“ASSESS” Project-ASSESSING EFL STUDENTS EVALUATION-ASSESSEMENT HANDBOOK & LEΑRNING TOOLKIT

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The project ASSESS aims to define innovative methods and tools for the assessment of EFL learners and to bring new approaches to this procedure in European countries. 

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One of the major outputs of this project is the development of a practical Handbook for Evaluation and Assessment Methods for speaking and writing skills. The output’s aim is to help English teachers to improve their professional skills on preparing rating scales for their exams. The Handbook will be ready by the end of November. 

Moreover, as we are adapting to a new reality due to the pandemic of Covid-19, remote learning is becoming a necessity due to closure of schools during lockdown periods. Digital technologies and distance teaching and learning have become popular educational tools and methods.

To facilitate the learning & teaching process during these unprecedented circumstances we decided to adapt and upload the materials prepared by the ASSESS partners on the LEΑRNING TOOLKIT: Action Synergy’s eLearning platform. More specifically, numerous exams/exercises (vocabulary, reading, writing, listening & speaking) prepared by the ASSESS partnership for A1 & A2 Level EFL Students are now available on https://actionelearning.eu. The chapters covered include:  the weather, shopping, sports, my city/town. The students have the option to read the text or to listen to the audio before completing the exams/exercises that include “fill in the gaps”, “click & drag”, “true or false” open type answers, etc.

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Database for the Online Exam Creator nearing completion

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Our Assess project is steaming ahead regardless of CoVid-19 restrictions. The partners from Portugal, Turkey, Finland, Greece, Germany and Spain have each completed 200 exams involving vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, a total of 1200 exams. The exercises were built on specific vocabulary and the listening exams will, this autumn be recorded into audio files for the project. The voiceover talents of Megan and Luke Britton, native Brits, will be used for the recordings. The Finnish partner’s audio files have already been completed and the other partner’s files are being prepared. This will then see the completion of the exams for the Intellectual Output 2: Database for the Online Exam Creator.


Our dissemination efforts are expanding and the Assess Facebook page now has 118 likes. The partners will continue adding more interesting items to the Facebook Page to keep it lively and engaging.

Facilitating teachers the Back To School

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September has brought the reopening of schools after the lockdown in each country. New measures in each country and the uncertainty of how to organise the classrooms maintaining thousands of children safe are making parents, educational professionals and high positions of authorities anxious.

With the beginning of this new period, the partners of the project ASSESS have had a meeting to guide the development of our project. Despite the impossibility of having a face to face meeting, the project has not been paused in any moment. Now we are carrying out questionnaires about the assessment of speaking and writing skills for teachers.

We are aware of the loads of work that teachers are having daily and of their needs of having their lives facilitated. Because of that, our objective is to give birth to the Online Exam Creator that will provide teachers with some exams to assess English as Foreign Language in the classrooms of Primary Education.

The Online Exam Creator will be developed during the end of this year and the beginning of 2021. Once developed, it will be proved by teachers with their students. If you are a teacher and you want to participate or you are interested in having more information about the project, contact with us in projects@inerciadigital.com 

The new normality with ASSESS

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The new normality after COVID-19 is changing our day-to-day. The way in which we do the shopping, we go to a restaurant or we meet someone is different. In the same way, the way of teaching in schools will be different. To bring in a new way of teaching you need tools, methodologies and adaptability. This need for change in the classroom shows us that that changes are possible and necessary.

English is one of the most important languages due to the number of English speaking people and to its use in the professional world. Because of its importance, it is studied compulsory from the beginning of a student’s education. To get a successful learning of English, students must learn all the skills necessary: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

ASSESS project has the main objective of introducing a change in the evaluation of English as Foreign Language in General Education. To facilitate teachers the correct evaluation of communicatives skills, which are speaking and listening skills. Therefore, the partnership is working in the development of the platform, Online Exam Creator, which will be an useful tool for teachers that will allow them a new way of evaluating the foreign language in students.

In spite of the uncertainty about the opening of schools and universities or the new way of teaching in each country. The most important is that students continue improving their educational life and their learning is not damaged. Because of this, from Inercia Digital we continue teleworking in our Erasmus + projects will all our partners in order to keep them functioning and to improve the quality of European education.

ASSESSING EFL STUDENTS

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  What is ASSESS Project?

The project ASSESS is a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, as a Strategic Partnership for the Development of Innovation in School Education. It aims to define innovative methods and tools for the assessment of EFL learners. Its main goal is to bring new approaches to assessment and contribute to development of evaluation consciousness. It also wants to support restoration of assessment system and share good practices among European countries.

