A language course can only deal with a small fraction of the foreign language, therefore one objective of language courses should be to teach learners how to carry on learning the language independently. Part of the training learners need for this purpose is training in self-assessment and self-monitoring. (Dickinson & Carver, 1980, p. 7)

 

We use the term authentic assessment to describe the multiple forms of assessment that reflect student learning, achievement, motivation, and attitudes on instructionally-relevant classroom activities. Examples of authentic assessment include performance assessment, portfolios, and student self-assessment. (O'Malley, J. M. & Valdez-Pierce, L. (1996) Authentic Assessment for English Language Teachers. USA: Addison Wesley Longman, p.4.)

It is quite possible that the deepest, most satisfying aspects of achievement, and the most profound effects of education, both in positive and negative terms, are entirely unmeasurable … What if we held educators accountable for the quality of the memories they gave to their students, rather than for averages on national tests? (Lier, L. Van (1996). Interaction in the Language Classroom. Harlow: Longman p.120.)

What we need is a theory which guides and predicts how an underlying communicative competence is manifested in actual performance; how situations are related to one another, how competence can be assessed by examples of performance on actual tests; what components communicative competence actually has; and how these interrelate. Since such definitive theories do not exist, testers have to do the best they can with such theories as are available. (Skehan, 1988, cited in Weir, 1998, p. 7)

Testing which continues to concentrate on the "target-like appearance of forms" (Larsen-Freeman, 1997, p. 155) ignores the fact that "we have no mechanism for deciding which of the phenomena described or reported to be carried out by the learner are in fact those that lead to language acquisition" (Seliger, 1984, p. 37), as swell as the fact that the learner's internal grammar is not a steady commodity and often deteriorates prior to internalizing new content. Even if we could  identify and measure all of the factors in second language acquisition, complexity theory tells us that "we would still be unable to predict the outcome of their combination" (Larsen-Freeman, 1997, p. 157).

The notion that learning comes about by the accretion of little bits is outmoded learning theory. Current models of learning based on cognitive psychology contend that learners gain understanding when they construct their own cognitive maps of the interconnections among concepts and facts. Thus, real learning cannot be spoon-fed, one skill at a time. (Shepard, 1989, pp. 5-6).
 

Haughton & Dickinson (1989) (cited in Miller & Ng, 1996, p. 135) set out to test nine hypotheses about peer assessment in their study of a collaborative post-writing assessment. Five of these hypotheses (items 1 to 5, below) dealt with the practicality of peer assessment, and four (6 to 9) with the benefits of the scheme:  

  1. Students are sincere and do not use the scheme as a means of obtaining higher grades than they themselves think they deserve.  
  2. Students are or become able to assess themselves at about the same level as their tutors, i.e. they can interpret the criteria in the same way.  
  3. Students are or become able to negotiate with tutors on the appropriate level of criteria.  
  4. Students are or become able to negotiate grades in a meaningful and satisfying manner.
  5. The scheme does not result in a lowering of standards on the course.
  6. Students perceive collaborative assessment as fairer than other (traditional) forms of  assessment.
  7. Students benefit in enhanced understanding of and attitude towards assessment.
  8. Students become more self-directed as a result.
  9. The scheme demands more thoroughly worked out criteria of assessment and hence results in fairer assessment.

 

Language students are able to make a realistic assessment of each others' oral language ability. (Miller & Ng, 1996, p. 142) 

 

Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue. (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit)


Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. (W. B. Yeats)


The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. (R. M. Hutchins)


The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men. (Bill Beattie)


The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and how to change (Rogers, 1969, p. 120)