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This study aims to provide a procedure and specific measures that can be used in the authentic assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency in order to increase the validity, reliability and comprehensiveness of assessment activities.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES ĐOÀN QUANG TRUNG AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT OF ENGLISH-MAJORED UNDERGRADUATES’ ENGLISH PROFICIENCY Major: Education Code: 14 01 02 SUMMARY Hanoi, 2019 THIS THESIS IS COMPLETED AT VIETNAM NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES Supervisors: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Thị Lan Phương ………………………………… Dr Lê Đông Phương ………………………………… Reviewer 1: Reviewer 2: Reviewer 3: The thesis will be defensed by the author before the Thesis Assessment Board of Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences, at 101 Tran Hung Dao Street, Hanoi, Vietnam At , date month year Copies of this thesis are available at: - National Library of Vietnam - Library of Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences INTRODUCTION Rationale Assessment plays a significant role in the instruction of languages in general and English in particular Assessment can be used to measure learners' achievements (assessment of learning) and to provide feedback on the teaching and learning so that teachers and students can make adjustments to improve their teaching and learning (assessment for learning) In other cases, no longer considered a separate part of the instructional process, assessment is integrated into this process and becomes its integral part, and accordingly in this way assessment activities are actually learning activities (assessment as learning) In spite of its importance, assessment activities are not always carried out effectively so that they can be informative enough for those concerned and supportive of learning With regard to educational assessments in Vietnam, research has found various problems Following are some of them: - Assessment activities fall short of expectations of those concerned in terms of validity, reliablity, comprehensiveness - In many cases, assessment activities place more focus on the measurement of students’ knowledge and lower-order thinking skills rather than their higherorder thinking skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and thus the assessment activities are not able to create positive washback on the process of teaching and learning [10, 14, 17] It can be seen that assessment activities not effectively support the teaching and learning process In other words, there remains a gap between instructional and assessment activities More specifically, communicative and effective learning activities not directly increase students’ scores in tests/exams and high scores in tests/exams not necessarily mean that the students have a high level of English proficiency Therefore, there is a need for a balanced assessment which emphasizes the direct relationship between instructional and assessment activities of the English language [71] In this regard, a good and effective language learning activity (interactive and communicative) can at the same time be used as an assessment activity and vice versa [90] Authentic assessment requires students to communicate using English in real-life communicative situations In addition, authentic assessment enables us to "assess what we value so that we value what we assess" [90] In some cases, English learners are required to take tests that are designed to measure their knowledge of the English language These tests often focus on the measurement of students' knowledge and understanding of separate elements of English such as grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation by choosing or checking an option among several (often or 4) alternatives They not directly measure students' actual use of the language or their communicative language ability In this regard, there remains a gap between students' communicative language competence (what we value) and their knowledge of separate elements of the language (what we assess) Authentic assessment is believed to help deal with this problem in that it can play a role in narrowing the gap between what we value and what we assess Despite its strengths, in Vietnam little research has been done on authentic assessment in general and on its employment in the teaching, learning and assessment of English in particular All this makes room for the author of this study to conduct an investigation into the employment of authentic assessment in measuring English-majored undergraduates' communicative English competence or their "English proficiency” in this thesis Aim of the thesis This study aims to provide a procedure and specific measures that can be used in the authentic assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency in order to increase the validity, reliability and comprehensiveness of assessment activities Research area and object of the study - Research area: the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency - Object of the study: authentic assessment activities in the process of teaching, learning and assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency Hypothesis If the proposed precedure (including three stages: designing, implementing and evaluating) and measures (each includes sample tasks, authentic assessment criteria and rubrics) were used