With ASSESS, all the partners will have a chance to promote the specific skills acquisition and skills enhancement for foreign language teachers for:

1) effective teaching and evaluation methods of foreign languages in particular through the use of ICT

2) choice of quality products in language assessment, identifying the best meet the specific educational needs

3) use of products available either as an alternative or as an integration of traditional methodologies

4) creation from scratch of educational and training products that exploit the potential of new technologies

            What are we going to develop?

Intellectual Output 1: Report on Curriculum,

Intellectual Output 2: Database for Online Exam Online Creator

Intellectual Output 3: Rating Scale

Intellectual Output 4: Online Exam Creator

Intellectual Output 5: Teachers’ Guidebook

Language Assessment

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Assessing the learning of language is a topic that never goes out of discussion. The complexity of the learning process and evolution of learners over the years, contribute a lot to the topics’ evergreen life. The influence of Technology is another factor that the Teachers and Evaluators should consider while assessing the Learners. Therefore, conventional assessing methods needs revising and adapting to suit the new age learning preferences and the learners. This is particularly critical for young students at primary school age group.

Some of the assessment methodologies that typically belonged to a different group may find relevance even while assessing language learning of school students.

Here, we list down some ways of assessment that resorts to the basics.

  • Rubrics: Rubrics can cover vast areas of student work. Since rubrics can be defined and administered over a period of time, it can give valuable insights on the learning curve of every student over a period of time. Therefore, Rubrics serve as a valuable tool for Formative Assessment.
  • Oral Presentations or Performances: Controlled assessments are the not the only ways of assessing. Multiple Intelligence theory suggests different learners learn through different ways. Assessing them using outdated methodologies does not do justice to the students. Hence, informal ways such as Presentations or Performances can be effective ways.
  • Non-verbal: Along the same lines of performances, another great way of assessing is non-verbal assessments such as Charades or Pictures. These are effective ways to assess the vocabulary.
  • Informal Written Assessments: Instead of conventional methods like essay writing or short answers, modern and fun ways such as blogs, travelogues, reviews can prove to be equally effective. Many teachers and schools have deployed these already, but only as club activities which are not assessed. Bringing these ways to mainstream and assessing them can provide valuable insights on language learning.

There can be many other ways to assess the students formatively and the ideas can be endless. But the above-mentioned ideas are quick and effective ways which does not demand a lot from the teachers. 

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Assessment tools have an empirical role in schools. Traditional approaches of assessment methods such as pencil and paper tests are poor to reflect students’ real potential in learning process. These tests cause lack of communication skills and poor problem solving ability for students (Nasri, Roslan, Sekuan, Bakar, Puteh, 2010). The project ASSESS aims to define innovative methods and tools for the assessment of EFL young learners.

In the questionnaire that we administered in our project, English Language Teachers were asked to report whether they would use exams for assessing communicative skills more if they found them ready-to-use in the coursebooks or on online platforms. 

Most of teachers remarked that they would use ready-to-use exams taken from the coursebooks or on an online platform. One teacher reported that she was loyal with the coursebook, the other one preferred to use ready-to-use exams since it saved time.  

Teachers believed in the assistance of coursebooks as well as online platforms to assess students and tended to use any types of exams depending on their quality and appropriateness for the students they taught. 

Even though they tended to use ready-to-use exams that took place in the coursebooks and on online platforms, one teacher indicated to use these exams if they were in line with the learning objectives while the other teacher stated to use these exams by adjusting them according to the students’ level of understanding.     

With this project, EFL teachers will be able to download and use sample exams or create their own exams with the materials in the portal. Would you use our exams in your lessons?

Assessing young learners’ speaking skills – Foreign Languages

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The introduction of the instruction of a Foreign Language in primary schools is in line with the language policy of the European Union, whose aim is to foster functional plurilingualism in future European citizens in order to ensure mobility and cohesion in an increasingly globalized and politically, economically and socially interconnected Europe.

As everyone knows instruction and assessment go hand in hand so naturally. Each makes the other stronger and more meaningful. The question is: how to assess learners’ foreign language skills effectively? The issue of effective and age-appropriate assessment is certainly a challenge for FL primary school teachers who have little appropriate and validated material for assessing young learners’ foreign language skills, in particular their speaking skills.

Recent studies focus on new assessment of students’ spoken proficiency based on interaction and where stakeholders become the centre of interest. The oral interaction may occur with the interviewer for example, the student answers personal questions or describes a picture and subsequently identifies differences between two pictures. Another strategy to foster oral interaction is to provide paired or small group speaking tasks in which the children interact with each other and act out mini dialogues or carry out a mini role-plays. The objective is to prompt young learners to use the language in meaningful and real life situations where the focus is on problem-solving and purposeful task. The validity and usefulness of these new assessment approach is more effective in comparison with the more traditional test.To sum up, for an effective oral proficiency assessment, teachers should provide activities that meet the development of a learner-centred approach keeping in mind that children’s contact with the first foreign language at school should be positive and enjoyable.