Authentic Assessment

An authentic assessment is a way that we can test students’ skills and understanding but in real world situations. I believe that in order for an assessment to be truly “authentic” you have to mirror something that is culturally relevant to a students environment. Traditional assessments (multiple choice tests, essays, etc) are language dependent and only measure what students know. This can and will be a problem with English Language Learners because they will have difficulty expressing what they truly know. For example, if a student is having a hard time with vocabulary it might be hard for them to write an essay. But if we give them the opportunity to do a hands on experiment with pictures, the student will be able to truly show their knowledge and not a language limitation.

To a degree can I say that I have been able to authentically assess my students this semester. I find it challenging to assess students in an online environment when they’re is a lack of resources that we can provide them. The way that our classroom is set up virtually, there is barely any room for authentic assessment due to the goals set both by my teacher and school. Our main goals for students are to learn and practice the English language. Although this isn’t something that isn’t full to the authentic assessment guidelines, I think the closest thing to it in my classroom is the games we play with vocabulary. We play vocabulary games that associate pictures with words and students compete against each other to see who knows more. Students are able to deconstruct words and associate them with real world examples. For now, this is probably the best we can do in a virtual classroom with ELL students. We just want students to start having a grasp at the English language before they are transferred into their respective schools.

The challenge here is the fact that the classroom is all online and for a short period. Students are not able to practice their english skills nor are they able to have ways to learn it in different ways. If the classroom was in person, the authentic assessments would be easier to implement because of the many different possibilities. The authentic assessments that I would have in my future classroom, especially when they pertain to English language learners are oral interviews, story telling, projects, experiments, and plays. These different types of assessment allow for students to be more relaxed and less formal and help students really want to learn English rather than forcing it.