Dan Macmillan

Introduction

These days, there has been a growing interest in the use of assessment procedures that are completely different from traditional methods of assessment. The most reliable forms of assessment such as portfolios, interviews, journals, project work, and self-evaluation by peers or have become increasingly common in second language classes, and abroad.

These alternative forms of testing and evaluation are more focused on the students because they involve students in their learning so they can monitor their own language learning. In addition, these types of assessments - called alternative assessment - can help teachers to obtain sufficient information to develop their teaching plans and practices. Table below may indicate obvious differences between the traditional and alternative forms of assessment (Richards & Renandya, 2002).

old forms

New forms

1. Focus on language

1. Focus on communication

2. Teacher centered

2. Learner-centered

3. isolated skills

3. integrated skills

4. The product focus

4. The emphasis on process

5. An answer, a correct way

5. In open-ended, multiple solutions

6. Testing the test

6. Tests that teach

The purpose of this paper is to examine some studies that have led the review of these new forms of assessment, and express their findings and beliefs researchers on the usefulness of these types of tests in EFL ESL classes /.

Review of the literature on

Before 1990, our analysis and evaluation were based on behaviorist views of cognition and improvement, but after 1990, it was suggested that some additional controls are needed to evaluate the performance of a person ( Hancock, 1994). Studies have shown that individuals are not only innovative mental sections, but they use what they have in most well organized and flexible ways. These people are extremely thoughtful about their activities, their schedule, and quality of their products (Gardner, 1993). Thus, the need for a new evaluation process was necessary to test learners.

alternative assessment includes a variety of instruments that can be modified in various situations. According to the literature (eg, Anthony Johnson, Mikelson, and Peerce, 1991; Goodman, 1991; Holt, 1994), these include, for example, the use of checklists of student behavior, products, magazines, reading logs, video role-playing, audio discussion, self-assessment questionnaires, work samples, observations of teachers and / or anecdotal records.

In his article on evaluating alternatives, Huerta-Macias (1995) argued that although traditional forms of assessment can provide a kind of appropriate measures of student achievement, they often fail to provide information on that students can do in their second language. For this reason, a new evaluation method has been suggested in recent years so-called alternative assessment, authentic assessment, or informal assessment. The objective of this new method is to assess the ability of learners to use language in a holistic manner in situations of real life and is usually conducted continuously over a period of time.

As Miriam and Fran (1995) stated in their article on the assessment of ESL learners, evaluation is difficult for adult ESL educators. Find a way to measure the achievements and success of the learner program display improvement of institutions, English proficiency and literacy skills for learners and educators to clarify themselves what has been learned and what has not is not an easy task. Dissatisfaction with available tools was widespread, and many teachers can not find methods to assess Lea.