Professional Development Workshop: Assessing Written Language Production

Assessing productive language skills has always been of interest to assessment specialists, the challenge being to make grades fair and give appropriate feedback to test takers.

At the request of many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Armenia and of the National Institute of Education (NIE), the AUA Center for Research in Applied linguistics (CRAL)  will conduct a workshop for in-service EFL teachers to address several issues related to assessing written production, such as using assessment tools (analytic and holistic rubrics) and performing calibration.

The event will be held on June 30, 2014, from 10:00AM till 15:00 PM and will house more than 60 participants. It will start with a short presentation on the types of assessment tools and the importance of the calibration process, followed by a workshop with hands-on tasks for trainees to use holistic or analytic grading rubrics to grade essays and participate in a calibration session.

The purpose of this event is two-fold: 1. to empower teachers with the knowledge and confidence to use grading rubrics when assessing written language production, and 2. to establish a network for further workshops on assessing productive language skills, thus helping to introduce the culture of using grading rubrics in Armenian schools.