Internal Assessment

This section presents the guiding principles that can be used as the basis for designing internal assessment and some common assessment practices for English Language for use in schools. Some of these principles are common to both internal and public assessments.

5.4.1 Guiding Principles

Internal assessment practices should be aligned with curriculum planning, teaching progression, student abilities and local school contexts. The information collected will help motivate, promote and monitor student learning, and will also help teachers find ways of promoting more effective learning and teaching.

Alignment with the Learning Objectives

A range of assessment practices should be used to assess the achievement of different learning objectives for whole-person development. These include teacher assessment, self-assessment and peer assessment and involve the use of learning tasks and activities, projects, portfolios and process writing. The weighting given to different areas in assessment should be discussed and agreed among teachers. The assessment purposes and criteria should also be made known to students, so that they have a full understanding of what is expected of them.

Catering for the Range of Student Ability

Assessment practices incorporating different levels of difficulty and diverse modes should be used to cater for students with different aptitudes and abilities. This helps ensure that the more advanced students are challenged to develop their full potential and the less advanced ones are encouraged to sustain their interest and succeed in learning.

Tracking Progress over Time

As internal assessment should not be a one-off exercise, schools are encouraged to use practices that can track learning progress over time (e.g. portfolios). Assessment practices of this kind allow students to set their own incremental targets and manage their own pace of learning, which will have a positive impact on their commitment to learning.

Timely and Encouraging Feedback

Teachers should provide timely and encouraging feedback through a variety of means, such as constructive verbal comments during classroom activities and written remarks on assignments.

Such feedback helps students sustain their momentum in learning and identify their strengths and weaknesses.

Making Reference to the School’s Context

As learning is more meaningful when the content or process is linked to a setting which is familiar to students, schools are encouraged to design some assessment tasks that make reference to the school’s own context (e.g. its location, relationship with the community, mission).

Making Reference to Current Progress in Student Learning

Internal assessment tasks should be designed with reference to students’ current progress, as this helps overcome obstacles that may have a cumulative negative impact on learning. Teachers should be mindful in particular of concepts and skills which form the basis for further development in learning.

Encouraging Peer Assessment and Self-assessment

In addition to giving feedback, teachers should also provide opportunities for peer assessment and self-assessment in student learning. The former enables students to learn among themselves, and the latter promotes reflective thinking which is vital for students’ lifelong learning.

Appropriate Use of Assessment Information to Provide Feedback

Internal assessment provides a rich source of data for providing evidence-based feedback on learning in a formative manner.

5.4.2 Internal Assessment Practices

A range of assessment practices suited to the English Language subject, such as learning tasks and activities, projects, portfolios and process writing, should be used to promote the attainment of the various learning outcomes. However, teachers should note that these practices should be an integral part of learning and teaching, not “add-on” activities.

Learning tasks and activities

Various tasks and activities can be used for formative assessment to monitor students’ progress.

These may range from low to high in cognitive complexity. They include oral tasks (e.g.

individual presentations, group discussions), listening tasks (e.g. gap-filling, tables, sentence completion), reading tasks (e.g. multiple-choice questions, cloze, open-ended/free-response questions), writing tasks (e.g. reflections, narratives, arguments, expository essays), tasks involving an integration of skills.

To work effectively, the tasks need to be well-designed in terms of alignment with learning objectives, and have clear performance criteria so that students understand what they need to do. Evidence of learning gathered from carrying out the tasks should form the basis of feedback to promote further learning. It is not always necessary to give marks or to record students’

performance formally.

Projects

When assessing students’ performance on projects, teachers should assess the process as well as the product, through, for instance, observation, conferencing and reviewing students’ drafts.

Regular feedback should be given to stimulate students’ critical reflection and help them improve their learning. Areas to be considered in assessing projects include:

 content (e.g. relevance of ideas, coverage of topic);

 organisation (e.g. logical development of ideas, connection of ideas);

 language use (e.g. appropriateness, fluency, style, accuracy);

 evidence of the use of generic skills (e.g. communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving); and

 attitudes demonstrated (e.g. confidence in using English, keenness to participate in activities, respect for others, an awareness of the potential influences of language use on other people’s feelings).

Portfolios

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of a student’s work (e.g. samples of writing and recordings of speech) that can provide information on progress in the development of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes in a given area. Apart from participating in the selection of portfolio content, students should be encouraged to reflect on their learning process, evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses, and identify ways of making improvements.

Process writing

Well thought-out writing involves a process, which is generally made up of the recursive stages of planning (i.e. brainstorming, researching, outlining), drafting (i.e. writing, rewriting, revising) and finalising (i.e. editing). Teachers should give feedback on students’ drafts at appropriate stages in the writing process. With adequate preparation, students can also be asked to provide feedback on the drafts of others and on their own. Based on the feedback, students can improve their drafts by making suitable revisions. Initial feedback can focus on higher-order or global level concerns – ideas, organisation and genre requirements – and thereafter on lower-order or surface-level concerns such as language (grammar and mechanics) and style.

Teachers are encouraged to develop and use their own feedback sheets or guidelines with the appropriate criteria to suit the purposes of the writing activities and the students’ needs.