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performance and portfolio assessments, participation, peer and self-evaluation, and discussion [1].
Internal assessment is set and marked by the school. Students get the mark and feedback regarding the assessment. External assessment is set by the governing body, and is marked by non-biased personnel. Some external assessments give much more limited feedback in their marking.
A good assessment has both validity and reliability, plus the other quality attributes noted above for a specific context and purpose. In practice, an assessment is rarely totally valid or totally reliable. A ruler which is marked wrongly will always give the same (wrong) measurements. It is very reliable, but not very valid. Asking random individuals to tell the time without looking at a clock or watch is sometimes used as an example of an assessment which is valid, but not reliable. The answers will vary between individuals, but the average answer is probably close to the actual time. In many fields, such as medical research, educational testing, and psychology, there will often be a trade-off between reliability and validity. A history test written for high validity will have many essay and fill-in-the-blank questions. It will be a good measure of mastery of the subject, but difficult to score completely accurately. A history test written for high reliability will be entirely multiple choices. It isn't as good at measuring knowledge of history, but can easily be scored with great precision. We may generalize from this. The more reliable our estimate is of what we purport to measure, the less certain we are that we are actually measuring that aspect of attainment.
It is well to distinguish between "subject-matter" validity and "predictive" validity. The former, used widely in education, predicts the score a student would get on a similar test but with different questions. The latter, used widely in the workplace, predicts performance. Thus, a subject-matter-valid test of knowledge of driving rules is appropriate while a productively valid test would assess whether the potential driver could follow those rules. Consequently, it would in many cases be inaccurate and inappropriate to draw conclusions from ELL students' normative scores. Research shows that the majority of schools do not appropriately modify assessments in order to accommodate students from unique cultural backgrounds.
References
1. Earl Lorna (2003). Assessment as Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximise Student Learning. Thousand Oaks. CA. Corwin Press.
2. Greenberg D. (2000). 21st Century Schools, edited transcript of a talk delivered at the April 2000 International Conference on Learning in the 21st Century.
3. ScrivenM. (1991). Evaluation thesaurus. 4th ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
PROPERTIES OF EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT Kurbanbayeva D.Sh.
Kurbanbayeva Dilnoza Sharofiddinovna - Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ENGLISH
LANGUAGES FACULTY 2, UZBEK STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: in every walk of life the process of evaluation takes place in one or the other form. If the evaluation process is eliminated from human life then perhaps the aim of life may be lost. It is only through evaluation that one can discriminate between good and bad. The whole cycle of social development revolves around the evaluation process. In education how
much a child has succeeded in his aims, can only be determined through evaluation. Thus there is a close relationship between evaluation and aims.
Keywords: evaluation, assessment, comprehensive assessment, instructor, content, teaching.
Education is considered as an investment in human beings in terms of development of human resources, skills, motivation, knowledge and the like. Evaluation helps to build an educational programme, assess its achievements and improve upon its effectiveness. Evaluation plays an enormous role in the teaching-learning process. It helps teachers and learners to improve teaching and learning. Evaluation is a continuous process and a periodic exercise.
In learning, it contributes to formulation of objectives, designing of learning experiences and assessment of learner performance. Besides this, it is very useful to bring improvement in teaching and curriculum. It provides accountability to the society, parents, and to the education system. In order to provide direction and raise the student's level of performance, assessment must be factual, and it must be aligned with the completion standards of the lesson.
The effective assessment is objective, and focused on student performance. It should not reflect the personal opinions, likes, dislikes, or biases of the instructor. Instructors must not permit judgment of student performance to be influenced by their personal views of the student, favorable or unfavorable. Sympathy or over-identification with a student, to such a degree that it influences objectivity, is known as "halo error." A conflict of personalities can also distort an opinion. If an assessment is to be objective, it must be honest; it must be based on the performance as it was, not as it could have been [2].
