This is not (just) a test: Computer aided language assessment and syllabus link in the summer school industry

David Juhasz of Bucksmore Education presented on 'This is not (just) a test: Computer aided language assessment and syllabus link in the summer school industry' at the 5th annual Future of English Language Teaching Conference in 2020.

Placement tests are all too familiar to everyone who has ever studied abroad: a morning of dread the day after arriving in a foreign and new environment. They are gap-fill or multiple-choice worksheets accompanied by speaking with a stranger from the academic department students have never met before yet they are expected to perform to the best of their knowledge. The results are then typed into a system and used to place students in classes where they only roughly belong (distorted by age, gender, nationality, etc.), in order for a general short-course syllabus to be delivered that rarely takes into account individual differences, needs, and desired language outcomes.

What if the assessment took into account all students’ individual answers and evaluated their strengths and weaknesses? What if students were all offered individual study routes based on their placement tests? What if we could come up with an individual syllabus for each student, which offers units and improvement areas based on students’ real needs? How can we inform our teachers about our students’ strengths, areas to improve, and needs all at the same time?

The workshop/presentation offered an introduction to language assessment and a talk through how language testing became a focal point of language delivery at Bucksmore Education through robust data analysis of more than a thousand tests last summer. The areas covered include online pre-placement tests (linked to areas of development and course offers), actual placement tests and the way they are processed in our summer centres, and how data is analysed post-summer delivery to improve test contents.