonomy:

It gives sense of autonomy to the students in the learning process. Students learn at their pace.

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DISADVANTAGES
Students

believe that their peers are not competent enough in assessing each other. Students feel that their peers are very strict in awarding marks / grades. The enmity or friendship would influence the peer assessment.

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LIMITATIONS
I

prefer to limit this technique only to slip test and unit tests where questions are objective type. In the exams where subjective type questions are predominant, teacher has to take up the job himself.

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CONCLUSION
Assessment

process should become a learning tool. Peer assessment is no doubt a learning tool. Peer assessment can improve the judging ability which would help the student in their social adult life.

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