in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency with focus placed on the four communicative skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, then they would help increase the quality (validity, reliability and comprehensiveness) of the assessment activities of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam Objectives of the study - to build up the body of literature on: (1) authentic assessment in the teaching, learning and assessment of EFL students; (2) communicative language competence; (3) authentic assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency; - to investigate the current practice of the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at various universities in Vietnam; - to propose a precedure and measures (including sample tasks, authentic assessment criteria and rubrics) that can be used to measure English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency in the instructional process at universities in Vietnam; - to experiment with the procedure and measures proposed to test their feasibility and effectiveness Scope of the study - The study was conducted with regard to the authentic assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency within the framework of assessment activities conducted in the instruction of the language skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing in the curriculum of English studies for Englishmajored undergraduate students at universities in Vietnam - A survey was conducted at different universities which provide Englishmajor courses for full-time undergraduate students - The experiment was carried out between 8/2017 and 10/2017 at the Department of English Studies – Hanoi University Approaches and methods Approaches: (1) systematic approach; (2) context-based approach; (3) activity-based approach; (4) process approach Methods Secondary research methods: (1) reviewing the literature on the topic; (2) comparing and contrasting; (3) analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating Primary research methods: the tools used to collect primary information include: (1) survey questionnaires; (2) interviews; (3) seminars; (4) observations; (5) experiment Other methods: consulting; quantitative and qualitative methods Points to defense - Authentic assessment enables students to use components of communicative language competence to communicate and interact with others in reallife contexts, so it is necessary that authentic assessment be used in the process of teaching, learning and assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam; - The employment of authentic assessment is underresearched in Vietnam; - Authentic assessment is not commonly used at universities in Vietnam; - If the proposed procedure and measures are used in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency with focus placed on the four communicative skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, then they would help increase the quality (validity, reliability and comprehensiveness) of the assessment activities of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam Contributions of the thesis In theory, the thesis: - helps build upon the body of literature on authentic assessment of communicative language competence of EFL learners - helps clarify the theoretical basis and develop a theoretical framework for the integration of authentic assessment into the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam - clarifies purposes, definitions, roles and features of authentic assessment - describes and analyzes the procedure, methods, criteria and rubrics used in the incorporation of authentic assessment in the process of teaching, learning and assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency In practice, the thesis: - identifies and describes the common practices of the testing and assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam, and provides an analysis and evaluation of the practices, with focus placed on the assessment activities conducted in the teaching and learning process - proposes a procedure (including three stages: designing, implementing and evaluating) and measures (used to assess the four language skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing) for teachers to employ authentic assessment in their teaching and assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency - helps confirm that the proposed procedure and measures worked effectively by getting feedback from specialists, teachers and students in the areas of language teaching, learning and assessment and by experimental activities 10 Organization of the thesis In addition to the parts of Introduction, Conclusions and Recommendations, References and Appendices, the present thesis consists of chapters: Chapter 1: Literature review Chapter 2: Current practices of integrating authentic assessment into the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency Chapter 3: Procedure and measures for integrating authentic assessment into the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam Chapter 4: Experiment CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 A brief overview 1.1.1 Research on assessment in language instruction A lot of research has been done on instructional assessment with focus placed on the discussion of definitions, goals and objectives, roles and functions, characteristics, forms and methods of assessment Based on the findings of various studies [11, 14, 23, 43, 