Linguistic (Essay Sample)

Linguistics
Name
Institution
Date
Linguistics
Testing and Assessing Language Learners Area:
What are the different types of language learner assessment? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type? Which type/types is/are most appropriate for assessing young learners and why?
There are numerous types of language learner assessments. These assessments exhibit several variations. Assessments aid in helping educators to establish English language learners capacity to comprehend languages. In addition, it helps in ascertaining the learners’ proficiency in the English language.
The various types of assessments for English Language learners include portfolio, writing samples, role plays, strip stories, multiple-choice tests, cloze tests and dictation (Phillipson, 2012). Dictation entails an educator reading part of a passage aloud and the English language learners writing what the educator is uttering. Cloze tests refer to a situation where the English language learners are required to fill a suitable terminology for the blanks. Each nth word is omitted and a blank is filled in its place (Catford, 2014). Multiple–choice assessments are utilized in a similar manner for English language students in a regular classroom. Strip stories entail separating sentence by sentence for the English language learners to fill in the appropriate one. Role plays permits the ESL learners to be exposed to realistic situations and implement them in English. Educators also use writing samples to assess ESL learners in order to ascertain certain grammatical weaknesses and strengths (Phillipson, 2012). .A portfolio defines the collections of ESL learners’ work which indicate their achievements and progress in different areas. It also indicates the growth experienced by ESL learners in their development.
Portfolios ESL learners’ assessment include all students. Further, it augments school accountability for all ESL learners. At the national level, portfolio assessment information is gathered in order to make sure the education system caters for the needs of all learners (Labov, 2014). Incorporation of ELLs in local and state level assessment programs is imperative for the enhancement of accountability. It indicates accurate information about the progress of the learners. Further, portfolios assessment aids in the identification and fulfillment of the needs of dissimilar students since it provides diverse systems with detailed information about learning. However, it faces various challenges. It also exhibits lower reliability and compatibility. It is difficulty to meaningfully translate several performance based tests into a single score (Sturtevant, 2011). Members of the public are used to single scores, which are easily compared across systems. Since district report the results of performance based assessments in words, this type of assessment is perceived as less accountable.
Using writing samples as an assessment tool for ESL learners allows student to express their thoughts and maintain individuality. It also indicates the extent of student comprehension and level of order thinking skills. It incorporates implementation of problem based way of learning (Katz & Postal, 2014). Further, it aids in developing critical thinking and learning skills. Apart from that, use of writing samples assessment is easy to administer. On the other hand, this type of assessment disadvantages students with poor thinking skills. It is also difficulty to ensure consistency of grading. Further, it fails to cover diverse range of knowledge. It is also hard to identify what the assessment tests: content, writing skills, or both (Whitney, 2014).
Multiple choice type of assessment ensures a comprehensive coverage of content. It is also easy to score as the choices are provided. It is less costly compared to portfolio assessment type of assessment. It is easy to identify possible cheating and plagiarism. However, Multiple choice type of assessment encourages surface learning of English language. In some cases, the provided multiple choices may be misinterpreted by the learners. Besides, it may be difficult to design high standard assessment questions (Bloomfield, 2012).
Dictation tests diverse skills including phonography, grammar and vocabulary. It is an integrative assessment as its success calls for competency and short-term memory, ability to correctly write what is uttered and careful listening (Halliday et. al., 2012). Cloze test outcomes can be used in the measurement of overall proficiency. The capacity to provide correct words in blanks calls for numerous abilities that ensure English language competency: reading strategies and skills, discourse structure, grammatical structure and knowledge of vocabulary. These skills are imperative for global language proficiency (Hoenigswald, 2013). Role play ensures that ESL learners are creative. It also helps learners to creatively approach complex real-life pragmatics. Further, this type of assessment elicits unpredictable outcomes from learners. Conversations and discussions among learners are hard to specify. Likewise, it is difficult to score. However, they provide a degree of and spontaneity and authenticity that other types of assessment may not offer.
Strip stories allow ESL learners to engage in sequencing. It uses cause and effect synthesizing, reasoning, and identifying of big ideas. The learners use a restricted number of boxes to select only imperative aspects of the activity (Chomsky, 2014).
Multiple choices type of assessment is the most appropriate for young learners because it is easy to score. It thus, suits young English language learners who have little interest in assessments. Moreover, it lessens distractions since in involves less assessment procedures (Leech, 2014)
MALL Area:
Explain how MALL has affected language learning and EFL teacher professional development.
Mobile assisted Language Learning entails enhancing learning through utilization of handheld mobile devices. Students are capable of accessing useful language learning materials as well as communicate with their peers and teachers at any time (Carter, 2013). It also helps EFL teachers to connect, learn, and achieve their goals, since it links to industry, government, mass consumer market and academia. Further, it facilitates communication among international EFL teachers to be fully acquainted with needs linked to market learning. MALL enhances social interactivity. ESL learners exchange information and collaborate with other students (Grierson, 2012).
CMC Area:
Define and characterize CMC showing its impact on language learning and EFL teacher professional growth.
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be referred to any type of human communication that takes place through use at least two electronic devices. The tem can also refer to diverse types of text based interaction, including text messaging. CMC exhibits features com...