Meeting the challenge of task-based assessment

Sajit M Mathews

Assessing writing is often a stressful experience for teachers, because of the work load it represents, and for learners because of the anxieties about producing accurate language. Task-based writing assessment helps in solving both these issues to an extent by using meaningful and interesting tasks as writing prompts. By sustaining learners’ focus on meaningful communication, task-based assessment helps learners bring out their best and reduces their anxiety about accuracy. For teachers, grading and feedback become easier as task-completion itself is the primary criterion for grading. Meaningful and constructive feedback and eventual language development are natural outcomes of a well-executed task-based assessment. This article outlines the theory and advantages of task-based writing assessment, and provides a set of writing-assessment tasks as an example.

A writing test and assessment generates anxiety for most students. Teachers are also not happy with it, because of the strenuous evaluation routine that follows a writing test. Some of the anxiety and unhappiness is unavoidable since an assessment is an assessment. But at least some of it can be taken care of if we use meaningful tasks for the writing assessment. Usually, writing tests involve writing paragraphs, articles, essays and reports. Most of such writing is disconnected from real life contexts. By bridging this divide between classroom tasks and real-life tasks through the use of meaningful and purposive writing tasks, the test-taker’s interest as well as engagement in assessment can be enhanced. Task-based language teaching (TBLT) does precisely this in a principled manner by using pedagogic tasks in the classroom.

What is a task?
Tasks are increasingly credited for their potential as tools for teaching, learning and assessing a second language and are widely discussed and researched (Ellis, 2003; Vasylets et. al., 2017). A task is defined as an activity which requires learners to derive an outcome using given information through a process of thought, and which allows teachers to manipulate that process (Prabhu, 1987). Some other definitions of tasks say that they embrace any real-life task that involves language-use (Nunan, 2004), activities that give priority to task-completion using all the linguistic and non-linguistic resources available and sustaining learners’ interest (Willis & Willis, 2007). It is also argued that tasks focus learners’ attention on meaning, and may require learners to use particular language forms (Ellis, 2003).

For teachers, the distinction between ‘target tasks’ and ‘pedagogical tasks’ is particularly useful (Nunan, 2004). Target tasks are those language activities we see in the world while pedagogical tasks are the tasks we use in classrooms, which involve comprehension, manipulation, production or interaction in the target language, which focus on using knowledge of grammar to express meaning. The latter is derived from the former.

Tasks used in TBLT focus learners’ attention on communication of meaning, not on grammatical accuracy or complexity of language. This greatly reduces learner-anxiety and promotes meaningful language-use in context, which is the ultimate goal of language teaching. All the definitions given above see tasks as useful tools for language learning irrespective of how they are characterised. Tasks are increasingly being used to assess various aspects of language proficiency, for both pedagogic and research purposes (Bygate, Skehan, & Swain, 2013; Chalhoub-Deville, 2013) which is dicussed below.

Task-based assessment
In real life, a language is learned to communicate. In traditional assessment, however, language-use is most often decontextualized, and discreet point tests are used to assess the knowledge of grammar (Mathews, 2018; Norris, 2016; Ellis, 2009). In contrast, task-based assessment (TBA) uses goal-directed and meaning-focused language tasks to evaluate communicative performances in meaningful contexts (Brindley, 1994). Assessment tasks are tools to elicit and evaluate communicative performances in meaning-focused language-use with a specific goal (Ellis, 2003). This makes assessment a meaningful language learning experience which also provides productive feedback to the test-taker.

However, effective TBA is a challenge. It is then essential to treat assessment tasks as distinct from teaching tasks. TBA is learner-centred, contextualized and authentic (Chalhoub-Deville, 2013). That is, learners can perform naturally using all their resources in the real-life context and authentic materials provided. This helps learners/test-takers to perform independently and meaningfully in real-life language-use situations.

TBA therefore, requires careful design to ensure that we measure what we want to measure using authentic materials, the result of which can be generalized in other contexts as well. If not, interpretation, comparison and generalization of task-based tests will be problematic (Chalhoub-Deville, 2013). To the benefit of the teacher and the learner, assessment tasks not only assess language learning, but also promote meaningful language learning. The following section provides a set of sample writing-tasks to assess learners’ writing skills.