97], assessment can be defined as a process of gathering information about learners, discuss, analyze and explain the information in a systematic way in order to understand what learners know and can from the knowledge and experiences they gather, compare with the goals and objectives of the curriculum and provide stakeholders (learners, teachers, managers, employers, etc.) with the information so that they can make decisions (e.g for recruitment) or make adjustments or changes to increase the quality of teaching and learning With reference to the findings of various studies [11, 43, 54, 60, 61, 92], assessment can be used to serve: - administrative goals: for placement, selection, certification, decisionmaking by stakeholders (e.g school managers, recruiters, employers); - instructional goals: to gain an understanding of the teaching and learning process, learners’ achievements, learners’ competence, etc so that teachers and learners can make adjustments or changes to improve the instructional process Studies also discuss different forms of assessment categorized based on different criteria For example, based on the criterion of time of assessing, assessment can be diagnostic (before the learning process), formative (during the learning process) or summative (after the learning process) [11, 23] Methods used in the assessment of learning vary, but to a certain extent they can be summarized as follows: assessment of knowledge (e.g.: objective testing), performance-based assessment (e.g.: presentation, project-based assessment, portfolio) and observation [11] 1.1.2 Research on communicative language competence and the assessment of communicative language competence There has been an enormous amount of research done on communicative language competence with focus placed on the clarification of its definition and structure Early pieces of research propose a narrow definition of language competence which only covers the knowledge of a language that a person has Together with that narrow definition of language competence, the term “language performance” is also introduced Language performance is used to refer to learners’ ability to produce the language with the application of their knowledge of the language [49] More recently, the definition was expanded by several linguists and reseachers to a broader notion of “communicative language competence” which means the ability to communicate in various contexts using the language, not only using elements of the language such as grammatical knowledge but also gestures, intonation, strategies and other non-verbal means of communication” [45, 46, 50, 68] Two major approaches to the assessment of learner communicative language competence are: (1) testing; and (2) performance-based assessment tasks [44, 82] 1.2 Research on authentic assessment in language instruction 1.2.1 Definition and characteristics of authentic assessment Researchers have come up with various definitions of authentic assessment Based on their findings, authentic assessment can be summarized and defined as an approach to assessment in which learners are asked to authentic tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills in real-world contexts [57, 58, 65, 70, 72, 79, 82] From the findings of various studies [10, 11, 44, 61, 70, 71, 82, 86], main characteristics of authentic assessment can be summarized as follows: - Resembling real-world tasks and activities; - Based on problem-solving activities; - Formative, supportive of learning; - Emphasis placed on interaction and collaboration; - Performance-based activities; - Requirements and scoring criteria made clear to students before learning begins; - Measuring both learning products and process; - Can be used together with or to replace standardized tests Authenticity Authenticity is an important characteristic that distinguishes authentic assessment from other forms of assessment Based on the studies of Bachman and Palmer, Cumming and Maxwell, Ozkan and Palm [42, 51, 85, 86], an assessment is regarded as authentic if: - students are engaged in cognitive processes that are important in successful behaviors in life beyond school; 11 - Learning logs - Homework Classroom measures Decontextualized measures - Text-related activities - Criterion-reference tests - Teacher-made tests - District exams - Comprehension questions - Provincial or state exams 1.2.5 Procedure, approaches and types of authentic assessment With reference to the findings of various studies [44, 71, 82], it can be summarized that the procedure suggested for the employment of authentic assessment includes three main stages: (1) designing; (2) implementing; and (3) evaluating It is also learned from various pieces of research that there are two major approaches to authentic assessment: (1) observation of assessment products (portfolios, reports, learning journals, research pieces, etc.); and (2) observation of performance (e.g.: interviews, conversations, roleplays, presentations, simulations, etc.) [71, 82] 1.3 Research on communicative language competence 1.3.1 Definitions of communicative language competence Different researchers come up with different definitions of communicative language competence The author of this thesis uses the definition introduced by the Canadian Language Benchmarks: English as a Second Language for Adults, adapted from Bachman (1990), Bachman and Palmer (1996, 2010) and CelceMurcia, Dornyei and Thurrel (1993, 1995): communicative language ability