The instructor must evaluate the entire performance of a student in the context in which it is accomplished. Sometimes a good student turns in a poor performance, and a poor student turns in a good one. A friendly student may suddenly become hostile, or a hostile student may suddenly become friendly and cooperative. The instructor must fit the tone, technique, and content of the assessment to the occasion, as well as to the student. An assessment should be designed and executed so that the instructor can allow for variables. The ongoing challenge for the instructor is deciding what to say, what to omit, what to stress, and what to minimize at the proper moment.
The student must accept the instructor in order to accept his or her assessment willingly. Students must have confidence in the instructor's qualifications, teaching ability, sincerity, competence, and authority. Usually, instructors have the opportunity to establish themselves with students before the formal assessment arises. If not, however, the instructor's manner, attitude, and familiarity with the subject at hand must serve this purpose. Assessments must be presented fairly, with authority, conviction, sincerity, and from a position of recognizable competence. Instructors must never rely on their position to make an assessment more acceptable to students.
A comprehensive assessment is not necessarily a long one, nor must it treat every aspect of the performance in detail. The instructor must decide whether the greater benefit comes from a discussion of a few major points or a number of minor points. The instructor might assess what most needs improvement, or only what the student can reasonably be expected to improve. An effective assessment covers strengths as well as weaknesses. The instructor's task is to determine how to balance the two.
An assessment is pointless unless the student benefits from it. Praise for its own sake is of no value, but praise can be very effective in reinforcing and capitalizing on things that are done well, in order to inspire the student to improve in areas of lesser accomplishment. When identifying a mistake or weakness, the instructor must give positive guidance for correction. Negative comments that do not point toward improvement or a higher level of performance should be omitted from an assessment altogether [1].
An assessment must be organized. Almost any pattern is acceptable, as long as it is logical and makes sense to the student. An effective organizational pattern might be the
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sequence of the performance itself. Sometimes an assessment can profitably begin at the point at which a demonstration failed, and work backward through the steps that led to the failure. A success can be analyzed in similar fashion. Alternatively, a glaring deficiency can serve as the core of an assessment. Breaking the whole into parts, or building the parts into a whole, is another possible organizational approach.
An effective assessment reflects the instructor's thoughtfulness toward the student's need for self-esteem, recognition, and approval. The instructor must not minimize the inherent dignity and importance of the individual. Ridicule, anger, or fun at the expense of the student never has a place in assessment. While being straightforward and honest, the instructor should always respect the student's personal feelings. For example, the instructor should try to deliver criticism in private.
References
1. Brown Sally and Knight Peter (1994) Assessing Learners in Higher Education. Kogan Page Ltd, London.
2. Ingram Cregg F. (1993) Fundamentab of Educational Assessment, D.Van Nostrand Company. New York.
PRAGMATICS FOR THE CLASSROOM AND HOW TO TEACH
APOLOGIES Musaeva Z.M.
Musayeva Zebohon Muzaffarovna - Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ENGLISH
LANGUAGES FACULTY 2, UZBEK STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are exposed to a collection of materials and communicative activities in the classroom through which they learn to use the language competently and appropriately. Textbooks, in particular, are a rich source of input, offering a variety of opportunities to acquire and practice pragmatic competence in specific areas of language use. One such area concerns apologies. As a ubiquitous and routinized pragmatic speech act, apologies are important to master for learners who have violated a socio-cultural norm. Teaching apologies - like any other speech act - should be based on rich, meaningful and authentic input and tasks in order for learners to appreciate and make use of this competence in real-life communication. Keywords: pragmatics, speech acts, politeness, apology, strategy, speakers.
Pragmatics is a field of language instruction which is often neglected. When we talk about pragmatics, we are talking about how language is actually used to accomplish various tasks like requesting, apologizing or complaining, to name a few. The way native speakers actually perform these actions can sometimes differ quite a bit from even native speakers own intuitions as to how they perform them. While a native speaker might be able to flawlessly execute various speech acts like apologizing, requesting or complaining, they might have difficulty accurately explaining what they would do in these situations based on their intuitions. Some native speakers are not even capable of flawlessly, or even competently performing some of these speech acts at times. Given that the details of how to perform certain speech acts escape even native speakers intuition, it follows that performing these and other speech acts in an appropriate way does not come naturally to students simply
