Review journal entitled Classroom
and Formative assessment in Second/Foreign Language Teaching and Learning by
Somaye Ketabi and Saeed Ketabi. Department of English. Faculty of Foreign
Language. University of Iran. Februari 2014
Assessment
as a process of collecting information about something that we are interested
in, according to procedure that are systemic and substantially grounded
(Bachman. 2004). Formal assessment are used to evaluate the students’ achievement
in a periodical time. Test are taken to consider:
1 1. A students has got the idea of the topic and
ready to the the next level.
2 2. The difficult parts of a topic or subtopic.
3 3. What students have known and have to know
more
4 4. Classify the students.
However a
formal assessment is just to test the students’ knowledge without considering
the process.
Informal
assessment is an unplanned assessment. It’s usually conducted by giving some
comments or feedback to the students’ work. It’s to motivate and compliment the
students’ effort. On the other words, informal assessment means to assess the
students’ knowledge and performance without any time limit and exact time.
Summative
assessment is to evaluate the learning process and it is usuallly done in the
end of the semester. Final exam is one of the summative assessment. On the
other hand, formative assessment is takes place during the learning process.
It’s to control the learning process by giving some positive feedback to the
students.
Implicit
assessment is an accidental assessment. Sometimes both teachers and students
don’t realize the existence of it. Explicit assessment is a planned and
designed assessment which has announced before.
Classroom
assessment can be implicit or explicit, formative or summative, but mostly used
formative assessment. Formative assessment can improve the learning and
teaching process. Students and teacher can work together to create a good
learning environment. This formative assessment also can avoid the students for
being stressed because of the planned assessment such as final exam.
Both
Summative and formative assessment are important to apply in the learning and
teaching process. The aim of Summative assessment is to know the understanding
of the students for the whole topics given. Whereas the formative assessment is
to evaluate the teaching and learning process. Teachers have to consider all
this assessments in giving marks to the students. The teachers should not only
evaluate the end process, but all the process from the beginning till the end.
