OBSERVATION IN THE CLASSROOM

Our classrooms environments are plenty of new experiences each time when a lesson starts. Students’ expectation towards English class grows or reduces in certain way, and that is one of the reasons why we have to deal with different behaviors, attitudes, feelings and thoughts in the day-to-day practices.

 Classroom observation becomes one of the most useful tools for teachers when making inferences about learning and teaching processes, collecting information, assessing students’ performance and our own practices. However, this method needs to have a purpose in order to work properly.

First of all, observation should be organized with reference to specified language objectives. (Genesee & Hupshur). Thus, classroom observation will be manageable and systematic because it defines and delimits what is to be observed. It is also important to take into consideration the observation of instructional plans, instructional content, materials and activities. Because,it provides an explanation about students’ difficulties in their learning process, and better ideas for us when implementing a different strategy to teach.

It is mandatory to record classroom observations in order to not forget what was observed, for that task we can use different options such as anecdotal records, checklist and rating scales. How to determine what do we want to use? It depends mainly on the purpose of the observation we have, the way in which the information will be collected and how we want to report the analyzed results.

Due to the fact, that we are observing our students all the time, as a personal matter I consider that is really important for me to organize my observations keeping in mind the concepts in the reading and take the time to choose the appropriate way to record the information collected.  

COLLECTING INFORMATION

We have been learning that evaluate or assess is a really complex process which demands different tools and strategies to give an accurate result. This process also requires the collection and interpretation of data (qualitative and quantitative) for providing outcomes. For doing this, it is necessary to mention three principles: PRACTICALITY, How practical in terms of money and time the information was collected, RELIABILITY, how reliable the information is in order to give outcomes, and VALIDITY, how valid the information is regarding what is being assessed.

Although practicality is not the most relevant aspect in here, we need to mention again the importance of time and cost in the methods we are using to evaluate. Reliability is split up in three: Assessor related reliability (it has to do with instability among the people collecting the information), Object-related reliability (it is regarding the person about whom the information is being collected) and Instrument- related reliability (Procedures used to collect information).

The validity factor is the extent to which the information you get is the information you want. (Genesee & Upshur).

As teachers we need to be aware of those aspects when the time of assessing comes, taking into account that we are tools either for improving or frustrating learning processes. A personal question arises here. How reliable and valid have been our processes of gathering information so far?

PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

 Since I started my teaching experience I have been involved in the process of designing exams to assess or sometimes just to grade my students. When the time of evaluations arrives, it is a nightmare for all the teachers, just for thinking on how long the test would be or how much time we are going to take for grading it. However, after reading the text Principles of language assessment I can realize why we have this conception. 

There are five principles that we need to know and take into account in our tests mention by the author, those are:  practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity and washback. What are they about? It is mention that a test shouldn’t be difficult to administer and needs to have a specific and time efficient scoring procedure to make it practical. The reliability is related to accuracy, consistency, dependability or fairness of scores. Validity is the most relevant and complex factor. It deals with content, objectives, and students criteria. Besides, it has to be appropriate, meaningful and useful in terms of purpose of assessment. An authentic test has interesting topics, describes a real world context, items are contextualized rather than isolated and the language used is as natural as possible. Finally, it is important to give students the chance to be aware of their weaknesses and how they could improve, this is the washback principle.

I was not aware of those concepts and perhaps I was not the only. After reading the chapter and learn about the principles of assessment, It would be a challenge for me design test which includes these features but I’m sure that this challenge will bring a great satisfaction to me as teacher and at the same time better and meaningful results for my students.

INTRODUCTION TO EVALUATION

When talking about Second language Evaluation is necessary to consider that tests are not the only way to assess students' performance, because the acquisition of a second language involves a variety of factors and integrates different objectives, skills, components and purposes. It is showed in the reading that, second language evaluation is about making decisions, and for making decisions is necessary to collect evaluative information through observation of students' behavior, work habits, learning styles, notes in students' journals, and give it a meaningful interpretation to consider what changes to make or what actions to take.

In the evaluation process is important for teachers to know, analyze and implement different kinds of objectives that would be useful in the process. First of all, we find the instructional objectives which provide direction for planning and criteria for assessing the outcomes. The types of instructional objectives are language, strategic, socioaffective, philosophical, methods and process. But not all of them can be implementing in our classroom, as teachers we need to determine what of those objectives are going to be useful when assessing students.

The instructional plans are also mention in the reading and they are related to the syllabus designed for each second language course in which is included a complete plan to develop during  a set of lessons. However, a teacher can decide if the syllabus is appropriate for their students and for doing so, is necessary to take into consideration factors such as students’ needs, background characteristics and goals. It is valuable to be critical and assess students fairly because the majority of the time what is supposed to happen is not what actually happens in class.