Introduction

This is where gathering information is needed in order to evaluate a formative

assessment conducted by a teacher. Formative assessment including diagnostic
testing is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by
teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning
activities to improve student attainment.
Context of the lesson
Target students : Year 5 Baiduri
Topic

: Unit 10-Peach Boy

Level of pupils : Mixed Ability

Enrollment

: 14 pupils

Language skills areas being assessed : reading and writing

Evaluation
In order to evaluate this test, we should first look at the basic principles of
language assessment which includes practicality, authenticity, validity and also
reliability. These are all the criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to have a good
test items. Practicality refers to the administrative issues involved in making,
giving and scoring an assessment instrument. (Brown, 2010, p.26). In regard to
practicality, at least we should think about time, place, people, equipment, cost,
scoring and giving feedback. In terms of practicality, the test has fulfilled all these
criteria. From my observation, the test is authentic in a way that the knowledge
assessed is contextualized in such a meaningful context, enabling students to
find the topic and content engaging and interesting. In terms of validity, I could
say that the test is valid because it is correlated to the theories in the SLA
domain. Furthermore, we can relate to the teaching objectives and the teaching
content.The physical and psychological condition of the pupils during the test are

all the same and shows that they can all perform normally in the test. This shows
that the test is reliable.
Strengths
First of all, the test has fulfilled all the criteria and the principles of language
assessment. This shows that it is a good test. The place chosen, which is the
classroom, is conducive and suitable to conduct a test. The lighting was good.
The test is quite interesting because the teacher includes pictures in the test.
Therefore, the pupils not only see words but also pictures that can help them
answer the test.
Weakness and suggestion
After the test, we found out that the test items is a little bit difficult for some of
the pupils. It is more suitable to a high level of learners. For the weak pupils, the
difficulty of the test item should be decreased a little bit so that it suits the
learners. There are only few pupils that can answer this test item. Therefore, to
improve the test items, first we must find out the level of the pupils. After that, we
can create a test item that suits the pupils. However, we cant make it easy
because it will make the pupils feel boring. In a class with mixed ability pupils like
this, average difficulty is just nice because both low and high achievers can
answer it. There wont be a big gap between their results.

(500 WORDS)

References
Brown, H. D. (2010). Language assessment: Principles and classroom practices.
London: Longman.
Douglas, D. (2000). Assessing languages for specific purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.