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have been taught. To know that the materials are perceived well by the students, language assessment is needed to be conducted. This subchapter will describe the
definition of language assessment, the principles of language assessment and also the types of assessment.
1. Definition of Language Assessment
Assessment according to Brown 2004: 4 is an ongoing process which deals with assessing students whenever they respond to questions, offer comments
or try out new words or structures. Russel and Airasian 2012: 3 define assessment as a process of collecting, synthesizing and interpreting information to
aid in decision making and its continuous part of classroom life. An assessment is a procedure for collecting data on what learners‟ can and cannot do Nunan, 2004:
13. It is conducted for some purposes such as; establishing classroom equilibrium, planning and conducting instruction, placing students, providing
feedback and incentives, diagnosing students‟ problems and disabilities, and judging and grading academic learning and progress.
Many people may think of the term „test‟ when they hear the term assessment because it seems similar but is actually different. A test is a method of
measuring abilities, knowledge, or performance in a subject. As a method, a test becomes a set of techniques, procedures or items that requires performance on the
part of test takers. By this definition, it can be concluded that assessment has a wider domain than a test. A test itself can also be an important tool for gathering
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assessment information. Brown 2004: 5 suggests the figure below to show the relationship of test, assessment and teaching;
Figure 1.
Test, assessment and teaching Other than assessment and test, there is one other term that related and
may cause a misunderstanding namely evaluation. Compared to assessment, evaluation has a wider domain because it is the process of studying information
gathered through assessment and of making decisions about quality of students performance Luongo-Orlando, 2003
By those above definions, it can be concluded that testing is one of the terms of assessment which includes the more formal collection of data on
learners‟ performance. While evaluation is the process of studying information gathered from both assessments and tests. In other words, assessment subsumes
testing and in in turn subsumes evaluation.
