Assessment of Young Learners' Achievement in ESL

This article was downloaded by: [University of Texas Libraries] On: 24 October 2013, At: 15:15 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Language, Culture and Curriculum Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlcc20

Assessment of Young Learners' Achievement in ESL Classes in the Lebanon Kassim Shaaban Published online: 23 Apr 2010.

To cite this article: Kassim Shaaban (2000) Assessment of Young Learners' Achievement in ESL Classes in the Lebanon, Language, Culture and Curriculum, 13:3, 306-317, DOI: 10.1080/07908310008666606 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908310008666606

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any

Downloaded by [University of Texas Libraries] at 15:15 24 October 2013

form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-andconditions

Assessment of Young Learners’ Achievement in ESL Classes in the Lebanon Kassim Shaaban


American University of Beirut, 850 Third Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10022, USA This paper discusses student evaluation policies and practices that should go hand in hand with the new Lebanese English language curriculum that was introduced in 1997. The focus of the paper is on new methods and techniques of assessment in pre-school and elementary school classes.The main argument in the paper is that the evaluation of the achievement of young learners in ESL classes has to reflect the objectives of the curriculum and its suggested methods of teaching. As the curriculum has adopted a thematic content-based approach whose major featuresare integration of language and content as well as language skill integration, the traditional paper and pencil tests cannot cover the great variety of activities and performance tasks that take place in the elementary ESL classroom. Therefore, this paper considers alternative forms of assessment, mainly performance-based assessment and portfolios, which, in congruence with the principles and dynamics of the new curriculum, treat assessmentas an integral part of teaching culminating in formative rather than summative evaluation.

Introduction All school age students in Lebanon have to start studying English or French as a foreign language as soon as they enter school, which could be at the level of the nursery or the first elementary. In addition, they have to study mathematics and sciences – and in some private schools social sciences as well – through the medium of the foreign language. This situation has in the past caused many problems for learners struggling to learn subject matter in a foreign language that they had not yet mastered; in most cases, they ended up failing to learn either language or content effectively (Eido, 1987). Because the new Lebanese curricula in the various subjects, issued in 1997, still maintain a very prominent role for the foreign language (French or English) as a medium of instruction, those in charge of designing the English language curriculum decided that a thematic content-based EFL curriculum would address the needs of Lebanese students best. Needless to say, the new curriculum requires tools of evaluation that are compatible with its principles and methods of teaching. The traditional summative form of testing that permeated the old curriculum would not be fair to the students following the new curriculum in their studies. Fortunately, the field of evaluation has in the last few years witnessed a major shift from strict testing tools and procedures to a more humanistic approach. As the coordinator of the English language curriculum project and as the Director of the Center for English Language Research and Teaching at the American University of Beirut, I had the opportunity to survey the opinions of teachers 0790-8318/00/03 0306-12 $16.00/0 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND CURRICULUM

306

© 2000 K. Shaaban Vol. 13, No. 3, 2000


Assessment of Young Learners’ Achievement in ESL

307

and coordinators of English all over Lebanon through contacts with teacher training institutes and to collect a wealth of information from them regarding their experiences, concerns, and aspirations. Their perception of the need for hands-on teacher training for the new curriculum and in new ESL methods and techniques (85%) were only surpassed by their concern about methods of evaluation in general (91%) and their place in and relevance to the new curricula and methodology (96%). The purpose of this paper is to outline the type of assessment and evaluation that is most compatible with the principles of the new English language curriculum. The content draws upon personal experience, experiments in Lebanese schools, related literature, and practices in comparable contexts around the world.

EFL in the Lebanese Elementary School The new curriculum stresses the need for every Lebanese to be proficient in at least one foreign language for communicative and academic purposes and another language for purposes of cultural openness and intercultural communication (NCERD, 1995: 12). In line with the above, the English curriculum has set the following goals for students of English in Lebanon: communicating effectively, orally or in writing, in different social settings and situations; pursuing studies through the medium of English in subject matter areas in general, and mathematics and sciences in particular; developing critical thinking skills; promoting intercultural understanding and appreciation; and working congenially with others (NCERD, 1997: 9). The main emphasis in pre-school and elementary school is on the development of basic communication skills, concept-formation techniques, proper study habits, socialisation skills, and critical thinking abilities. Skills These goals were to be translated into skills with the traditional communicative linguistic skills of listening comprehension, oral communication, reading comprehension, and written communication; however, added to these were the development of thinking and study skills whose absence in the old curriculum had contributed to the development of education based on memorisation. Added also was a cultural awareness component. The objectives to be attained in each skill were set, and performance tasks which translate these objectives into classroom activities were identified. Finally, although the curriculum de-emphasises traditional grammar teaching, grammaticalstructures were identified to be pointed out to students informally until the formal introduction of grammar-in-context in the fourth grade. Content The curriculum adopted ‘a thematic content-based approach to language teaching … [which] would be effective in achieving the communicative, social, and academic goals set for teaching English in the country’ (Shaaban & Ghaith,


