Methods for evaluating the achievements of learners at the initial stage in learning a foreign language



The article is assigned to the study of the problem of the evaluation of pupils' achievements in the study of a foreign language at the initial stage.

The problem of monitoring and evaluating the knowledge, skills and abilities of learners in learning a foreign language has always been and continues to be relevant. There are traditional and alternative ways of measuring achievements developed by both domestic and foreign Methodists. In addition, age, the atmosphere of the proposed project, the purpose of the monitoring, the group of science, skills and competencies to be estimated, etc., need to be taken into account when choosing the type of assessment.

The importance of the initial stage in education cannot be overemphasized, as it provides the basis for the formation of competences necessary for successful functioning in society (including professional) and adaptation to its changes. The standard sets out the requirements for the results of pupils who have completed the basic program of primary general education, which include the readiness and ability of pupils to develop themselves, and the development of motivation for learning and learning;mastery of key competencies, which are the basis of learning, and of cross-cutting concepts; the experience of participants in the study of a subject that is specific to the subject area in order to acquire, transform and apply new knowledge; as well as the system of fundamental elements of scientific knowledge that underpin the modern scientific landscape of the world.

Both traditional and alternative ways of assessing learners' performance are designed to: teach learners to evaluate their knowledge, to be more critical of their work; and to help learners to establish the limits of their own knowledge and ignorance; Increase in the personal resources of the trainees (attentiveness, effort, patience, strength, etc.); ability to compare their evaluation for work with the teacher’s assessment.

Keywords: control, evaluation, ongoing evaluation, interim assessment, learner achievements, intake.

Introduction

The article proposes the consideration and analysis of forms of assessment of learners' achievements, such as an individual response, the development of a field and a presentation-based assessment, which are in accordance with the principles of personal evaluation the new methodological approaches consider evaluation as an integral part of learning, the highest point of which is expressed in an ongoing evaluation.

In all academic provisions, evaluation is considered closely related to the assignment. Evaluation is needed to help teachers and administrators make decisions about the language abilities of learners, their placement at appropriate levels and their achievements. The success of any assessment depends on the effective selection and use of appropriate tools and methods, as well as on the correct interpretation of learning outcomes. Evaluation tools and methods, in addition to the importance of assessing the progress and achievements of learners, also assist in assessing the appropriateness and effectiveness of the curriculum, teaching methods and the selection of teaching materials.

Research methods

1. Theoretical (study of linguistic and psychological literature on the problem under study).
2. Comparative (comparative analysis of traditional and alternative valuation methods).
3. Pedagogical (school monitoring, teachers and guidance counselors, analysis of programmers, textbooks and teaching aids).

Literature review

It is obvious that there is a certain theoretical basis that allows investigating the specifics of the development and application of evaluation methods and materials: evaluation in training (D. William, G. Henning, M. Berger, F. Trojan, R. Brandt) [3; 5; 6], portfolio development (J. M. O'Malley, D. Woolf) [6; 8], alternative assessment methods (J. Brindley, A. Miller, J. Wiggins) [4; 8; 12] and others.

Results and discussion

The individual response and the presentation-based assessment are characterized by a deliberate shift from traditional formal evaluation to less formal evaluation, namely, less quantitative evaluation.

Until recently, the field of assessment in the EFL classes was dominated by the intermediate control of learners' achievements, focusing on the formation of distinct linguistic aspects and linguistic correctness rather than on communicative competence. The communicative methodology of teaching puts considerable emphasis on the current assessment «with a large number of descriptive characteristics about the linguistic development of the learners and the study that follows the linguistic development along with other learning abilities» [1, pp. 432–434].

Evaluation is therefore becoming a diagnostic tool that provides feedback and demonstrates the relevance of the curriculum and teaching materials, the effectiveness of the teaching methods, and the strengths and weaknesses of the learners. Besides, it helps to demonstrate students' success in mastering foreign language, which leads to increased motivation, and also stimulates to study more, and teachers to work on «grinding» the learning process rather than its product.

«It is common knowledge that students fail tests... The younger the child, evaluated or tested, the more mistakes are made... and the greater the risk of being given false labels» [4]. Traditional classroom testing procedures can cause children much anxiety that affects the effectiveness of the learning process as well as the image of themselves. Therefore, learners should learn and be evaluated in an environment with reduced levels of anxiety, but preferably not at all. This can be achieved if students perceive evaluation as an integral part of the learning process rather than an independent process aimed at passing judgment on their abilities to classmates.

