Speaking of assessment methods, many teachers immediately think of tests. Assessment includes testing but definitely not only testing. In other words, testing is only one of the different ways of collecting information about students’ learning. Testing is a single-occasion, unidimensional, timed exercise, usually in multiple choice or short- answer form. Testing is formal, and is often standardized, which means that everyone takes the test under the same conditions. In other words, everyone is given the exact procedures for administering and scoring, the same test materials and items, and the same norms against which the students are compared.

(1) Summative and formative assessment

Assessment is often divided into summative assessment and formative assessment. Summative assessment is mainly based on testing. It is done mostly at the end of a learning period or the end of a school year. Formative assessment is based on information collected in the classroom during the teaching process for the purposes of improving teaching and learning, therefore, it is sometimes termed as classroom assessment as well. Putting summative and formative assessment together, we will be able to form a sound basis for checking students’ learning and teachers’ teaching.

Different from summative assessment, formative assessment focuses on the process of learning, that is, on assessing how well students understand concepts, perform tasks and make progress during the process of learning rather than on the final product or result of learning. This type of assessment will provide more information on students’ learning during the learning process and will be more useful for teachers to adjust their teaching according to students’ needs and base teaching on the success or difficulties of students’ learning. Formative assessment should be an integral part of teaching and learning and it should not be threatening to students as a form of assessment. They will be similar to activities that are carried out normally in classrooms. You may develop your assessment tasks based on certain classroom activities and work out criteria to be followed when assessing students’ performance and do record keeping.

(2) Teacher’ s observations

Research shows that the teacher’ s knowledge about students and their strengths and weaknesses based on daily observations is more accurate and sound than testing ( Law and Eckes, 1995: 44) . Very often the teacher’ s observations of the learners’ overall performance or achievement can be quite accurate and fair.

(3) Continuous assessment

The final grade given to the student is not his/her mark on the final exam paper; rather, it is some kind of combination of the grades the student has received for various assignments during the course. It can also include the grades that the teacher has given for the student’ s performance or participation in the class activities. It could also be a written report rather than just a grade.

(4) Self-assessment and peer assessment

The students themselves are given the chance to evaluate their own performance, using clear criteria and weighting systems agreed on beforehand. Kohonen ( 1999) asserts that students are able to make quite accurate assessment of their own achievements. With peer-assessment students are involed in assessing each other’ s work. This will give them a sense of responsibility in learning and it can give them a good opportunity to become more aware of their own learning.

(5) Project work

Project work requires students to complete a set of tasks designed to explore a certain idea or concept. For example, to find out the different school rules in China and in another country and do a poster to illustrate the differences.

(6) Portfolios

Unlike traditional measures which tend to evaluate students’ possession of knowledge, portfolios aim to assess students’ ability to apply knowledge.

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of materials assembled over a period of time by a learner to provide evidence of skills, abilities and attitudes related to their study. As part of the portfolio process, students are normally asked to think about their needs and goals, and reflect on their weaknesses and strengths in language learning. Their reflections not only help raise their awareness for learning but also provide feedback to teachers, enabling teachers to be more aware of the students’ interests, needs, potentials and abilities so that teachers can take necessary measures to monitor their learning.