308

Language, Culture and Curriculum

1997: 200–201). The choice of themes for each grade took into account the topics taught in other subject areas in addition to interest level and developmental and intellectual characteristics of the age group. The rationale for following this route was the need to create ‘maximum opportunities for contextualized and motivating language practice by providing redundant, accurate, and “comprehensible input” as described by Krashen’ (Shaaban & Ghaith, 1997: 201). Thus, as recommended by educators in the field (Williams, 1991; Holderness, 1991; Brinton et al., 1989), the curriculum was organised around themes that draw on concepts familiar to the students and dealt with in other subjects, such as the self, the family, and the neighbourhood at the lower levels of language acquisition, and moving gradually towards themes from the students’ expanding environment, such as human rights, animals, recent discoveries, technology, space exploration, mass media and the like at the higher levels. Thus, in addition to learning language, students would become familiarised with modern day issues, such as global and peace education, respect for the environment, and the rights of all living things. Methods The model of parallel scheduling proposed by Block (1993) was adopted as it does not require much coordination between English and subject-matter teachers except in scheduling, leaving each of them to do his/her own teaching and assessment. However, this gives the young learner the opportunity to see things from different perspectives, to build up their content and form schemata, and learn both language and content. Furthermore, and in order to help students work together and learn from each other, cooperative learning was adopted as a framework for managing classroom interaction stressing such student interaction structures as mixer review, think-pair-share, find someone who, talking tokens, round robin, student teams achievement divisions (STAD), jigsaw, and co-op co-op. In addition, the curriculum emphasises the use of techniques that help build communicative competence through the use of authentic performance tasks, games, graphic organisers, storytelling, information gap activities, songs, role-plays, dialogues, and group projects. Thus classrooms emphasise the use of teaching techniques such as the total physical response (TPR), suggestopedia, the silent way, community language learning (CLL), and the language experience approach (LEA). Assessment Well-designed assessment tools are essential to the evaluation of students’ progress, teaching effectiveness, and programme and materials suitability to the needs of students. Having the proper assessment tools becomes more vital in teaching contexts such as Lebanon where young learners acquire English not just as a foreign language but also as a medium of instruction for sciences and mathematics. The many decisions made in schools about students, from initial identification and placement in levels, to monitoring their progress and evaluating their achievement, depend to a great degree on the selection, use, and interpretation of relatively sophisticated assessment procedures. Needless to say, the objectives set for education in the country in general and for English language education in particular decide, to a great extent, the type of assessment tools to be used with students. In this respect, the Lebanese curricula call for automatic promotion from


309


one class to another in grades one to three and for faciitated promotion in grades four to six. The main implication of this decision is that ‘control over the collection and interpretation of assessment information has shifted from centralized authority towards the classrooms where assessment occurs on a regular basis’ (Fradd & Hudelson, 1995: 5). Although the details and meanings of these two concepts of automatic and facilitated promotion were not made explicit, one could safely assume that the teacher has a free hand in evaluating students as long as he or she is able to help them attain the objectives set in the curriculum. Thus the teacher’s role in assessing his students becomes crucial and, to a great extent, decisive. Current evaluation practices The English language scene in Lebanon has a predominance of the objective mode of testing because schools are preoccupied with preparing their students for the TOEFL, SAT, AUB-EN and other similar instruments used as basis for admission to the university. Another dominant form of testing in Lebanese schools is the one used in official examinations; this form of testing is heavily dependent on memorisation of factual information and grammar rules. Reading and writing (together with vocabulary and grammar) are emphasised at the expense of listening comprehension and the development of oral communication skills. Furthermore, within these areas of emphasis, literal comprehension skills and the writing of essays modelled on commercially produced or teacher-generated essays dominate in the EFL classroom. But research has shown that multiple choice tests and tests based on memorisation fail to assess higher order thinking skills and other skills needed for proper functioning in schools, such as oral communication skills (O’Neil, 1992; Wiggins, 1989). Moreover, multiple choice and memorisation tests do not reflect modern theories of language acquisition and are not based on the abilities that students need for success (Herman et al., 1992). Certainly, such tests do not go well with a thematic content-based curriculum which emphasises performance tasks, autonomy of learning, integration of linguistic skills, and promotion of thinking skills.