refers to “the ability to communicate: to interact, to express, to interpret and to negiotiate meaning, and to create discourse in a variety of social contexts and situations” [45] 1.3.2 Structure of communicative language competence With regard to the structure of communicative language competence, in this thesis the author uses the model provided by Celce-Murcia, Dornyei and Thurrell 12 (1993) in which communicative language competence consists of components: (1) grammatical competence; (2) sociolinguistic competence; (3) discourse competence; (4) strategic competence; and (5) action competence [47] The five components are structured as in the following picture: Sociolinguistic competence Discourse competence Grammatical competence Action competence Strategic competence Picture 1.4.: The structure of communicative language competence All the five mentioned-above components are closely interrelated and integrated into communicative language competence, so in order to communicate effectively, the language user needs to employ all the five components at the same time [47] In this thesis, the author agrees with the findings and conclusions of various researchers that a person’s communicative language competence cannot be measured directly and is exposed through their performance and communicative activities in the form of listening, speaking, reading and writing in various communicative contexts [45, 46, 47, 50, 82] 1.3.3 Communicative language competence framework 1.3.3.1 Communicative language competence framework In this thesis, the Vietnamese Framework of Reference for Languages (abbreviated NLNNVN) with levels of language proficiency is used [8] The 13 expected outcomes for English-majored undergraduates is level (corresponding to level C1 of the CEFR) Table 1.1.: Communicative language competence framework Advanced Intermediate Elementary NLNNVN Framework Level Level Level Level Level Level CEFR Framework C2 (Proficiency/mastery) C1 (Effective Operational Proficiency) B2 (Vantage) B1 (Threshold) A2 (Waystage) A1(Breakthrough) 1.3.3.2 Descriptors of communicative language competence framework In the development of language frameworks, authors often place great emphasis on the construction of can-do descriptors that describe and illustrate what learners can at each level of proficiency [8, 50] 1.3.4 Learning outcomes and proficiency level set for English-majored undergraduates Learning outcomes describe what students are able to demonstrate in terms of knowledge, skills, and values upon completion of a course, a span of several courses, or a training program The information of learning outcomes of a course at universities is often made public and informed to those concerned [45, 50] In Vietnam, the expected outcome level of proficiency set for Englishmajored undergraduates is level of the NLNNVN, corresponding to level C1 of the CEFR [8, 50] 1.4 Research on the employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency 1.4.1 Important issues in the employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency Aims: Authentic assessment is designed to: 14 - be used as an alternative or supplementary method to help measure learners’ competence more comprehensively and to increase validity and reliability of assessment activities; - provide a statement of learners’ competence or language ability (e.g certification) so that stake-holders can make relevant decisions; - promote learning (e.g provide opportunities for collaborative learning and feedback on the teaching and learning process/activities so that teachers and students can make adjustments appropriate for their own teaching and learning practices) [71] Approaches: The author of this thesis agrees with the findings of various studies that authentic assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency is based on the performance of students through the activities of listening, reading, speaking and writing in real-life communicative contexts With that philosophy, authentic assessment should be performance-based and within the framework of this thesis, though being authentic in some situations, testing is distinctive from the authentic assessment discussed in this thesis Thus, the common forms of authentic assessment covered in this study include interviews, conversations, observations, information gap, assignments, learning projects, roleplays, simulations, presentations, portfolios, etc [44, 82] 1.4.2 Components of communicative language competence that need to be assessed As described in the previous sections, communicative language competence is structured into five components: (1) grammatical competence; (2) sociolinguistic competence; (3) discourse competence; (4) strategic competence; and (5) action competence [47] These are the components that need to be trained, developed and assessed during the learning process of English-majored undergraduates [42] Again, it is neccessary to emphasize that the five components are exposed through communicative acts conducted by students Anchored in this reasoning, it 15 can be concluded that authentic assessment in actuality is the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English performance through communicative acts in real-life contexts [44, 45, 50, 82] 1.4.3 Authentic assessment of English proficiency In order to carry out authentic assessment effectively and systematically, with reference to the findings of O’Malley and Pierce, it is proposed that teachers the following activities: (1) identifying purposes; (2) planning for assessment; (3) setting standards; (4) developing scoring criteria and rubrics; (5) selecting assessment activities; (6) implementing assessment and collecting information; and (7) analyzing information and using assessment results [82] 1.5 Factors that influence the employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency Based on the findings of various studies, it can be concluded that there are several major factors that influence the employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency They include the curriculum and syllabus of the English course, outcome level of proficiency set for students, characteristics of students; the demand of the society and labour market 1.6 Conclusions Studies on assessment in general and authentic assessment in particular deal with various issues such as definitions, purposes, roles, methods, tools and procedures With regard to the introduction and employment of authentic assessment, a great amount of research focuses on the analysis of the weaknesses of testing and the need for alternative or supplementary methods It can be summarized that the body of literature on assessment and authentic assessment has become more and more comprehensive and multi-dimensional However, little research has been done on the employment of authentic assessment 16 in the measurement of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency This makes room for such a piece of research to be conducted with a hope to provide valid, reliable and comprehensive measures to assess English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam CHAPTER 2: CURRENT PRACTICES OF INTEGRATING AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT INTO THE ASSESSMENT OF ENGLISHMAJORED UNDERGRADUATES’ ENGLISH PROFICIENCY 2.1 Aims of the survey The survey aims to investigate the current practices of the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency in general and the employment of authentic assessment in the teaching, learning and assessment of their English proficiency in particular The findings of the investigation can be used as the foundation for the introduction of measures with a hope to increase the quality of the assessment activities (with regard to validity, reliability and comprehensiveness) More specifically, the survey focuses on the investigation of the main issues: (1) teachers’ and students’ knowledge of the two concepts of communicative language competence and authentic assessment; (2) the current practices of the assessment of English proficiency in general; (3) the current practices of authentic assessment in teaching, learning and measuring English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency in particular; and (4) teachers and students’ opinion of the best method to assess English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency 2.2 Methods, population samples and data analysis 2.2.1 Methods The main methods of collecting data include: (1) Survey questionnaires; (2) interviews 2.2.2 Population Two main groups of population: 17 - 518 English-majored undergraduate students are from universities in Vietnam - 91 teachers of English are from same universities Ways of analyzing data The app IBM SPSS 20 was used to analyze the data to answer the research questions Also, based on the data collected and analyzed, the researcher also assessed, gave comments and made conclusions on the current practices 2.3 Findings - Most of the teachers and students asked understood the two concepts of communicative language competence and authentic assessment - English language curriculum consists of different components of assessment, which makes room for the implementation of various forms of assessment, including authentic assessment - Teachers and students did employ authentic assessment in their teaching and learning - The most common form of assessing students’ English proficiency is testing Meanwhile most teachers and students surveyed believed that tests should be used together with other forms such as authentic assessment - Teachers’ skills of designing authentic assessment tasks, building scoring criteria and rubrics fall short of expectations They rarely design and use important assessment tools such as self-assessment and peer-assessment rubrics or checklists - Teachers’ skills of implementing authentic assessment fall short of expectations They rarely use important assessment forms such as projects, portfolios, self-assessment or peer assessment - Teachers employ authentic assessment in their teaching and assessment, but only this in a relatively informal way that does not provide systematic information about student learning or instructional goals 18 - The results of authentic assessment activities not reliably reflect both the students’ learning process and their learning achievements - Teachers’ use of the results of authentic assessment are not up to the expectations of their students - In general, teachers’ feedback on students’ performance is not timely provided In order to help deal with the issues mentioned above, it is proposed in this thesis that a comprehensive precedure (including three stages: designing, implementing and evaluating) and easy-to-use measures (each includes sample tasks, assessment criteria and rubrics) be used in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency with focus placed on the four communicative skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing CHAPTER 