Another key consideration is for example, if there are a lot of tests during the term or year, informal assessment may not add more information about a student. But, if there are few tests informal assessment may take a more important role and may contribute more information.
INFORMAL ASSESSMENT OF LINGUISTIC FACTORS .
The most common way of assessing students has traditionally been by establishing works that students do either in class or for homework. It means that we concentrated on written work and on grammar exercises rather than oral skills. It is important to make an effort to assess oral skills during classes.
Assessment criteria can be described in terms of what we expect our students to be able to do. This may be Yes/No or Pass/Fail, it means that students can or cannot satisfy a certain criterion.
In some cases a more descriptive system of grading is needed. An alternative is to grade students performance into a number of bands. If we find this, then we will have a system which is suitable to our needs.
We will now look in more details at assessment of the four skills, of language and assessment of non- linguistic factors:.
Speaking.
Informal assessment is particularly important for speaking as many teachers have practical difficulties in organising oral tests (lack of place to do them, lack of time).
Because of this, oral assessment in many situations has to be done informally.
In addition, informal assessment of speaking can have an important effect on learners. If they see that speaking English and participating are rewarded they will be more motivated to participate and try to use English.
Informal assessment of speaking is done by observing students" oral performance in class, by monitoring speaking activities. If you are walking around the class (while students are discussing a particular issue), you may obtain a good idea of class performance as a whole and individual performance.