From a broader view, assessment is considered a continuous and wide process of evaluating the students’ performance with the intention to increase and support the students’ progress. This might be done systematically or spontaneously. In class, a good teacher will never stop assessing. This ongoing process encompasses practice activities, observations, testing one or all proficiency skills, and tips, among others actions that don’t necessarily require formal grading. When assessing, teachers may observe, compare, and analyze in order to ask him/her self, “How was this performance compared to the previous one?” (Brown & Lee 2015, p. 489).

The Council of Europe (2001) presents many types of assessments, such as formative/summative assessment, direct/indirect assessment, or performance/knowledge assessment, among others (p.183). On the other hand, a test is an instrument that measures someone’s skills in a certain domain. All kinds of tests are formal assessments, but not all formal assessment is necessarily a test (Brown & Lee 2015, pp. 489-490).

At our language school, although an interview is conducted prior to the course in order to accurately gauge the students’ background in Spanish, our assessment plan also measures the students’ progress during the course to inform potential changes to the curriculum. Students will be taking a placement test to assess proficiency skills and vocabulary and grammar skills at the beginning of the course. The placement test will help us to assess more precisely on which level of the ACTFL / CEFRL the students are functioning at. Teachers will also be aware that some students might be in a certain level for some proficiency skills and another level in other proficiency skills, such as achieving A2 in speaking production but only A1 in writing production. This diagnosis will give the teacher a better idea of how to adjust the lesson plans as well as the syllabus. This test will take around one hundred minutes. Afterwards, there will be several formative assessments based on activities during class. Both formative and summative assessments have been conceptualized in the cultural context of the target language. As Graves (2000) states, the results of what has been assessed relies on the content of the course and how this has been formulated in the goals of the course (p. 210).

In this assessment plan, participation in class means attending, doing homework, and sharing thoughts in discussions during class. However, we are aware and respectful of all students’ styles of participation. Therefore, when there are shy students, the teacher will not force participation. The teacher will, little by little, pull them out of their comfort zone. For assignments, teachers will review assignments completed by students, and then really discuss how this review will give information about students’ progress to the teachers. Most of these activities will require meetings with the students in both group and individual settings, where the teacher will provide comments about the students’ strengths as well as promote positive washback and feedback as well at every opportunity. Teachers will do this by using information gained during interviews to restructure the activities of the class. Declaring strengths and weaknesses to students will enhance their ability to improve as long as this is declared in a constructive way, as some errors might serve as an opportunity for teachers to analyze them insightfully and use these strengths and weaknesses for further work (Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 497).

At the end of the course, a final test will be offered but will not be made mandatory, as some students may prefer to take advantage of the last hours of their lessons. It is also important to remark that when students are in the first stage of learning a language, they do not normally aim to take a final exam, especially when they are travelling. As they will likely continue travelling, there is a great chance their proficiency skill will improve after the course. However, we will still be prepared to offer the final exam in case some students request it.

Within the course program, we will also include interviews once every week which will allow us to amend the course in progress. Through a formative evaluation we will address some specific difficulties students might encounter while learning so we can personalize the class. The challenge we might face is that if students expose their different needs during the formative evaluation, we might have to redesign the course to a certain extent. It is important to be aware that students in class are likely to have different opinions and requests. The interview will address those requests, but we are aware that it might be difficult to accommodate each student’s request once the course is in progress. The formative evaluation in the table below contemplates students’ progress which could be addressed and improved. The academic materials could also be changed as the school possesses a variety of them. The academic support could be addressed through tutorial meetings and teacher performance in class. The summative evaluation in the chart is provided at the end of the course for further improvements.

Evaluating the course in a formative style gives a chance to hear the students’ immediate needs and provides the chance to apply corrective changes. Redesigning the course with a formative assessment would allow us to reconsider whether the whole course should continue as is or be significantly changed for the future courses (Graves, 2000, p. 215).

This course will be dedicated to preparing students to improve their Spanish knowledge.  During class, teachers will perform an ongoing formative assessment of their students. As this course will be offered to travelers, a summative assessment is generally not required at the end of the course. Instead, teachers will present a written report with the students’ proficiency levels based on how successfully tasks are performed. However, as mentioned above, a placement test is required during the first two hours of the course.

All in all, we are aware of crucial principles for all types of assessments. Brown & Abeywickrama (2019) infer the following principles such as Validity, which is a principle that advocates for measuring the purpose of the test as well as relying on empirical evidence through performance. This principle should offer concrete and significant information about the skills of the student. A valid test should also be supported by a theoretical argument that endorsed the rationale of the test. Another principle we take into consideration is Practicability, which is related to administrative issues that involve elaborating, giving and scoring the assessment instrument (a test for example). Taking into consideration the budgetary limits, appropriate time limit, clear directions to take and to administrate the test. Reliability refers to consistency in assessment.  A quiz, for example, should yield similar results in different situations with different students. Meaning that it needs to have consistent conditions, use uniform rubrics and should not bring ambiguous items or tasks at all.  (pp. 28-32)