UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE LA SANTÍSIMA CONCEPCIÓN

FACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN

ONLINE PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS

Teacher: Gabriela Sanhueza

Students: Nidia Gil C

Marcela Gatica

System of the language: Grammar.

Webpage:http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar

Web page description: British council online presents different features of english

in its layout, like grammar, vocabulary, writing, games, IELTS tips and so on. The

webpage has four different sections for its visitors. These sections contain games,

exercises, lessons, short quizzes, grammar, vocabulary, and writing.

The following analysis is based on a specific feature of the website: English

grammar.

The webpage presents a variety of aspects of grammar to be assessed, with eight

full lessons, these lessons are: pronouns; determiners and quantifiers;

possessives; adjectives; adverbials; nouns; verbs; clauses, phrase and

sentences.In the following lines we are going to discuss the pros and the cons of

this website.

Web page pros for assessing grammar:

The website presents a variety of alternatives to learn and practice English

language, regarding a variety of grammatical features, with exercises of each

section of grammar in addition to games as a rehearsal.

● Referring to the principles of the language assessment, british council online

● Regarding practicality, british council online is free for everybody who can

have an internet connection. Furthermore, the webpage (grammar section) is easy

to use because it has clear instructions and simple examples, moreover, it is not

time consuming, because lessons are not extensive.

in terms of reliability, the web page is reliable on the way that at the moment

of answering the quizzes, answers do not allow deviation, this means that

the score should not be affected.

● It can be said that British council online is valid because it measures what has

been previously explained in the lesson. So, test takers are going to be assessed

on what they have been learning and practicing during the lesson exercises.

● In terms of washback, the webpage provides feedback in detail, when the

learner press the check button, red and green words appear in order to indicate if

he/she got it right or wrong;moreover, it brings grammar explanations to the

students` mistakes.

Regarding impact, British council online aims to help the learners in the

learning process as an individual; learners can use the webpage when they

want, nevertheless, it does not have an impact on the School community.

Aditionally, the principle of security is present on the webpage, because it

gives learners the possibility to create an account with password, which

makes it safe having a personal profile, although any visitor can enter to the

page, if you are not registered, you can not ask questions or download

lessons.

web page cons for assessing grammar:

● The principle of interactiveness, it is not present due to the fact that quizzes

tests are directed to all student by equal, making no distinction among students

and not knowing about students abilities or strenghts.

regarding authenticity, British english online does not provide very authentic

activities, due to the fact that, most of the exercises are related to multiple

choice questions and making sentences.

finally, in terms of authenticity, british council is it not authentic at all,

although it shows examples of grammar to use sentences in real life, it does

not contain tasks to perform in a real world context, it only has exercises but

not tasks of role play or real activities.

System of the language: Vocabulary

Web page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/

Web page description: The BBC learning English webpage is a website where you

can learn English online. This webpage has 30 units. Each unit has 5 sessions

and each session has a number of activities, including videos and quizzes. There

is one session a day, every day from Monday to Friday. In this page you can find

different features such as vocabulary, grammar , listenings, videos and so on

The analysis of this website will be focus on a particular feature , vocabulary. The

BBC learning English website has a wide range of topics to assess vocabulary

depending on the students’ english proficiency that could be lower intermediate,

intermediate and English my way. The vocabulary tests consist in matching,

multiple choice and complete the sentence.

Web page pros for assessing vocabulary

● The BBC learning English website offers a wide variety of topics regarding

vocabulary, all of them depending on the students’ English proficiency. In this page

students are able to listen and learn real English in context.

The principle of validity is presented in this webpage because the tests

included in the lessons assess those contents that are taught in the lesson,

not in something else.

● The principle of practicality is presented since it is free for everyone, this

means that it does not include financial cost. Also, it is not time consuming

because the scores are provided immediately.

● In terms of the principle of reliability, the web page can be considered reliable

because the options to answer do not allow deviation, so the score should not be

affected.

In terms of authenticity , this webpage allows students to contextualize real

world activities with learning task experiences, giving learners the

opportunity to acquire knowledge in a meaningful way.

Regarding transparency, there is clear information in terms of instructions

and the users are informed in advance about how they are going to be

tested.

Web page cons for assessing vocabulary

● In terms of washback the website does not provide feedback so the students

are not able to understand their mistakes.This is a disadvantage for the users

because the webpage neither provides the correct answer nor the explanation.

● The webpage presents a micro level impact because it impacts students or

teachers individually, improving the teaching and the learning process. This occurs

because the aim is focused on helping students to practice and learn what they

have been taught throughout the lesson involving just the test taker.

● Additionally, the principle of interactiveness is not presented since the

activities provided by the web page are directed for all kind of students. This

means that the website makes no distinction between students’ language ability,

topical knowledge or affective schemata.

● Finally, the principle of security is not presented since it is an online page and

it is accessible for everyone. Moreover, the students may be tempted to look for

the answers online.

REFERENCES

Bachman, L. F & Palmer, A. (1996). Language testing in practice: designing and

developing useful language tests. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Brown, H. D. (2004). Language assessment principles and classroom practices.

New York: Pearson Education.

Coombe, C. Folse, K. Hubley, N. (2007). A practical guide to assessing English

language learners. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.