Proposed Models of Assessment This paper proposes new models of assessment that are compatible with the objectives of the new Lebanese content-based English language curriculum and the suggested methodology for the first six grades of basic education. Although these models show a great degree of overlap among their components, they are presented here separately for ease of explication. The first model is referred to in the literature as ‘alternative assessment’ which is defined as ‘any method of finding out what a student knows or can do that is intended to show growth and inform instruction and is not a standardized or traditional test’ (Pierce & O’Malley, 1992: 2). The second model followed is the ‘standards-based assessment’ which came as a direct result of the movement which helped establish standards for teaching English as a second/foreign language (Burger, 1997; Marzano, 1997; Short, 1993; TESOL, 1997). Both models adopt performance assessment as the major form of assessment and stress ‘criterion-referenced’ testing, authenticity of


310


assessment tasks, integration of language skills, and professional rater judgement. The paper also proposes that the above models of assessment be complemented by a third model which is represented by a very practical form of assessment for young learners, namely, ‘portfolio assessment’ which is defined as ‘the use of records of a student’s work over time and in a variety of modes to show the depth, breadth, and development of the student’s abilities’ (Pierce & O’Malley, 1992:2). The combination of performance assessment and portfolios provide for authentic assessment, continuous assessment of student progress, possibilities for integrating assessment with instruction, assessment of learning processes and higher-order thinking skills, and a collaborative approach to assessment that enables teachers and students to interact in the teaching/learning process. (Pierce & O’Malley, 1992: 2) The major reason for recommending these models of assessment is the desire to address the new Lebanese educational policy of automatic or facilitated promotion of young learners (NCERD, 1995). These models are also compatible with the principles established by the new Lebanese English language curriculum which are based on the philosophy of allowing classroom interaction where evaluation is integrated with teaching in an anxiety-free environment (NCERD, 1997). Thus, given the new educational goals and guidelines, it becomes mandatory that evaluation practices move from strict traditional testing procedures to less formal, less quantitative ones. More specifically, in line with the rules of effective testing suggested by Burton (1992), the assessment techniques should:

cater to all students being assessed; blend with the learning activities and contribute to learning; be appropriate for the language skills and tasks being assessed; be formative rather than summative in nature; stress the learner’s strengths and positive traits; and provide clear criteria for successful performance.

The major purpose of such assessment becomes, then, to serve as a diagnostic tool to provide feedback to the learner and the teacher about the effectiveness of the teaching methods and the strengths and weaknesses of the students. Furthermore, assessment would serve as a means of demonstrating to the young learner that progress is being made. This encourages the student to work harder and the teacher to concentrate on refining the process of learning rather than its product. A third major element here is the need to concentrate on developing the young learner’s fluency in the language without worrying too much about accuracy which could be stressed later, after the learner develops confidence in communication skills. Needless to say, in such a system, teachers deal with learners’ errors as a normal part of their linguistic development and as stages they have to go through on their way to native-like competence in the language. Proposed tools of assessment As young children in the early stages of learning will not be in a position to take any of the traditional forms of testing, and as they need to learn and be evaluated in an anxiety-reduced, if not anxiety-free, environment, the evaluation


311

practices should be seen by learners as an integral part of the learning process and not as a separate process that involves passing judgement on their standing in the classroom. It is suggested, then, that the assessment techniques should be developed in accordance with the taxonomy suggested by Krashen and Terrell (Olsen, 1996) which identifies the stages of linguistic development of young ESL learners in elementary school, moving from non-verbal responses to simple oral


Table 1 Taxonomy and student response task types Stage of acquisition Performance Indicators Stage 1: Kinesthetic Preproduction

Stage 2: Early speech Stage 3: Speech emergence

Stage 4: Fluency emergence

Kinesthetic; and one- or two-word utterances Kinesthetic; one- or two-word utterances; and phrases and simple sentences Kinesthetic; words, phrases, and simple sentences

