EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT WITHIN LANGUAGE COURSES
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT WITHIN LANGUAGE COURSES

Summary/Abstract: Assessment within a course deals with evaluating students’ language and the course itself. Assessment is formative when it is performed during the course and summative when it is done at the end of the course to provide information about students’ acquisition. The course is also assessed, as the teacher needs information about its effectiveness. Of course, there should be a connection between the results of students’ assessment and if the course was well designed and taught. If students have good results, it should be inferred that the course has met its purposes. Assessment is also the moment when the teacher tries to find out information about students’ needs, abilities and proficiency. This is the first step in designing a course, but the last step also deals with assessing in order to be able to make changes if necessary. Evaluating the course means assessing the course design in order to see if it has served its purpose. As the process is a continuous one, the teacher will use assessment to make changes which may imply also reassessing students’ needs, rewriting goals and objectives and modifying the materials and the activities. The result of course assessment is that it may topple teacher’s carefully built course design. However, this step is necessary because it leads to the improvement of the course so that it will better meet students’ needs.

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