TEASIG:Developing assessment tasks for the classroom

Assessment tasks or test items are a core part of any formal language assessment. For national or international standardised test, item writers or task developers are trained and skilled in working to test specifications to develop relevant and appropriate items. And for these tests, item writing is part of the larger process of test development.

However, what about developing assessment tasks for your classroom or your institution? Teachers assess all the time in the classroom in different ways for different purposes. Sometimes, you may just need a quick quiz to check understanding but what if you become responsible for developing your school or institution’s own tests to measure learning at the end of a term or a course. This is no easy task and there are many factors to consider. Teachers need to be able to draw on knowledge, skills and resources in order to develop assessments that are reliable and valid enough for their individual situations.

This online seminar will look at developing assessment tasks for the classroom, what is involved in developing a test item, the knowledge required to do this effectively and the resources available to support teachers with this very important part of their jobs.

You can view the agenda for this event HERE.

Speakers - Shakeh Manassian , Kathrin Eberharter, Olena Rossi and Michael Fields

Shakeh Manassian:

Shakeh started her career in language teaching and moved into language testing and assessment in general in the 1990s.  She has worked in a variety of roles from Content and Product Manager to Principal Assessor, Specification and Assessment developer to item writer, Course and Training Designer to Trainer and Supervisor and is currently working as Director of Qualifications at PSI.  She is currently responsible for the design and development of a suite of English and educational tests at PSI.

Kathrin Eberharter:

Kathrin is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Innsbruck, where she guides pre-service teachers in the principles of best practice for language testing and assessment. She earned an Austrian teaching degree and completed her MA and PhD at Lancaster University, specializing in language testing. Her primary research interests centre on evaluating L2 writing and speaking, with a dedicated focus on task development, writing processes, rating scale design, and rater cognition and training.

Olena Rossi:

Olena Rossi has an MA and a PhD in Language Testing from Lancaster University, UK. Her main research interests lie in the areas of test development, item writing, and assessment literacy for test stakeholders. Olena’s doctoral thesis investigated the nature of item-writing skills and their development. Olena has a lot of practical language testing experience as an examiner, item writer, item quality reviewer, and item-writer trainer. Currently, Olena works as an independent assessment consultant, conducting research into language assessment and consulting companies and educational institutions on assessment-related issues. Olena has also worked as an associate lecturer at Lancaster University for a number of years teaching on the MA in Language Testing programme.

Michael Fields:

Michael Fields is an assistant professor at the University of Delaware’s English Language Institute (USA), and the chair of the assessment committee. He earned an MA in Applied Linguistics from Leicester University, specialising in language assessment. He is a writer and editor for Cambridge exams and has contributed to standards setting for the TOEFL test.

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