3: PROCEDURE AND MEASURES FOR INTEGRATING AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT INTO THE ASSESSMENT OF ENGLISHMAJORED UNDERGRADUATES’ ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AT UNIVERSITIES IN VIETNAM 3.1 Principles The procedure and measures were proposed based on the following factors: (1) goals and objectives of the curriculum and syllabus; (2) accountability; (3) feasibility; and (4) authenticity 3.2 Procedure and measures It is proposed that the following procedure and measures be used 3.2.1 Procedure for the employment of authentic assessment The proposed procedure consists of three main stages: Stage Designing T and Ss to 1: work design authentic assessment • Setting goals and objectives • Making a plan for assessment tasks • Setting standards, building criteria, rubrics, etc 19 tasks • Making a plan for student involvement • Selecting assessment activities • Identifying methods of collecting information T organizes assessment Stage 2: activities and Implementing Ss the activities T’s activity Ss’ activities • Informing and introducing the assessment tasks to Ss • Receiving information about the assessment tasks • Organizing the assessment activities for Ss to take part in • Working and discussing with T to clarify the tasks if necessary • Observing monitoring performance and Ss’ • Giving feedback or comments when necessary T and Ss analyze, Stage 3: evaluate and Evaluating use the information gathered • Working individually, in pairs or groups to the tasks • Doing self or peer assessment T’s activity Ss’ activities • Collecting assessment evidence and materials (rubrics, learning products, etc.) • Getting feedback and comments from T or peers • Analyzing and evaluating Ss’ assessment evidence (their performance, their learning process and products) • Scoring, giving feedback or comments on Ss’ performance and their learning process and learning products • Recognizing and using the results of the assessment • Getting feedback from Ss on the assessment • Analyzing the feedback given, reflecting and evaluating their own performance or learning products • Making adjustments or changes for future tasks 20 activities, making adjustments or changes if necessary 3.2.2 Measure 1: Authentic assessment of listening This measure includes main tasks: Task 1: Developing the authentic listening task Following are some of the activities proposed: - Selecting/developing a listening task using authentic materials; - Selecting/developing a listening task at the proficiency level stated in the curriculum; - Selecting/developing a listening task that focuses on measuring students’ understanding of the content of the message; - Selecting/developing a listening task that focuses on measuring students’ understanding and perception of the speaker’s feelings, attitudes, etc Task 2: Selecting methods, developing criteria and rubrics Following are some of the activities proposed: - Selecting methods that are appropriate and easy to use in the learning context; - Selecting/developing criteria/rubrics that are specific and easy to use or for reference; - Selecting/developing answer sheet/guided notes for the listening task; - Selecting/developing scoring/comment sheet for teacher assessment; - Selecting/developing forms for self reflection or peer feedback Task 3: Implementing authentic assessment Following are some of the activities proposed: - Teacher informs students of the assessment tasks at the beginning of the module; - Anchored in the assessment plan, teacher organizes a learning activity and uses it as an assessment activity (assessment as learning); - Students listen to audio files, watch video, take notes, discuss and answer questions; 21 - Teacher and students use different forms of assessment, feedback and self reflection to provide information about the assessment tasks Task 4: Evaluating Following are some of the activities proposed: - Teacher collects assessment materials for the listening task (answer sheet, notes, comment/feedback/reflection forms, etc.) - Teacher analyzes and evaluates the materials to make conclusions on students’ performance; - Teacher uses the information gathered to give feedback or comments on students’ performance, encourages information exchange and discussion between teacher and students and among students; - Teacher and students use the information gathered to make adjustments or changes to improve the learning of listening 3.2.3 Measure 2: Authentic assessment of speaking Similar to Measure 1, this measure also includes main tasks (developing the authentic speaking task; selecting methods, developing criteria and rubrics; implementing authentic assessment; and evaluating), but is adapted for speaking skill 3.2.4 Measure 2: Authentic assessment of reading Similar to Measures and 2, this measure also includes main tasks (developing the authentic reading task; selecting methods, developing criteria and rubrics; implementing authentic assessment; and evaluating), but is adapted for reading skill 3.2.5 Measure 4: Authentic assessment of writing Similar to Measures 1, and 3, this measure also includes main tasks (developing the authentic writing task; selecting methods, developing criteria and rubrics; implementing authentic assessment; and evaluating), but is adapted for writing skill CHAPTER 4: EXPERIMENT 4.1 Aims The experiment is conducted to: 22 - check the feasibility and effectiveness of Measure (authentic assessment of speaking) and Measure (authentic