Using current evaluation can help reduce anxiety from focusing on linguistic correctness and increase learners' comfort and sense of success. Some teachers and researchers have called for students to be allowed to have an opinion not only on the format of the test, but also on its content and control. Murphy recommends that learners create their own tests. He believes that the creation of tests by the students themselves is an effective «way to blow up the students' perception and use their general knowledge in general, to force them to cooperate in the educational process» [6, pp. 63–76]. He proposes the following algorithm: students choose the questions that will enter the test under the supervision of the teacher; later, working in pairs, they ask each other questions during the session; then the questions are asked again with the new partner for fixing. Students are assessed by their partners or teacher as to the correctness of their responses and linguistic correctness.

A final feature of alternative assessment methods for beginners is that evaluation is based on work done that requires authentic tasks to be performed using oral and/or written communication skills. These methods may include traditional classroom activities such as oral presentations and essay writing, but they may also include non-traditional assignments such as teamwork and problem solving. The teacher evaluates the assignment in its entirety [12]. The performance must be evaluated according to the standards previously discussed in the class.

Another assessment procedure that is compatible with communicative approaches to language teaching is called «3 P»: recognition, repetition and restructuring. These three types of responses reflect the four stages of language proficiency for Krashen and Terrell. Recognition thus requires simple physical responses and short verbal responses. Repetition corresponds to speech and fluency. The last step, namely perestroika, «can adapt different levels of linguistic mastery from silence and speech spawn through the fleeting stages of taxonomy of Krashen, Terrell, as well as the articulated, highly verbal answers» [10, c. 23–28]. In this case the learners demonstrate the ability to reorganize the information into different formats. Restructuring usually involves tasks that are inherent in a collective work, such as creating a time schedule, schematics or a semantic map, solving problems, analyzing and communicating questionnaire results, writing the text of an oral interview and transforming the story into a dialogue.

The following assessment methods can be used to measure learners' abilities and progress in many educational aspects in an effective and practical way.

Non-verbal responses: In the early stages of learning students' speech needs to be instructed and evaluated mainly through physical responses and illustrations. These tasks require simple instructions. As a method of evaluation, this type of response can help reduce the level of anxiety usually associated with evaluation, as students see it as a natural extension of knowledge. At a later stage, they can accomplish practical tasks. For example, «create and manage drawings, dioramas, models, graphs and diagrams». This technique fits perfectly with Total Physical Response for early language development [2].

Oral interviews: Pierce and O'Malley offer to use visual cues in oral interviews in the early stages of language proficiency. For example, the student can be asked to select pictures to describe, and the teacher’s task is to guide him by asking questions that require the use of appropriate vocabulary. This technique works well in the early speech stages.

Role playing: This informal assessment method combines oral work and physical activity. Students of all ages who have been evaluated using this method feel inner comfort and motivation, especially when activities are presented as collaborative learning and considered an interesting way of learning.

Written Stories: Appreciation of students' written communication skills can be achieved through specific authentic tasks, such as writing letters to friends, writing letters to beloved television heroes, and writing invitations and responses to them. The teacher can take advantage of this by inviting students to write stories based on personal experience, recount stories, or recount historical events from different perspectives. To establish the basic facts, the teacher asks questions with answers «yes/no», and then goes on to more informative questions [7].

Presentations: Presentations are important for evaluation because can give a complete picture of the skills and abilities of learners in oral and written aspects. In addition, presentations can be key to understanding learners' interests, habits and organizational abilities. The presentations cover a wide range of subjects, including poetry reading, production, role-playing, dramatization and interviews.

Conferences: Conferences that include structured interviews can be an effective informal way to assess students' progress in language learning. Conferences and interviews provide an opportunity for one-to-one interaction where the teacher can learn about the students' communicative skills, emotional state, duration of focus, views, pace of study [5, c. 33–40].

Tambini also recommends the use of conferences to assess the oral and written skills of learners. In order to assess oral skills, it proposes that students be assessed primarily on the basis of their ability to understand and communicate with teachers and classmates. Self-assessment: Language learners may also participate in self-assessment, which at first glance may appear incorrect but still may lead to accurate conclusions about the development of skills [11, c. 435–440].

