Assessment and the Language Teacher: Trends and Transitions
National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research, Macquarie University, Australia

Geoff Brindley

In recent years, assessment policies and practices in language teaching programs worldwide have been changing in a number of ways, both at system and classroom level. In line with political and economic pressure to demonstrate 'efficiency and effectiveness', educational institutions are increasingly being called on to provide much more explicit information on program activities and outcomes. In some countries, this has resulted in a proliferation of standardized tests of various kinds. In others, educational authorities have introduced outcomes-based approaches which use teacher-conducted assessments as a basis for reporting learners' progress and achievement against system-wide or national standards (Brindley, 1997). Teachers are thus finding themselves in the position of having to develop tools and procedures for monitoring, recording, and assessing learners' progress and achievement in the classroom on a more systematic and formal basis.