Assessment.

We talked about assessment on Tuesday, so I guess I'm just reiterating what others said before me. In regards to testing in second language learning proficiency, or to native speakers in general, I believe the discourse behind the testing must be relevant to what was being taught previously or learned previously. I think journaling is good, and open ended response questions. Learning to me comes the best with self-reflection and thinking. When conducting speaking proficiency tests, it's so hard to count what is proficient and what isn't proficient. We seem to have a bias for a foreigner when conducting proficiency tests on those for which English is not a "first" language. For example, my English is just as bad as the guy sitting in front of me on the bus, but we have both been born here. Yet when a second language learner is taking a proficiency test, we are likely to use our bias to represent speaking ability. The question is where is the line between what can be judged as proficient and not proficient? Again, it all goes back to the standards of the "standard."