Department of German

Approved Sept. 12, 2002

This document summarizes assessment policies in the Georgetown University German Department (GUGD). Originally drafted in the spring of 1999, and revised in summer 2002, these policies reflect extensive deliberations by the Department's entire teaching/administrative staff about the purposes for assessment within the "Developing Multiple Literacies" undergraduate curriculum, at both the classroom and program levels. In addition to these overall policies, assessment practices particular to each of the four sequenced curricular years (levels I-IV) are spelled out in a Specifications of Intended Test Use document for each level and in separate guidelines for the assessment of speaking and of writing. Also, guidelines that pertain to the development of writing and its assessment were separately developed (see Developing Writing Ability). Taken together, these documents are intended to guide not only the development and implementation, but also the evaluation and revision of all quizzes, tests, examinations, written and oral performances, and other forms of assessment which play an integral role in the success of the GUGD's educational efforts.

1. All assessment, whether formative or summative, embedded in the curriculum or independent of it, focuses on students' abilities to use the language meaningfully in various settings.

2. All students entering the program take a placement examination; exempted are students beginning their study of German at Georgetown University or native speakers of German. Placement test instruments and decision-making procedures are explicitly based on the unique content-, task-, and textual-focus of the Multiple Literacies Curriculum. Separate instructions and guidelines govern administration and scoring of the placement test and actual student placement.

3. Assessment is explicitly linked to curricular goals and instructional practices and emphases. In particular, in line with the content-focus of the curriculum, both content and language will be assessed throughout the entire undergraduate sequence. As a consequence, content is an assessment criterion beginning with Level I courses, and quality of language use is explicitly evaluated all the way through Level V courses. Furthermore, assessment, content emphases, and pedagogical approaches should mirror the performance and task orientation of the entire curriculum.

4. The Department emphasizes the clarity of assessment criteria, their suitability for the level of language acquisition and the instructional tasks of a particular level, and their appropriateness for the overall goals of the curriculum. Clarity, suitability, and appropriateness of assessment criteria are the basis for uniformity of grading practices. While all instructors share a responsibility of attending to these issues, special responsibilities fall to the Level Coordinators and to the Curriculum Coordinator. Recommended activities are: the collaborative construction of assessment instruments and procedures, cooperative exchange of documents which detail assessment practices in the various modalities for major task types and genres, recommendations regarding efficient and effective provision of feedback, scheduling of grading sessions during the semester, joint grading of the semester final, and feedback about assessment at the end of the year.

5. In line with the long-term developmental and cumulative nature of acquiring the curriculum's German studies content and an academic level of literacy in German, both instruction and assessment practices have a strong process and developmental character. Therefore, students have repeated opportunities for building up content and language knowledge and for improving their performance in a range of genres and tasks, particularly through planning and executing more extensive tasks for which they have received guidance, criteria for assessment, and feedback. Because of the developmental and creative nature of language learning students' sustained engagement with a course (e.g., via homework and class participation) is also assessed.

6. The complexity of language use requires multiple assessment sources (e.g., quizzes, midterms, final examinations, individual and group projects) and various conditions under which language is assessed (planned vs. unplanned, individual vs. group, interactive vs. non-interactive, scaffolded vs. unscaffolded, formally assessed vs. informally assessed). Because of the curricular focus on linking content and language in language use, both holistic assessments that gauge students' ability to attain broad communicative goals and local, highly targeted assessments that focus on specific aspects of content and language form need to be incorporated. The differences between these two foci in assessment and their use in particular assessment situations need to be communicated to students.

7. Ongoing course-based assessment as well as final assessment and grades for a course always combine three aspects:

- a criterion reference that emphasizes attainment of course and curriculum goals and maintains overall program quality;
- an individual reference that emphasizes progress toward a student's personal goals within the goals of course, over the period of a semester; this aspect of self-directed or jointly negotiated individual student performance gains and receives greater importance at the higher levels of the curriculum;
- an individual reference that recognizes students' level of engagement in their German studies; this aspect recognizes that most classes are comprised of students with a range of learner profiles resulting in differing levels and types of commitment and effort in order to attain the goals of the course as well as their personal goals.

The interrelationship between these foci and their incorporation into assessment must be clarified to students at the beginning of a course.

8. One of the goals of the curriculum is that students should become active and independent learners. Assessment can play an important role in attaining that goal inasmuch as an awareness of criteria for evaluation of different types of performance in various assessment contexts and the uses of assessment outcomes can encourage and enable students to take responsibility for their learning. Clear articulation and demonstration of what constitutes a quality performance for a whole range of tasks in all four modalities and knowledge of the use of assessments not only reduces the apparent arbitrariness of assessment (a significant source of anxiety, misdirected attention, and even resentment), but also enables students to establish realistic learning goals on their own, something that becomes increasingly important in the upper levels of the curriculum (and beyond). Such an approach enhances students' motivation, enjoyment of learning, and likelihood of success. The ultimate aim is to motivate students to continue to use German after they have left the University, perhaps even to continue to improve it under the right circumstances.

9. The outcomes of assessment are conveyed to learners in substantive feedback that goes beyond grades or scores. Such feedback is indispensable since it provides diagnostic information about students' language performance, guides future action by both instructors and students, and contributes to enhancing students' motivation to improve their language abilities.

10. Assessment is a vital foundation for the assignment of grades and for evidence about language development and levels of language abilities. This need to respond to both institutional and extra-institutional expectations and requirements grows out of and supplements the Department's emphasis on learning as a process..

11. The multi-section courses at Levels I - III, in their intensive and non-intensive tracks, conduct semester-final assessments that are jointly constructed by all teachers at the level. The purpose of these assessments is to ascertain:

- the extent to which the Level objectives and expectations were attained by students
- the degree of similarity in outcomes of non-intensive and intensive courses, an assumption that is critical for enabling students' to shift between tracks,
- the need for adjustments in materials and pedagogies, as well as learning and performance expectations, for the level/course.

12. Given the nature of the Department's curricular objectives, particularly the emphasis on performance in all modalities and the process approach to learning and assessment, student performance is assessed extensively over the course of the semester. In particular, the department has developed separate guidelines and assessment task sheets for task-based assessment of writing and of speaking in the sequenced curricular levels I - IV. As a consequence speaking is no longer separately assessed at the end of a course or curricular level. However, to assure continued adherence to the curricular goals all instructors must familiarize themselves with the principles, procedures, and practices for assessing writing and speaking and their impact on instruction as well as their relationship to semester-final assessments during the scheduled final examination periods and also for the assignment of grades.

13. All members of the Department's teaching staff cooperate fully in creating guidelines, administering tests, assessing language performance, and sharing information about test results.

January 1, 2003