Advantages of authentic assessment over traditional assessment while teaching English to university students majoring in non-linguistic subjects

Abstract

The paper analyzes existing approaches to assessing the results of teaching foreign languages to the university students majoring in non-linguistic subjects with a special focus on the advantages of authentic assessment. The authors stress the state-level need to develop and implement effective assessment tools for ESL university teaching, and substantiate the effectiveness of authentic assessment for increasing students motivation to learn English. They identify advantages of authentic assessment, including a possibility to track individual students learning progress, to effectively use peer assessment and self-assessment, to focus on students performance indicators, to create a success effect, and to present actual teaching and learning results or personal development achievements in the form of presentations, projects and other tangible accomplishments. The paper describes a unified system of control, assessment and evaluation of ESL teaching and learning results, developed by Foreign Languages for Students of Humanities Department at Petrozavodsk State University (Russia) for modeling a foreign-language environment and enhancing students language socialization. The authors give a detailed account of establishing procedures for the assessment of speaking and writing skills, and analyze a didactic potential of a foreign language portfolio as one of authentic assessment tools. They come to the conclusion that peer assessment, self-assessment and other authentic assessment methods help to shift the focus from teaching to learning and create optimal conditions for student-centered education process.