Assessment, feedback and error correction
Purposes and qualities
Know placement, diagnostic, formative, summative, achievement and proficiency assessment. Judge any test on validity (it measures what it claims), reliability (consistency), practicality, and washback (its effect on teaching and learning). Distinguish norm-referenced from criterion-referenced scoring, and treat the CEFR as a descriptive framework rather than a test. Task types range from multiple choice, gap fill, cloze and matching to essays, portfolios and projects, scored holistically or analytically.
Feedback and correction
Oral correction options include explicit correction, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic comment, elicitation, repetition and paralinguistic signals. Recasts are implicit and often missed. Decide timing: immediate correction suits accuracy-focused work; delayed correction suits fluency work. Error categories include slips, systematic errors, attempts, developmental errors, interlingual and intralingual errors, and fossilised errors.
Traps
Mixing up validity and reliability; assuming all correction helps; equating formative assessment with no marks; penalising fluency work for errors unrelated to its aim.
Rule of thumb
Correct what the lesson is teaching and what blocks communication; note the rest and address it later.