Assessment?

My own experience with assessing students always frustrated me, for a number of reasons:

• the requirement to assess a product, especially in comparison to that of other students
• my desire to encourage students who worked hard on the project / paper / essay, even if the final product does not 'meet the standards'
• my urge to nitpick (esp. grammatical errors), but without it influencing students' grades
• my unwillingness to 'ruin' students' grades in a high-stakes exam
• the fact there will always be students unhappy with their grade (either in comparison with other students or with their own previous works)
• my fear of making a mistake by either grading too high or too low (which I am afraid could depend on my mood and physical condition, attitude toward students, their attitude to me, time of the day, weather, time constraints, or power issues).

In my context, assessment is mostly product-oriented, often high-stakes; and I think in any context it is highly subjective. Students perceive it this way, too: The grade depends on the teacher. That is why it is the grade that is often the goal, not the skills or knowledge or learning, whatever the course is.

Therefore, if given a choice, I would rather have informal low-stakes grading or no assessment at all in my class. I like the example given by Casanave (2004) about her assessing the students in Japan, with them investing in projects they were interested in or were involved in in other courses. Unfortunately, it is not possible in my teaching context, since students are not using writing English outside the English class, except informally, online, or filling out application forms for study abroad scholarships. Coming up with the projects they could be whole-heartedly involved in outside their overloaded school work is also problematic, but is worth trying.

However, there are still other problems with that approach that were mentioned both in Casanave's chapter and in Hayat's blog: institutional requirements, students' needs (e.g., preparation for TOEFL iBT), and students' expectations.