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LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: TESTS, CURRICULA, AND TEACHING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Alister Cumming
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Abstract

Over the past decade, many concerted policy efforts have aimed to change the status and functions of language assessment in school systems or higher education, redefining relationships among language tests, curriculum policies, and classroom teaching practices. Conventionally, formal language tests describe individual proficiency levels in reference to normative standards for purposes of certifying abilities; screening applicants for higher education, employment, or immigration decisions; or monitoring the results of educational systems. Recently, many curriculum policies have been reconceptualized in reference to attainment or benchmark standards that specify (usually functional, communicative) goals for language education, learners' achievements, and program accountability. These innovations have adopted principles of criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced assessment, creating new relations (as well as dilemmas) between language assessment and new curriculum policies, highlighting the nature of language assessment practices in programs, classrooms, or other learning contexts, particularly the foundation bases for defining language proficiency, alignment between assessments and curricula, the formative purposes of assessment in pedagogy, and the situations and interests of particular learner populations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 29 , March 2009 , pp. 90 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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