Quiz Reflection
Current theories on assessment in second language acquisition classrooms suggest that the most effective ways to learn and assess vocabulary comprehension is through fill in the blank or Cloze activities. Computer-aided assessment has many affordances, such as flexibility, immediate feedback, and equability. (Charman, 1999) In building my quiz I tried to create questions that modeled the best practices of second language acquisition assessment while taking advantages of the affordances provided by computer-aided assessment.
The ultimate goal of my course is to expand student’s vocabulary. The course is not for credit and the final grade only minimally affects a student’s grade point average. The main type of assessment used in this course as a result is formative assessment and seeks to support the learning process. Folse (2006) suggests that the most effective and accurate way to assess a student’s comprehension of a word and to increase their retention of the word is through written exercises. Specifically noting fill in the blanks or Cloze activities as the most effective written exercises. These activities allow students to focus on the meaning of the word and see it in a context rich and grammatically correct sentence. All sections of my quiz focus on written exercises, and would mirror activities that students had previously completed during the course.
In designing the questions I also tried to emphasize collocation and similar strategies for retaining vocabulary. Collocation gives vocabulary deeper meaning and builds connections between new and acquired knowledge. (Schmitt, 1998) I did this by including questions that encouraged students to use these strategies, and also by providing automated feedback reminding the students of these strategies.
Since my quiz was designed to support student learning I tried to provide immediate feedback within the quiz itself. Hyland (2001) notes that effective feedback for distance language learners needs to be immediate and specific. Students in language learning classes encounter different problems and as such feedback needs to be tailored to their problems. It also needs to be encouraging as it is very easy for students to become frustrated. In my quiz there is automated feedback that each student encounters at the end of the quiz and there is also automated feedback that students encounter if they leave a short answer question blank. It was my goal to give this feedback if the student got the wrong answer, however I could only get the feedback to appear if the student left the question blank. The bulk of my feedback though in order to provide specific feedback would have to be instructor generated and accompany the marking of the two essay questions.
In general the experience of making this quiz was enjoyable. I felt that Moodle provided a wide selection of assessment methods, and in particular enjoyed making the Cloze activity. I would have liked to see more opportunities for automated feedback, specifically I would have liked the essay portion to have a spell check option, allowing students to see their spelling mistakes at the end of the quiz. Also I would have liked it to be easier to give automated feedback during the Cloze activity. Overall for my particular course Moodle seems to be an effective tool for assessing students learning.
Works Cited
Charman, D. (1999) Issues and impacts of using computer-based assessments (CBAs) for formative assessment, in S. Brown, P. Race & J. Bull (eds) Computer-assisted Assessment of Students, London: Kogan Page.
Foles, K. (2006) The Effect of Type of Written Exercises on L2 Vocabulary Retention. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 2, 273 – 293
Hyland, F. (2001) Providing effective support: investigating feedback to distance language learners, Open Learning, 16, 3, 231-247.
Schmitt, N. (1998). Measuring collocational knowledge: Key issues and an experimental assessment procedure. ITL—International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 119–120, 27–47.