Assessing writing skill
Every practising teacher knows that assessing writing skill is no simple task as one cannot straightjacket writing as a single construct. There are multiple aspects to writing ability beginning with handwriting and spelling, to paragraph and textual organization. In the context of the classroom, the teacher has to be very clear about what aspect is to be assessed and how. Writing skills are classified into many sub-skills and types, using which teachers may help learners to progress through various stages of writing (see Brown, 2004 for more details).

A set of writing tasks
The following set of writing assessment tasks are designed for students of intermediate language proficiency, based on the theory detailed above. These communicative tasks focus on meaning and an outcome, require pragmatic language processing, prioritize task completion and provide learning opportunities. Apart from providing an authentic context for language use, it also places the learner(s) in meaningful real-life situations. The task-prompts are either written or visual texts. Task-completion requires filling forms, letter-writing, report writing and the use of available background knowledge.

To help teachers focus on particular aspects of learner performance, a model sketch of assessment criteria is given in Table 1. This set of criteria is based on the constructs being assessed in the given tasks. Each criterion can be used to assess task performance using the letter grades given in the assessment scale (see Table 2).

Task 1: Your friend received an invitation to take part in a 10-day nature camp at the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary (SABS) in Kerala. You are interested in joining the camp. Look at the invitation brochure given below and write a letter asking the Director of SABS if you can join the camp.

Write your letter in the box below.

From,
_________________
_________________
To,
_________________
_________________
Date: ______/______/______

Dear ___________________,

________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________

Yours truly,
_________________
_________________

Task 2: Your application is accepted. Now you are at the bird sanctuary, participating in the camp. One day, you saw an incident in the forest as depicted in the pictures alongside. Write a post card to your best-friend about what you saw.

Task 3: At the end of the camp, the director of the sanctuary asked you if you would like to apply for a scholarship to study birds. She asked you to fill an application form where you have to write your name, date of birth, age, mother’s name, father’s name, permanent address, name and address of the school, if you have attended any nature camp and some details about it, why you want to study birds and so on.

Once the learners complete the tasks, the teacher can use the assessment criteria to assess performance. Detailed information about what to look for in each task is given in Table 1. Grading scale given in Table 2 provides an outline of grades based on the learner’s performance on the given criteria. This assessment scheme can be used to give constructive feedback to learners for further learning.

Table 1: Criteria for Assessment

Table 2: Assessment Scale

Conclusion
This set of writing tasks and the associated assessment criteria can be used as models for task development for classroom-based writing assessment. The teacher can thus bring variety, enthusiasm and renewed interest into the classroom by using tasks for assessment and learning.

References

• Brindley, G. (1994). Task-Centred Assessment in Language Learning: the Promise and the Challenge. In N. Bird (Ed.), Language and Learning: Papers presented at the Annual International Language in Education Conference (Hong Kong, 1993), (pp. 73-94). Hong Kong.
• Brown, H. D. (2004). Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. New York: Longman.
• Bygate, M., Skehan, P., & Swain, M. (2013). Introduction. In M. Bygate, P. Skehan, & M. Swain (Eds.), Researching Pedagogic Tasks: Second Language Learning, Teaching and Testing (pp. 1-20). New York: Routledge.
• Chalhoub-Deville, M. (2013). Task-based assessments: Characteristics and validity evidence. In M. Bygate, P. Skehan, & M. Swain, Researching Pedagogic Tasks, Second Language Learning, Teaching and Testing (pp. 210-28). Harlow: Longman.
• Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based Language Learning and Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Ellis, R. (2009). Task-based language teaching: sorting out the misunderstandings. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 19(3), 221-246.
• Mathews, S. M. (2018). Language Skills and Secondary Education in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 53(15), 20-22.
• Norris, J. M. (2016). Current Uses for Task-Based Language Assessment. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 230–244.
• Nunan, D. (2004). Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Prabhu, N. S. (1987). Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Vasylets, O., Gilabert, R., & Manchòn, R. M. (2017). The Effects of Mode and Task Complexity on Second Language Production. Language Learning, 394-430.
• Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing Task-Based Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The author is a research scholar in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He has taught English language at University of Hyderabad and Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh. His research interests are task-based language teaching and assessment, speaking assessment and second language acquisition. He can be reached at sajitsj@gmail.com.