School-based Assessment In Hongkong

By Author: Solo Chen
Total Articles: 129
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Current work in assessment is increasingly linking assessment with learning, seeing both within a sociocultural perspective of learning. A sociocultural view of assessment focuses on culturally relevant assessment designs and authentic task formats that are interactive, dynamic, and collaborative (Gipps 1999). Gipps describes assessment from a sociocultural perspective as integral to the teaching process and embedded in the social and cultural life of the classroom rather than an external and formalized activity (Gipps 1999: 26). In line with this paradigm shift in approaches to both learning and assessment, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) has recently introduced a school-based oral assessment component into MBT Chapa the senior secondary English language curriculum as part of its reform of the high-stakes formal examination system.

In-class performance assessment of students' oral language skills by the class teachers, using a range of tasks and guiding questions and a standardized set of assessment criteria, are innovative aspects ...
... of this new school-based assessment scheme being used with Cantonese-speaking English as second language learners aged 14-17 (School-Based Assessment Consultancy Team 2006). Teacher agreement about assessment standards is designed to be achieved through a careful process of task development and specification, the use of detailed exemplars of the assessment criteria, extensive use of informal teacher moderation, and a comprehensive professional development support program for all teachers, although there are still inevitable problems in implementation (see Davison 2007 and Davison and Hamp-Lyons in press, for a more detailed description of the assessment scheme and its implementation).

The specific in-class performance assessment involves two major types of assessment task: individual presentation and MBT Lami group oral discussion, which are based on an extensive reading program. This reading/viewing serves as a springboard to classroom assessment activities in which students discuss their reading/viewing with peers in small groups, or make an individual presentation on the print and non-print material that they have read/ viewed either to the whole class or to a small group of classmates. Three such assessment 'events' are formally scored and the marks recorded over a two-year period. One of the key aims of this school-based assessment is to create a structure for students to interact in English on real material, and to offer a more valid and reliable form of assessment than external assessment by assessing authentic oral language use in low-stress conditions with multiple assessment tasks in real time situations.