assessment of writing); - check the feasibility and effectiveness of the criteria and rubrics used to measure students’ skills of speaking and writing; - check the feasibility of the procedure proposed 4.2 Designing Following are some of the activities proposed: - Teacher and students work to design a learning project that includes authentic assessment tasks designed to measure students’ skills of speaking and writing Activities designed for the tasks would be conducted according to the stages described in the procedure proposed; - Teacher and students develop plans, criteria, rubrics, forms for assessment, reflection and feedback that would be used later for the speaking and writing tasks 4.3 Implementing - Subjects of the experiment: a group of 25 fourth-year English-majored undergraduate students from a department of a university - Time: 15/8/2017 – 13/10/2017 (semester 1, academic year 2017 – 2018) - Procedure: activities (1) developing authentic assessment tasks for the two skills of speaking and writing; (2) developing a plan for the assessments; (3) developing assessment materials (rubrics, forms for different types of feedback and reflection, etc.); (4) implementing assessment activities; (5) getting feedback on the assessment from students; (6) analyzing data, evaluating and making conclusions about the authentic assessments 23 4.4 Findings Following are some of the findings from the experiment: - The two measures used to assess speaking and writing in the experiment proved effective; - The assessment criteria, rubrics and scoring sheet proved useful, valid and reliable; - The guided notes, the forms of feedback and reflection, etc proved useful and effective; - Based on the information gathered, it is concluded that the assessment tasks and activities were authentic, collaborative and interactive; - Based on the information gathered from the students after the experimental process, it is concluded that the authentic assessment tasks and activities positively influenced the students’ motivation and attitudes toward learning; - That all the activities were implemented according the plan preliminarily proved that the proposed procedure was useful CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusions - The thesis builds upon the body of literature on the employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency - The most common form of assessing English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency is testing - Teachers’ skills of designing authentic assessment tasks, building scoring criteria and rubrics fall short of expectations - Teachers’ skills of implementing authentic assessment activities fall short of expectations 24 - Teachers employ authentic assessment in their teaching and assessment, but only this in a relatively informal way that does not provide systematic information about student learning or instructional goals - The current practices of authentic assessment not reliably reflect both the students’ learning process and their learning achievements - Teachers’ use of the results of authentic assessment are not up to the expectations of their students - The proposed procedure and the two measures used to assess speaking and writing in the experiment proved useful and effective The assessment criteria, rubrics and scoring sheet proved useful, valid and reliable The guided notes, the forms of feedback and reflection, etc proved useful It is also concluded that the authentic assessment tasks and activities positively influenced the students’ learning motivation The analysis of the information from the experiment proves that the hypothesis of the thesis is correct Recommendations - It is recommended that authentic assessment be employed in the teaching, learning and assessment of English-majored undergraduates’ English proficiency - It is proposed that authentic assessment activities be carefully planned and implemented according to the suggested three-stage procedure (designing, implementing and evaluating) - It is suggested that student involvement be focused in the implementation of authentic assessment - It is proposed that self and peer assessment be used in the authentic assessment process 25 PUBLICATIONS Đoàn Quang Trung, Xu hướng đánh giá giới số tồn đánh giá NLTA sinh viên trường đại học Việt Nam, Tạp chí Giáo dục, Số 376, tháng năm 2016 Đoàn Quang Trung, Một số cách tiếp cận đánh giá lực tiếng Anh, Tạp chí Khoa học ngoại ngữ, ISSN 1859-2503, Số 53, tháng 12 năm 2017 Đoàn Quang Trung, Đánh giá thực đánh giá lực tiếng Anh sinh viên ngành ngôn ngữ Anh trường Đại học Việt Nam, Tạp chí Khoa học ngoại ngữ, ISSN 1859-2503, Số 55, tháng năm 2018 Đoàn Quang Trung, Một số biện pháp ứng dụng đánh giá thực đánh giá lực tiếng Anh sinh viên đại học ngành Ngơn ngữ Anh, Tạp chí Khoa học giáo dục, Số 10, tháng 10 năm 2018 ... assessment of English- majored undergraduates’ English proficiency 1.4.1 Important issues in the employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English- majored undergraduates’ English proficiency. .. employment of authentic assessment in the assessment of English- majored undergraduates’ English proficiency They include the curriculum and syllabus of the English course, outcome level of proficiency. .. assess English- majored undergraduates’ English proficiency at universities in Vietnam CHAPTER 2: CURRENT PRACTICES OF INTEGRATING AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT INTO THE ASSESSMENT OF ENGLISHMAJORED UNDERGRADUATES’