Evaluation criteria for differentiated instruction of English for specific purposes to prospective IT-specialists

Abstract

The subject of this article is the evaluation criteria for differentiated instruction of ESP to prospective specialists in the field of information technology (IT) at university level. It was determined that evaluation criteria as assessment tools should be clear, carefully selected, maximally coordinated with assessment objects, minimally satisfy the required needs and conditions of differentiated instruction, identify qualitative and quantitative indicators, match to scores and descriptors, correspond to the aims of ESP syllabus. Based on the assessment objects, criteria for evaluating formation of ESP competencies in listening, reading, speaking and writing are determined in this paper. The qualitative criteria for evaluating competence in listening are completeness and accuracy of comprehension. The quantitative criteria are speech length and speech rate. In order to assess the level of ESP competence in reading, it is expedient to include qualitative criteria, in particular, completeness and accuracy of comprehension, as well as the quantitative criteria of text volume and reading speed. To assess ESP speaking and writing for enter and final testing in differentiated instruction, an analytical approach to establishing criteria scale was chosen by the author. The assessment of ESP speech production involves the following qualitative criteria: text content & organisation, phonetic resource, grammar & vocabulary, stylistic correctness, fluency. The quantitative criteria are speech length and tempo. In the suggested criteria set, the assessment of ESP speech interaction includes such qualitative criteria as relevance to occupational situation, phonetic resource, grammar & vocabulary, stylistic correctness, fluency, interactivity, and the quantitative criteria of speech length and tempo. Such qualitative criteria as content, organisation & cohesion, language resource and the quantitative criterion of text length are selected for evaluating written text, including integrated text, i.e. created on the basis of the texts students read and heard.