Subject Students’ data Date

Testing and Assessment Surname: Merino Gil

20/06/2022
in EFL Name: Irene

Task 1. Learning Diary

UNIT 1
Teachers always plan to test students, but do they reflect enough about their teaching practice?
Before read and understand the key concepts explained in this unit, I am aware of I have never
did a complete critical reflection about my teaching practice. Sometimes, I try to reflect about
my weakness to improve and to give students the best of mine; nevertheless, I do not think
about my strengths. It would be good that from the first course of the Education Degree
(regardless of the course they are going to teach: Early Childhood Education, Primary Education
or High school), teachers were taught and encouraged to a critical reflection about their
teaching practice. In this way, they teachers would be learning from their mistakes continuously
and being aware of their strengths will allow teachers to reinforce them or even help other
teachers to improve.
Talking about professional development, I realize that schools and teachers tend to focus on
traditional development proposing to attend to conferences or workshop. Why do not we focus
on authentic development? In my opinion, authentic development will be more useful to
improve because it is focus on each teacher with his/her specific students, context, timetable,
and it offers opportunities to put knowledge and new concepts in real situations.
UNIT 2
This unit is focused on formative assessment. This type of assessment involves students taking
an active role in their learning process. It is divided in two subtypes. On the one hand,
assessment for learning which allow teachers to guide students during their learning. In this
way, students will receive appropriate feedback considering their particular needs, so each
learning style will be considered depending on how each student learns better. On the other
hand, assessment as learning which allow students understand their own learning. It is related
to metacognitive processes. This allows students to control and manage their own learning,
reflect on how they learn and thus, it will increase their motivation. In this way the students
will become more autonomous. It can also be related to one of the key competences "learning
to learn" proposed in LOMCE.
Finally, I would like to highlight the importance of feedback which plays an essential role for

Unit 4. Exercises 1
 Subject Students’ data Date
Testing and Assessment Surname: Merino Gil
20/06/2022
in EFL Name: Irene

our students. Not only teachers should know how to give appropriate feedback for them, but
also, teachers have to train students how to use the feedback received to improve.
UNIT 3
This unit is focused on summative assessment, also called assessment of learning. Generally,
teachers know the importance of formative assessment to guide the students’ learning process,
however, summative assessment is also important, it is done at the end of a learning process
and sometimes it allows to obtain a qualification. Nowadays, it is important to prepare our
students to these situations since they have to pass exams at different stages of their life. One
of the key aspects to take into consideration is anxiety that is produce. As teachers, not only
have to prepare students to pass exams, but also, we must prepare exams keeping in mind
concepts like test validity and reliability.
UNIT 4
This unit is focused on assessment tools like graphic organizers, KWL, checklists and rubrics. All
of them make visible the learning objectives. It will guide students’ learning process being
aware of what is expected for them. I would like to highlight the use of KWL. This tool allows
students to reflect on their prior knowledge (know), motivate students considering what they
want to learn (want) and finally, they review the learnt content (learnt).
The use of these tools in educational contexts is increasing, although on sometimes they are
not carried out with the prior reflection that is required. As a future English teacher as a foreign
language, it would be good idea to share with my classmates the advantages and the
appropriate way to carry them out.
UNIT 5
This unit is focus on assessment of speaking skills. Although it is considered one of the most
important skills since it allows people to communicate in a foreign language, it is true that it is
one of the most difficult skills to assess: in addition to the multitude of variables that influence
the assessment of that skill, such as the subjectivity of the assessor, there is usually not a single
correct answer. To deal with the subjectivity of the evaluation of this ability, teachers need to
establish rubrics (analytical or holistic; both have advantages and disadvantages) or checklist
where we specify what we expect them to reach. Teachers cannot forget that they are assessing

Unit 4. Exercises 2
 Subject Students’ data Date
Testing and Assessment Surname: Merino Gil
20/06/2022
in EFL Name: Irene

