Teacher assessment: the concept of ‘diagnostic competence’

Abstract

In the light of recent trends in educational assessment, language testing and the pedagogical discussion about new teacher roles, this article focuses on the skills and abilities required of a language teacher wishing to respond to these developments, with specific reference to the primary (elementary) foreign language classroom. A new concept is introduced ‘diagnostic competence’ defined as the ability to interpret foreign language growth in individual children. In order to arrive at this conceptualization, data from both systematic classroom observation (The Netherlands) and ethnographic studies (Germany) are used to identify and illustrate teachers’ diagnostic activities and processes. On the basis of this evidence, a preliminary description of levels and features of a teacher engaged in such activities is presented.

A case study of a Hungarian EFL teacher’s assessment practices with her young learners

“…The results regarding the teacher's assessment practices were in line with the findings of the first phase of the large-scale project and other international studies carried out in this field (Butler, 2009a;Edelenbos & Kubanek-German, 2004;Rea-Dickins & Gardner, 2000). W hile describing the students' language knowledge, the unclear terms Anikó used revealed that she had difficulties with capturing her students' level of ability.…”

“…In a study carried out in Germany and the Netherlands, Edelenbos and Kubanek-German (2004) observed the diagnostic behavior of primary school teachers of English. The results revealed that many teachers found the task of capturing their students' level of ability challenging.…”

“…In Hungary, similarly to the international arena (e.g., Brumen, Cagran, & Rixon, 2009;Butler, 2009aButler, , 2009bButler, , 2015Edelenbos & Kubanek-German, 2004;Peng & Zheng, 2016;Wilden & Porsch, 2016) research on teachers' assessment practices is fairly limited. A few studies, however, explored classroom assessment.…”

A Study of Taiwanese College Students’ Responses to a Blog-based English Writing Project and its Effectiveness

“…On the other hand, the reliability of teacher's assessment has been discussed in the literature and there is evidence that teacher's assessments vary greatly [11] [17]. In addition, general assessment studies on teacher behavior in language classes have shown that teachers spend a relatively little time assessing individual student's performance [7]. It is apparent that if the assessment of the student's learning depends on the teacher's individual assessment, there may be problems with how objective the evaluation would be.…”

Videopřípad jako stavební jednotka IVŠV videowebu pro vzdělávání učitelů anglického jazyka

“…V nejužším pojetí se může jednat jen o hodnocení výkonu žáka (např. Arnold, 1999) nebo o schopnost zacházet s testovými materiály (Edelenbos & Kubanek-German, 2004). V širším pojetí diagnostické kompetence (a u konceptů příbuzných) je předmětem diagnostikování celá třída (Švec, 1999) nebo komplexní výuková situace (Janík et al, 2009;Seidel, Blomberg, & Stürmer, 2010).…”