Formative Assessment – English Course (Communicative Language & Literature) Class IX
Preface
At the centre of the transformation that School Education is undergoing presently is the new perspective to assessment and its relationship to the teaching-learning process. It is widely agreed that assessment influences what is taught and how teaching and learning are delivered. There is also a widespread belief among educational researchers and practitioners that assessment can and often does constrain rather than enhance learning outcomes. If we
restrict our choices of teaching and learning activities to exercises that simply rehearse for examinations, then we run the risk of failing our learners during the teaching and learning process as a whole. Another pitfall in working towards assessment is that learners may concentrate simply on doing the bare minimum needed in order to guarantee a pass.
Hence the challenge of changing the traditional system of examination and evaluation has emerged as a major focus. By introducing Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation at the secondary level in all its affiliated schools, CBSE has sent out a clear message that assessment must take into account all the aspects of the personality development of the learner and that since learning is a continuous process, assessment also has to be continuous. CCE fundamentally shifts the focus from testing to learning by perceiving assessment as an integral part of the overall framework of teaching and learning. It follows from this that when incorporated into classroom practice, assessment tends to lose its individual identity, getting
subsumed into the instructional process.
Such a conceptualization necessitates a greater thrust on formative assessment. It must be said, at this stage, that though many schools have been practicing CCE and as a consequence, formative assessment procedures for classes I – VIII for many years, the overall thrust still continues to be to use assessment for ‘measuring’ rather than ‘enhancing’ learning. In other words, there has been a general lack of conceptual clarity with regard to the formative assessment practices among stakeholders as a result of which, many apparently formative assessment tools and procedures have, in effect, been summative in nature, ie, exercises to gauge, at a particular point in time, student learning relative to content standards. Although the information gleaned from this type of assessment is important, it can only help in evaluating certain aspects of the learning process.
It brings us to the vital need of strengthening formative assessment because our overall aim is to facilitate learning by improving the teaching- learning process on the basis of information gathered from assessment.
In this sense formative assessment is a part of the instructional process, underpinning the importance of student involvement. Students need to be involved both as assessors of their own learning and as resources to other students bringing into focus the importance of self and peer assessment besides teacher assessment. Research shows that the involvement in and ownership of their work increases students’ motivation to learn. The most significant advantage of formative assessment is that it makes learning an enjoyable experience because of student involvement, enhanced learning and unobtrusive techniques of assessment.
Summative assessment constitutes a public recognition of achievement and we are fairly familiar with most of the tools and procedures of summative assessment. However, many teachers may find it a challenge to develop effective formative assessment tools; they may also experience some difficulties in integrating them with classroom instruction. In order to provide conceptual clarity in this regard and to place some illustrative examples of formative assessment tasks in the hands of the teachers, the Board is bringing out a series of Manuals for classes IX and X in all the major subjects. This manual on English – Communicative and English – Language and Literature for Class IX is one of them. The tasks exemplified in this Manual are of different types such as Role Plays, Debates, Matching Items, Sentence Completion, Flow charts and Multiple Choice Questions. It also contains sustained writing tasks to be attempted by students. The tasks provided are varied and cater to the diferent multiple intelligences.
It is fervently hoped that teachers and students will derive maximum benefit from these publications. By studying the contents carefully and by using the tasks in classroom teaching, teachers would be able to build their capacity not only for enhanced learning to take place but also for preparing their own materials to add value to curriculum delivery. Certain practical guidelines have been included in the manuals to enable schools and teachers to implement
formative assessment within the CCE framework as proposed by the Board for classes IX and X.
This document has been prepared by a group of English teachers and I record the sincere appreciation of the Board to each of these contributors. I also convey my appreciation to Mr. Mani, Education Officer for conceptualizing and coordinating the task of deciding the content and bringing out the manual.
I sincerely hope that with the availability of rich materials, teachers will be able to implement the CCE scheme in the right spirit in all the schools affiliated to CBSE. Comments for improvement of the manual are always welcome.
Download : English Course class IX
(VINEET JOSHI)
Chairman
