EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN ELT

Abstract

Confusion in understanding the terms of 'evaluation' and 'assessment' by the majority of teachers and learners is inevitable. Therefore, a clear explanation needs to be given to overcome the problem, since these two terms are the main duties of every teacher as stated in the teachers and lecturers law No. 14,2005. It is stated in the law that a teacher is a professional teaching staff whose main duties are to educate, to teach, to guide, to direct, to train, to evaluate, and to assess learners of formal education at the levels of primary education and secondary education, including early childhood education. Besides, assessment is one of the contextual teaching and learning (CTL) components that a teacher does in teaching leaming process. Some other terms that need to be described il order to possess good understanding on evaluation and assessment are 'measurement' and 'test'. Some differences of traditional assessment and altemative assessment are also discussed in this paper. In addition, the characteristics ofassessment are also introduced to get clear description about this term. It is also mentioned the importance of evaluation carried out in teaching and learning language skills which include productive and receptive skills.