Diagnostic assessment
Diagnostic assessment (also referred to as pre-assessment) takes place at the beginning of a learning cycle. It is designed to reveal the specific strengths and needs of a student or group of students in relation to the upcoming learning. Diagnostic assessments provide base-line data against which new learning can be measured and progress monitored.
Diagnostic assessment enables a teacher to:
- establish students’ prior knowledge (and backgrounds)
- identify misconceptions
- make informed planning decisions.
Learn more:
What might diagnostic assessment involve?
Diagnostic assessment for learning languages may involve:
- reviewing previous school and/or teacher assessment information
- giving a pre-test to establish students’ knowledge and skill in relation to one or more of the three learning languages strands
- interviewing students about or in the target language to determine their skills and confidence
- giving students a practical task, for example, a speaking or reading task
- assessing both receptive and productive skills by asking a student to talk to another student in the target language about (for example) a film they have both seen
- designing a co-operative learning task (for example, an information gap task) that will enable you to simultaneously assess the capabilities of several students
- questioning to probe students’ knowledge and skills
- students self-assessing their confidence and proficiency on specified aspects of language learning (for example, communicating appropriately in different situations).
Learn more:
Last updated March 26, 2018
TOP