Student response(s) – Ask students to: point, act out, choose, circle, mark, manipulate, watch, number, gesture, arrange or sort out visuals, use, follow directions name, label, number, list, tell, use, answer, categorise, group or sort out words or phrases describe, define, recall, explain, retell, summarise, compare, contrast, write, follow directions, read, give or list steps justify, create, give opinion, debate, defend, complete, describe in detail, examine, analyse, evaluate

and written responses, to more complex responses (Table 1). Another assessment procedure that lends itself to content-based approaches to teaching and testing English as a foreign language is the 3Rs (Olsen, 1996). This procedure identifies three ways in which students interact with content materials; these ways reflect different types of mental activity. The three Rs are: recognition, replication, and reorganisation. Recognition corresponds to Krashen and Terrell’s silent period and early speech and involves performance tasks such as matching, choosing, and manipulating objects. Replication corresponds to Krashen and Terrell’s early speech through fluency emergence and involves tasks such as exchanging information in charts, maps or picture pairs. Reorganisation requires students to demonstrate the ability to reorganise given information into different formats or text types; it includes performance tasks and activities that lend themselves to group work such as creating a time line, an outline, or a semantic map. Reorganisation tasks are very practical in that they ‘can accommodate various levels of language proficiency from “silent” and “speech emergence” through “fluent” stages of Krashen and Terrell’s taxonomy as well as articulate, highly verbal responses’ (Olsen, 1996: 16).

Practical Ideas The remaining part of this paper presents suggestions as to how the models and tools of assessment described above may be translated into practical means

312


of assessing young learners’ abilities and progress in English. The suggested assessment techniques and modes have been proved effective in the Lebanese context, mainly in private schools, and in Bilingual Education (BE), English as a Second Language (ESL), and Limited English proficiency (LEP) programmes (Pierce & O’Malley, 1992; Short, 1993; Hancock, 1994; Arter et al., 1995; Tannenbaum, 1996; Brindley, 1997).


Non-verbal and oral output

Non-verbal assessment strategies Tannenbaum (1996) suggests that at the early stages of learning, and before the emergence of fluent speech, children should be assessed mainly through physical demonstration and pictorial products. Thus, in line with the Krashen and Terrell taxonomy and the 3Rs procedure, students may be asked to point, act out, circle, choose, mark, number, arrange, and follow directions; these performance tasks require simple directions to carry out and reflect classroom activities, thus lowering the level of anxiety normally associated with evaluation. At a later stage, students can be asked to carry out hands-on tasks that centre around pictorial products; thus they may be asked to ‘produce and manipulate drawings, dioramas, models, graphs, and charts’ (Tannenbaum, 1996: 1). Oral performance Performance-based assessment include interviews, oral reports, role plays, describing, explaining, retelling, summarising, paraphrasing, categorising, comparing, and contrasting. Pierce and O’Malley (1992) suggest using visual cues in interviews at the early stages of acquisition. Thus students may choose pictures to talk about, and the teacher leads the students by asking questions that require the use of academic language (describing, explaining, comparing and contrasting, and the like) and topic-related vocabulary. Role play This is another very effective method of assessment that students can feel comfortable with and motivated to do as it can be part of their education in all grade levels and lends itself to cooperative learning work. Kelner (1993) believes that role play is an enjoyable way of informal assessment that could be employed effectively within a content-based curriculum where reading texts could come from any subject matter area; he suggests the use of role play to express mathematical concepts such as fractions, to demonstrate science concepts such as the life cycle, and to introduce and represent historical characters or characters in plays. Other methods Interviews with students and observation of their learning behaviour could also be a good informal source of assessing students’ linguistic abilities. Smith (1995) believes that ‘The “I don’t have evidence, but I have the feeling that …” should not be disregarded while making assessments of young learners. … We can learn much about a child on a one to one basis even in a class of twenty or more’ (7).


313

Oral and written output Young learners may be also made to participate in the assessment process through self-evaluation that could take any of the following forms.


