Mastering English Through Assessment for Learning

Assessment for Learning: Learning and Knowing What You’ve Learned
There are many reasons to take a class in a subject of interest. Couples might decide take instruction in ballroom dancing because it seems like a fun thing to do.  Foodies might take a cooking class to polish up their culinary skills. But if you want to advance in your field, taking an English language class is a smart move. Learning a language that’s as popular as English can help to fast forward a career or make the difference in a promotion. But it’s not enough just to take the class; the goal is to learn the language. That’s why assessment for learning is so important. Knowing what a student has mastered and what remains to be learned helps a teacher steer the class through an effective lesson plan.

Creating Feedback for Instruction with Assessment for Learning
When a class gets underway, the teacher’s level is vastly superior to that of the students. Taking a class won’t turn a student into a teacher, but it does shrink the gap between what the teacher is teaching and what the student needs to learn. The balance between the two ends is the way for a student to gain confidence as language skills are acquired. Learning is a progression, not a collection of discrete, unrelated segments. The feedback that is a key component of Edusoft’s English Discoveries platform is the driving force in a student’s progress. AFL inspires a student’s confidence as, lesson by lesson, the distance between the starting point and ending goal diminishes.

Feedback is the Key to Effective Assessment for Learning
How can a student learn if he or she doesn’t receive feedback? Edusoft is a subsidiary of the Educational Testing Service and has leveraged the benchmark and certification tools developed by ETS. Edusoft recognizes the importance of feedback and has established formative and summative tests that to monitor personal progress in reaching key milestones along the path to the ultimate goal. As teachers assemble the data on their students’ progress, they are able to measure the weaknesses and strengths in the student profile so that the proper adjustments can be made.