Self-evaluation may be carried out using one of the following methods:

1. Diagrams K-W-L (know, wonder, learn): Thanks to this type of diagram, students demonstrate that they know what they are interested in, what they have learned. K-W-L diagrams are particularly effective at the beginning and end of the study. At the beginning of the course, diagrams can help the teacher to identify the background knowledge and interests of the students. At the end of the course, diagrams can help to analyze what they have learned and to understand their successes.
2. Book of records: This is a record of the experience of out-of-class English learners, including information on when and where the language was used and why certain moments were successful and others were not. The advantage of a record book study is that it can contribute to the teacher’s understanding of students' use of the metacognitive strategies of teaching [7].
3. Dialogue Journal: These journals are interactive in nature and take the form of a permanent written dialogue between teacher and student. Journal-based dialogue is effective and entertaining for students regardless of their language proficiency. They are informal and provide a means for students to write without worrying about corrections. The teacher can also use the journal-dialogue, «to gather information about the views, beliefs, relationships and motivations of students associated with the class, program, or process of language learning».
4. Group assessment and mutual evaluation: Current trends in language teaching have highlighted the need to develop team skills. For example, students may write assessment notes, encouraging notes, for each member of their team, highlighting their positive contribution to the common cause. The role of the teacher is to explain that students should evaluate each other’s work and help them to define and correctly apply evaluation criteria. At the end of group tasks, if necessary, the teacher can offer each test to test individual work. Proponents of collaborative learning encourage the teacher to give voice to a group evaluation to enhance the merits of teamwork [8].
5. Portfolio: The purpose of the portfolio in the context of language teaching is to demonstrate the degree of communication competence of the student in the language through samples of spoken and written language. The portfolio can be defined as the «totality of reports on the student’s work over a certain period of time». Arter and Spandal argue that the portfolio should include «the participation of learners in the selection of the contents of the portfolio, criteria for assessing achievements and self-examination» [9].

The student’s portfolio may include: audio and video recordings, written samples (journals, essays, etc.), conferences and art-related works (drawings, diagrams and graphics). Finally, the portfolio may include samples of tests and benchmarking to assess the success and performance of students relative to other students or in relation to standards.

If the portfolio is well designed, it has a number of advantages over traditional assessment forms [9]. Firstly, they provide the teacher with a detailed picture of the students' achievements in various tasks. Second, they participate in decisions on content and can help them to identify their strengths and weaknesses in the language being studied. Finally, they combine learning and evaluation in a continuous learning process.

In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing that teachers should use many types of alternative assessment of learners' achievements, especially in terms of informal methods.

Field Development: Evaluation Columns are becoming one of the most popular forms of authentic evaluation and are used by practitioners in many educational contexts. In essence, the rubric consists of a fixed scale of measurement and a set of criteria that are applied to differentiate different degrees of quality or level of skill formation. They are models for communicating the learning objective to students and step-by-step instructions for achieving it.

The widespread use of the headings is an indicator of their importance, relevance and effectiveness in the current assessment. An example of a heading is in table. 1.

Table 1

Item for evaluation of the autobiographical essay

Criterion	Standard 1	Standard 2	Standard 3	Standard 4
Complete atask	Information was either not available or was not necessary.	Task completed, but not fully. Information not fully provided.	The task was done well. Most of the information was provided.	The task was performed very well. All necessary information is provided.
Organization	A meager organization of ideas. The structure of the text is broken.	The ideas are well presented. The structure of the text is slightly broken.	Text is logically structured and well structured.	Excellent organization of ideas and structure of text.
Vocabulary and pronunciation	The vocabulary is not sufficiently active. There are many spelling errors.	Adequate use of the vocabulary. Spelling errors are still present.	The vocabulary is used correctly. Several errors are present.	Excellent spelling with few mistakes.
Grammar and punctuation	Many grammatical and punctuation errors.	Adequate use of grammar and punctuation with minor errors.	Good use of dictionary. Multiple spelling errors.	Excellent use of grammar and punctuation. Very few errors are present.

Conclusion

The main argument for the use of alternative methods at the initial stage of foreign language learning is that official or standardized language examinations usually do not provide a complete picture of achievements.

Many of the scores presented can be integrated into daily classroom lessons, thus providing a full picture of the learners' achievements — their strengths and weaknesses. Unlike traditional methods of alternative estimation techniques can create not only «history» for each learner, which is the ultimate goal of the estimation, but also to provide information to provide the necessary assistance to the student and to adjust the educational process in order to increase its efficiency.

References:

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