K-W-L charts The K-W-L (what I know, what I wonder, what I have learned) charts are used normally at the beginning and end of a unit of study. They help the teacher gain awareness of his students’ background knowledge and interests as well as of what they have learned. Content area logs These are entered by students after they read; they record what they have understood and what they have not. The logs contribute to the development and use of metacognitive strategies by students. Reading logs These logs record students’ written responses or reactions to the books, stories, or poems they read. They indicate students’ appreciation of what they read and encourages them to think critically. For example, students may be asked to record bibliographical information about the book read, indicate whether they like it, and explain why. Dialogue journals These journals are interactive in nature; they take the form of ongoing correspondence between teacher and student. Initially it could be a picture journal where students draw and the teacher labels. Dialogue journals, which help the teacher assess the linguistic competence of the students, have proved effective and enjoyable for students regardless of their level of proficiency because they are informal and provide a means of free, uncensored expression for the students who can write without worrying about being corrected. Audio and video cassettes Students enjoy keeping audio and video records of their involvement in meaningful activities such as poetry readings, school plays, role plays, dramatisations, or interviews. These records could help assess students’ abilities, weaknesses, and interests. Writing assignments Young learners enjoy story-telling and are usually motivated to listen to stories as well as to tell stories. Teachers can take advantage of this and have their students write narratives that relate to personal experiences, retell or modify nursery stories and fairy tales, or retell historical events from different perspectives. The teacher has to pay attention to both the process of writing as well as its final product. Student portfolios A student portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student’s efforts, progress or achievement in (a) given area(s). This collection must include student participation in selection of portfolio content; the guide-


314


lines for selection; the criteria for judging merit; and evidence of student reflection. (Arter & Spandel, 1992: 36) In other words, portfolios are systematic, organised collections of evidence which support and monitor the knowledge of the student. As such, teachers and students should work together in identifying the items to be included in portfolios as this gives a clear indication of what is valued. Furthermore, teachers and students should be able to present and explain their portfolios to outside observers. As portfolios reflect progress over time, putting dates on all papers becomes very important for tracing the development of the learner. Including revised drafts of work should be acceptable. The names of group members should appear on papers or projects done by a group. Student portfolios can be effective evaluation tools because they can provide evidence of performance beyond factual knowledge; records that reflect the nature and emphases of the teaching programme; a permanent record of the story of the student’s efforts, progress, and achievement; a clear, multi-sourced picture instead of a single test score; an opportunity for improving a student’s self-image as a result of highlighting strengths rather than weaknesses; recognition of different learning styles and strategies, making assessment fairer and less biased; and an active role for the student in the selection and assessment of his work. A typical portfolio for a young EFL learner might include samples of the following: (1) Audiotaped or videotaped recordings of oral presentations, readings, or dramatisation (2) Writing samples (a) Dialogue journal entries (b) Book reports (c) Learning logs (d) Reading log entries (e) Writing projects (f) Responses to open-ended questions or homework problems (g) Group reports and photographs of student projects (h) Computer-generated examples of student work (3) Art work and graphic organisers (a) Pictures (b) Drawings (c) Charts (d) Graphs (e) Venn diagrams (4) Conference or interview notes (5) Anecdotal records (6) Assessment checklists (a) Teacher assessment (i) Observation notes (ii) Conference notes


(b)

(c)

315

Peer assessment (i) Feedback (ii) Correction Self-assessment (i) What has been learned and what is to be learned (ii) How the student feels about the tasks at hand (iii) Awareness of metacognitive strategies


(7) Tests and quizzes Researchers have recognised that portfolios, if not properly viewed, could become sources of stress and confusion for the teacher and the student alike (Pierce & O’Malley, 1992; Arter et al., 1995). Therefore, it is suggested that assessment portfolios should be carefully structured, have a clear vision of the student skills to be addressed, develop performance criteria primarily to allow “raters” to judge student status and monitor student growth … [and] use self-reflection to gain insight about student achievement and progress. (Arter, Spandel & Culham, 1995: 3).

Conclusion The forms of assessment that are presented in this paper as alternatives to traditionaltesting in primary classes hold great promise and stand a good chance of being implemented in Lebanese schools within the guidelines of the new curriculum. At least at this stage, the teaching cannot be dictated by the official examinations or proficiency examinations because these come much later, at the end of the ninth grade and beyond. The recommended forms of assessment put a human face on the process of evaluation as contrary to traditional testing, which typically provides only a set of numbers, alternative assessment documents a story for every student – and what is the ultimate goal of evaluation but to give us the knowledge to be able to reflect upon, discuss, and assist a student’s journey through the learning process. (Huerta-Macias, 1995: 10) The positive influence that these modes of assessment might have on moulding the child’s self-image as a language learner justifies their use in abundance in primary classes, for ‘Success-oriented assessment creates a motivated, positive pupil, while failure at a young age might be crucial to the pupil’s future language learning’ (Smith, 1995: 8). However, espousal of the new forms of assessment does not mean that traditional testing has no place in the new curriculum. In fact, traditional language tests, both the objective type and the government tests need to be practised in order to prepare students for the future where standardised tests become part of life decisions. Therefore, ‘it is a good idea to strive for a balance between global or holistic evaluation and detailed specific assessment of young children’ (Katz, 1997: 1).

