In my teaching I am constantly assessing the learners on how they are doing and this is through questioning techniques such as can they describe what was learnt last week, what did we do, who can explain the word construction and how does this word fit in to this sentence. This is a good method of checking to see if learners have picked up on what has been taught and it also gives the tutor reassurance that the learners have grasped what has been taught.
Another method that is used is setting a test on aspects of the work covered so far and this gives the opportunity for the learner to sit down reflect and put down on paper and produce a written answer. This is a good assessment tool and I use this on many occasions. A quick fire question and answer session is another assessment type, and this can be used with flash cards, pictures, cut outs from catalogues and magazines.
This type of assessment can be used to enhance learning, as it can cover such a wide area of teaching, especially when teaching another language, or maybe say ESOL. With the cut outs from pictures, I have been able to bring in colours, other things from the backgrounds, such as what is that other object, what else can the learners see and this all enriches the language for the learners.
I have also then turned it into what would be the plural for such a word and in it’s pairs form, such as “Kitab” as singular, kutub, as plural and kitaban as a pair. Kitab means a book. The above methods are very useful once the learner has commenced a course and I feel that at the beginning it is a bit premature to adopt the above styles if the learners are total beginners wanting to learn a new language. After seeing the confidence growing I am able to use the above methods as outlined. I. Y. Ginwalla.