students' ability to communicate and not the content, so, the topic must be adapted to the age
of the students, otherwise they may not know how to talk about it even in their mother tongue
In addition to what is mentioned above, the attitude of the teachers can encourage the anxiety
of the students with which they face this skill. Therefore, it is recommended to use elicitation
techniques to minimize that anxiety. I would highlight storytelling based on a set of images.
That technique is useful for any age and any level and using motivating images for students, it
could be a good tool to promote interaction and communication between students. (For
example: create a story in groups using some photographs about “animals”).
UNIT 6
This unit is focus on assessing writing skills. I really appreciate the idea proposed by DeFauw
(2013) about developing a contest (writing workshop) to develop their writing skills. In this way,
students will be more engaged and motivating with the task however, my students are little
(they are in the first grade of Primary Education) and they are still learning to write in their
mother tongue, so it is overly challenging for them to write a text based following the steps
suggested for DeFauw. Talking about elicitation tasks, I would like to highlight sentence building
since it is the most appropriate for my students, an example of an example of this activity could
be: In groups, the teacher gives them a photograph which contains known vocabulary to them
such as a girl playing football, a zoo, a supermarket …and they must describe it in two-three
lines using the photographs as promts. At the end of the class, it would be recommendable to
do an exit ticket to assess that activity and make them aware that they know more that they
think.
UNIT 7
This unit is focus on assessing listening and reading skills. Although at first glance, they seem
passive skills, they are far from it since it requires the concentration and attention of the
listener/reader.
Teachers have to consider the two main views as to the direction of how listening and reading
comprehension occurs: bottom- up and top-down. It is important that teachers prepare and
plan activities of both types so that students develop their listening and reading skills in a
complete way. This is bottom- up activities which includes the decoding the text in small pieces

Unit 4. Exercises 3
 Subject Students’ data Date
Testing and Assessment Surname: Merino Gil
20/06/2022
in EFL Name: Irene

from the smallest unit (phoneme) to a complete understanding of the text and top-down
activities in which the knowledge of the situation is key (background or prior knowledge).
Examples of these types of activities could be:
• bottom- up activities: tell them directions on how to get to a street or place, and have
students draw it on a map (listening) and proof reading (reading to check for mistakes).
• Top- down activity: ask them questions to predict what the audio or the text is going
to be about by showing them an image.
UNIT 8
This unit is focused on how to teach and assess systems: phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and
discourse. I was struck by the difference in the order of skills when we learn or acquire a
language. The first language is the mother tongue and therefore the one we acquire through
exposure to that language. In this case, the toddler first focuses on listening, then begins to
emit sounds and words and finally, at school, he/she will learn to read and write
simultaneously. However, this order changes completely when we learn a second language, the
first difference is that this learning is usually conscious (the first language is an unconscious
process) and the order in which the skills are developed is completely the opposite, starting
with reading and writing, then listening and finally speaking.
Thinking about this difference, I have reflected on my own teaching practice on teaching English
as a foreign language. Focusing on the Primary Education stage, all skills receive the same
weight (25%) in the final assessment of each student and regardless of the course in which they
are. Although at first glance this seems fair, in my opinion it is not. First-year primary school
students are still learning to read and write in their mother tongue; therefore, their
phonological awareness is not as developed as that of a fifth-year primary school student.
TASK 1: Learning diary
This activity has allowed me to be aware of the advantages of using a learning diary. On one
hand, students will reflect on the content in a deeper way. At the same time, it will allow them
to identify the most important concepts and where they are in their learning; (in my case, this
will help me review the contents to face the exam in the best possible way). On the other hand,
this activity could also be considered as an assessment as learning, therefore, students will

Unit 4. Exercises 4
 Subject Students’ data Date
Testing and Assessment Surname: Merino Gil
20/06/2022
in EFL Name: Irene

develop metacognitive skills; it will also encourage self- regulated learning being aware of what
strategies he/uses to dealing with new knowledge and what mechanisms are useful for him/her
to advance in their learning.
TASK 2: Design a student questionnaire that incorporates assessment for and/or as learning
This activity has been very useful to put into practise the concepts learned in unit 2. Although I
thought I had understood the key ideas, when I try to put into practise, I realize that I was
wrong. Therefore, the activity has allowed me to understand, know how to differentiate and
apply both types of formative assessment. I decided to incorporate the two types of formative
assessment to guide my students in a more complete way and, at the same time, it will be
helpful to me as student to have a clear idea about their differences and similarities.
TASK 3: Forum. Is assessment of different skills sufficiently balanced in today’s EFL classes?
The use of a discussion forum has seemed to me a very useful resource for several reasons: it
allows to know the opinion of the students on a specific topic, it fosters communication and
interaction between students and at the same time, it can be used as a response to the
difficulties of some classmates. For example, a colleague stated that she finds the assessment
of speaking challenging when there are many students in class and several students have
offered solutions to their difficulty.
In relation to the question raised in the forum, I honestly think not. Although teachers know
that all skills are equally important to be able to master a language and at the same time, to
communicate effectively with others, teachers tend to assess and to spend more time in
assessing listening and reading skills. Possibly due to the difficulty and challenge that the
evaluation of such subjective skills (speaking and writing) supposes for the teacher, since not
only one correct answer is admitted. In these cases, it is important to reflect on the test
construct and to prepare rubrics (analytic or holistic) considering the objectives of each activity
such as vocabulary, discourse management, organization etc.

Bibliographical references
DeFauw, D. (2013). 10 Writing Opportunities to “Teach to the Test”. Reading Teacher, 66(7),
569-573.

Unit 4. Exercises 5