316


Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Kassim Shaaban, Chair, Department of English, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon ([email protected]).


References Arter, J.A., Spandel, V. and Culham, R. (1995) Portfolios for assessment and instruction. ERIC Digest ED 388890. http/ericae.net/edo/ED388890. HTM. Arter, J.A. and Spandel, V. (1992) Using portfolios of student work in instruction and assessment. Instructional Topics in Educational Measurement (pp. 36–44). National Council for Measurement in Education. Block, C. (1993) Teaching the Language Arts: Expanding Thinking Through Student Centered Instruction. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Brindley, G. (1997) Assessment and the language teacher: Trends and transitions.The Language teacher Online. http//langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/97/sep/ brindley.html. Brinton, D.M., Snow, M.A. and Wesche, M.B. (1989) Content-based Second Language Instruction. New York: Newbury House. Burger, D. (1997) Designing a sustainable standards-based assessment system. http//www.mcrel.org/products/noteworthy/purpprin.html. Burton, L. (1992) Who assesses whom, and to what purpose? In M. Stephens and J. Izard (eds) Reshaping Assessment Practices: Assessment in the Mathematical Sciences under Challenge (pp. 1–18). Hawthorn, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research. Eido, R. (1987) Teaching mathematics and sciences in the native language in the intermediate cycle. Proceedings of the Seminar on Teaching Mathematics and Sciences in the Native Language. Beirut: Dar Al-Makassed (in Arabic). Fradd, S. and Hudelson, S. (1995) Alternative assessment: A process that promotes collaboration and reflection. TESOL Journal 5 (1), 5. Hancock, C.R. (1994) Alternative assessment and second language study: What and why? ERIC Digest ED 376695. http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/hancoc01.html. Herman, J.L., Aschbacher, P.R. and Winters, L. (1992) A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment. Alexandria , VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Huerta-Macias, A. (1995) Alternative assessment: Responses to commonly asked questions. TESOL Journal 5 (1), 8–11. Holderness, J. (1991) Activity-based teaching: Approaches to topic-centered work. In C. Brumfit, R. Moon and J. Tongue (eds) Teaching English to Children (pp. 18–32). London: Collins. Katz, L. (1997) A developmental approach to assessment of young children. ERIC Digest ED407172.http:/www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed407172.html. Kelner, L.B. (1993) The Creative Classroom: A Guide for Using CreativeDrama in the Classroom, Pre-K-6. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Marzano, R. (1997) Eight questions you should ask before implementing standards-based education at the local level. http/www.mcrel.org/products/eight. National Center for Educational Research and Development (1995) A Plan for Educational Reform in Lebanon. Beirut: NCERD. National Center for Educational Research and Development (1997) English Language Curriculum. Beirut: NCERD. Olsen, R. (1996) Classroom questioning, classroom talk. Handouts given at the AUB ESL Workshop Larnaca, Cyprus. O’Neil, J. (1992) Putting performance assessment to the test. Educational Leadership 49 (8), 14–9. Pierce, L.V. and O’Malley, J.M. (1992) Performance and portfolio assessment for language minority students. Washingt on, DC: National Clearingho use for Bilingu al Education.http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/pigs/pig9.html. Shaaban, K. and Ghaith, G. (1997) An integrated approach to foreign language learning in Lebanon. Language, Culture and Curriculum 10 (3), 200–7.


317


Short, D.J. (1993)Assessing integrated language and content instruction. TESOL Quarterly 27 (4), 627–56. http/www.ncbe.gwu.edu/miscpubs/tesol/tesolquarterly/ assessin.html. Smith, K. (1995) Assessing and testing young learners: Can we? Should we? In D. Allen (ed.) Entry Points: Papers from a Symposium of the Research, Testing, and Young Learners Special Interest Groups. Kent: IATEFL. Tannenbaum, J.A. (1996) Practical ideas on alternative assessment for ESL students. ERIC Digest ED 395500. http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/tannen01.html (May 1996). Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (1997) ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Wiggins, G. (1989) Teaching to the authentic test. Educational Leadership 46 (7), 41–7. Williams, M. (1991) A framework for teaching English to young learners. In C. Brumfit, J. Moon and R. Tongue (eds) Teaching English to Children(pp. 203–12). London: Collins.