Language Centres at a Crossroads

Diversity within the assessment landscape facilitates the fairest and most robust evaluation of student success, and not all skills valued by employers can be demonstrated in timed examinations. Feedback from students has shown that portfolio-style assessments, when designed appropriately, are highly appreciated, both in terms of being a form of assessment where learning takes place through the research and composition process, and in providing a valued alternative to the increasing prevalence of timed examinations, which some students find oppressive and one-dimensional. However, there are significant risks to the integrity of out of class assessments due to concerns around plagiarism and authorship. This presentation examines the role of student autonomy within assessment as a key driver of both student achievement and satisfaction. It also seeks to illustrate and discuss ways in which language teachers can maximise opportunities for students to display an array of positive learning behaviours such as creative independent learning, while ensuring that such forms of assessment are as robust and watertight as possible.

The Japanese and Korean modules in Languages for All, the Institution-Wide Language Programme at the University of Leeds, include a portfolio of independent study within the assessment landscape, focusing on text analysis and demonstrative learning, with concrete and transparent referencing of new learning as a key aspect. Starting with an evaluation of this as a case study the discussion will focus on reflections around motivation and employability, and considerations for assessment formats with a high degree of student autonomy. Discussion will also focus on the specific challenges and opportunities of such forms of assessment in relation to languages with a new script, which requires demonstration of interaction with a comparatively broad array of linguistic elements. In addition, valid concerns about educator time commitment in the marking process will be discussed, together with proposals for the introduction of specific granular marking criteria to maximise the quality of feedback for students while ensuring the marking process is as efficient and nimble as possible. Generic, compound criteria which may be somewhat vague are replaced with a grid of specific, task-related attributes students should aim to demonstrate achievement against. The presentation hopes to demonstrate that the more specific the criteria the more effective the feedback and by employing a simple tick system against an array of specific criteria a richer degree of feedback can be provided while also being less burdensome from the perspective of the marker.

يساعد تنوع التقييم في تحقيق تقييم عادل للطلبة حيث ان بعض المهارات ذات القيمة لدى اصحاب العمل قد تهمل في بعض الامتحانات.و تشير التغذية الراجعة من الطلبة ان ملفات التقييم المصممة جيدا تحظى بتقدير كبير حيث تعطي الطلبة فرصة للتعلم والبحث من خلال قيامهم بعملية الكتابة وكونها تقدم بديلا مقدرا للامتحانات المحددة بوقت والتي يجدها الطلبة قمعية وذات بعد احادي. يبحث هذا العرض في دور استقلال التقييم كمحرك رئيس لإنجاز الطلبة ومستوى رضاهم في سياق تحديات الانترنت للملكية الفكرية والسرقة الادبية حيث تهدف الى توضيح الطرق التي يمكن من خلالها للمعلمين زيادة فرص الطلبة لعرض سلوكهم التعليمي الايجابي وفي نفس الوقت التأكيد على ان مثل هذا التقييم قوي ولا يعاني من مشكلات. وتقدم خبرة متعلمي اللغة اليابانية في هذا المجال دراسة حالة يمكن لنتائجها ان تطبق على جميع اللغات .

Christopher Lacey is a Japanese Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds, teaching both on the Institution Wide Language Programme and students studying Japanese as their main undergraduate or postgraduate degree. Research interests include educator and student autonomy, promoting diversity in the assessment landscape and embedding positive learning behaviours in assessment. He is currently researching the potential of diverse assessment structures to enhance the robustness of degree classifications in terms of employability and intellectual achievement, and has begun composing a compendium of assessment formats across language learning communities at tertiary level in the United Kingdom.