Assessment doesn't have to be threatening and arduous but can be an effective tool in promoting language learning and in guiding students to improve their communication skills. In this session, I will talk about the key concept of positive impact by design and the current trends in Learning Oriented Assessment (LOA) that seek to integrate learning and assessment more effectively. I will discuss how formative and summative functions of assessments can work holistically to build more effective learning ecosystems in the Vietnamese context. I will conclude my talk with some ideas about how LOA can help improve educational standards in the post-Covid era, especially with the support of EdTech. Teachers have a key role to play in this; they will need to engage with these issues in their own schools and communities, and to be prepared for this challenging but exciting period ahead.
This presentation will present the 'missing piece of the puzzle' for language teachers and students. The talk starts by surveying what we know about language learning and teaching and reviews the linguistic parameters under which this learning must take place. There will then be a review of the current state of EFL to show how we, as an industry, present language to students in a linear manner based on a 'one-hit learning model' of language learning. Recent research into lexical analysis and vocabulary learning will highlight the relatively little recycling of vocabulary, the lack of attention to collocation, colligation and lexical phrases in general in typical EFL courses. This vastly underestimates the amount of language students need to meet for acquisition to take place. The talk will also highlight the conditions under which vocabulary can be acquired. The final section of the talk will show how teachers, students and curriculum designers can provide the missing massive amounts of exposure students need to consolidate their language knowledge to enable long term acquisition to take place which in turn enables students to speak and write.
