Text 3

Assessment and Testing

Assessment is “appraising or estimating the level or magnitude of some attribute of a person” (Mousavi, 2009, p. 35). In educational practice, assessment is an ongoing process that encompasses a wide range of methodological techniques. Whenever a student responds to a question, offers a comment, or tries a new word or structure, the teacher subconsciously appraises the student’s performance. Written work — from a jotted-down phrase to a formal essay — is a performance that ultimately is “judged” by self, teacher, and possibly other students. Reading and listening activities usually require some sort of productive performance that the teacher observes and then implicitly appraises, however peripheral that appraisal may be. A good teacher never ceases to assess students, whether those assessments are incidental or intended.

Tests, on the other hand, are a subset of assessment, a genre of assessment techniques. They are prepared administrative procedures that occur at identifiable times in a curriculum when learners muster all their faculties to offer peak performance, knowing that their responses are being measured and evaluated.

In scientific terms, a test is a method of measuring a person’s ability, knowledge, or performance in a given domain. Let’s look at the components of this definition. A test is first a method. It’s an instrument — a set of techniques, procedures, or items — that requires performance on the part of die test-taker. To qualify as a test, the method must be explicit and structured: multiple-choice questions with prescribed correct answers, a writing prompt with a scoring rubric, an oral interview based on a question script, or a checklist of expected responses to be completed by the administrator.

BROWN, H. D.; ABEYWICKRAMA, P. Language Assessment: principles and classroom practices. New York: Pearson, 2018. 3r ed.

Read Text 1 and answer question.

TEXT 1

English Language Teaching in Brazil:

A Gap in Policy, Problems in Practice

Only three percent of Brazilians are estimated to speak English despite the status of this language as a mandatory subject in grades 10 to 12 of basic education and preferred foreign language in grades 5 to 9. The widespread concept in the Brazilian society that speaking English is beneficial to individuals because it provides access to the globalised world does not seem to be enough to promote the actual learning of the language by the majority of the population, and it is argued here that this fact has to do with a gap in the foreign language teaching policy documents: the 2015 National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB 2015), the Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters for Primary Education (PCN-EF), and the Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters for Secondary Education (PCN-EM). These documents do not prescribe the necessary conditions for English Language Teaching (ELT) to take place effectively, but, instead, provide suggestions for teachers on how to adapt to the status quo, which means focusing on reading to the detriment of the other aspects of the English language due to a number of factors ranging from a lack of resources to a large number of students per class.

Both PCN-EF (Brazil, 1998) and PCN-EM (Brazil, 2000) present progressive ideas about how a foreign language should be taught in the basic education classroom. Such ideas include a social interactionist view of language, which aligns with contemporary research in second language teaching and means a shift from the traditional grammar-translation method largely employed in Brazilian schools in previous decades. The Parameters also recommend interdisciplinary work, the implementation of cross-curricular themes, formative assessment in addition to summative, a value of students’ prior knowledge and position as critical subjects, and, thus, an approach to teaching as negotiation that aims to educate students for the full exercise of citizenship, which includes the notions of respect for difference and diversity  that can be promoted by the teaching and learning of foreign languages.

However, the Parameters fail in pointing out the necessary conditions for this teaching and learning process to occur. For example, they acknowledge that reading and writing should be focused on to the detriment of listening and speaking due to the difficulties faced by the teacher in basic education (Brazil, 1998): large classrooms, lack of appropriate resources including class and preparation time for the teacher and opportunities for the students to be exposed to the language outside the classroom, and, in many situations, teachers’ lack of knowledge of the subject matter. Instead, what they should do is to actively propose that a smaller number of students sit in English classes – as it was allowed by LDB 1996 and continues to be so by LDB 2015, that more class and preparation time be granted the teacher, that schools have English resources that students can access to familiarise themselves with the language, and that better teacher education be implemented.

BATISTA, Fernanda. English Language Teaching in Brazil: A Gap in Policy, Problems in Practice. 2020. Disponível em: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1262339.pdf. Acesso em 30/12/2023 Adaptado.

A questão tem como base o texto abaixo:

Text One: 

Good evening. This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office in which so many decisions have been made that shape the history of this nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matters that I believe affected the national interest. And all the decisions I have made in my public life I have always tried to do what was best for the nation.

Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate*, I have felt it was my duty to persevere; to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.

In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion; that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process, and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.

But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served. And there is no longer a need for the process to be pro- longed.

I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interests of the nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation will require.

I have never been a quitter.

To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first.

America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. (Resignation Speech By Richard Nixon, in August 8, 1974)

Nota: *Watergate foi um escândalo político que culminou no fim da Presidência de Richard Nixon: basicamente, cinco homens foram presos tentando invadir a sede do Partido Democrata (partido de oposição a Nixon) com o intuito de plantar escutas telefônicas, em junho de 1972. Tendo sido descoberto que o Presidente sabia da espionagem e tentou, posteriormente, obstruir a investigação sobre os fatos.

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