Recent interest in student-centered and autonomous language learning have inspired institutions, instructors and researchers to explore the potential benefits of learner self-assessment. Self-assessment can be defined as a process in which learners not only evaluate their language performance but also gain insights into themselves as second language learners and users. In many cases, this form of evaluation is used in conjunction with more traditional measures such as written proficiency tests or language interviews. In others, self-assessment constitutes a stand-alone activity to encourage students to track and take responsibility for their own learning.
Self-assessment in language-learning contexts may take several forms and can be applied to any modality or level of proficiency. Many schools and government offices, for example, use self-reported proficiency questionnaires to place students in language courses and to select individuals for professional training opportunities. During coursework, student self-assessment of portfolio, writing, and other projects may be integrated with evaluations from instructors and peers to provide a picture of learning from multiple perspectives. As an approach to fostering students’ awareness of their own development, student language learning journals or diaries can help learners to identify successful strategies and to track their improvement during a course or a semester abroad.
Language learner self-assessment has been seen by some researchers as a natural extension of interest in learner-centered curricula and the student-centered classroom. Its proponents argue that such evaluation supports student autonomy and motivation in the selection of educational tasks and goals as well as a greater sense of responsibility for the overall learning process. For advanced learners in particular, neuropsychological research on expertise suggests that the metacognitive strategies or self-assessment and self-management are crucial to high achievement in a variety of endeavors.
Despite the growing interest in self-assessment, research has offered mixed results to date. Some studies have found that younger learners may largely base their self-assessments on teacher evaluations while other work suggests advanced language learners are capable of accurately assessing their own abilities. Studies that have compared students’ self-assessments with their performance on placement exams are even more split, with some suggesting that students overestimate their abilities and others concluding that learners’ evaluations match closely their placement test scores and are an accurate indicator of their proficiency level. Whatever the potential benefits of self-evaluation, considerable research remains to be done in this important area.
Suggested Readings and References:
Brantmeier, C. (2005). Nonlinguistic variables in advanced second language reading: Learners’self-assessment and enjoyment. Foreign Language Annals, 38, 494-504. A useful introduction to motivational issues involved in self-assessment with a focus on advanced Spanish L2 learners and reading.
Lally, C. G. (2002). Language teaching and learning diaries: French conversation from two different perspectives. Foreign Language Annals, 33 , 224-228.
Little, D. (2005). The Common European Framework and the European Language Portfolio: Involving learners and their judgments in the assessment process. Language Testing, 22, 321-336. A helpful overview of recent research on self-assessment as well as a review of recent European language learning initiatives that are inspiring experimentation by language programs around the world.
Rivers, W. P. (2001). Autonomy at all costs: An ethnography of metacognitive self-assessment and self-management among experienced language learners. The Modern Language Journal, 85, 279-290. This article offers an important review of neuropsychological research that is linking expertise in a variety of fields to self-management and assessment abilities.
Next section: Portfolios