ABSTRACT
This chapter reports a case study that examines the effect of the assessment-driven instruction on IC skills development among intermediate Chinese learners. We describe the details of course design and assessment implementation (including both formative and summative assessments). Drawing upon both descriptive and narrative analyses, the study tracked changes in students’ IC skills and lexical sophistication of language production. The results showed that, through the instruction, the participating intermediate Chinese students developed (a) the ability to use emerging linguistic knowledge purposefully for building text meanings; (b) the ability to analyze similarities and differences between text information and relevant personal experiences; and (c) the ability to refine their understanding of different topics by incorporating multiple external source information with personal experiences. More important, lexical sophistication analyses demonstrated that intermediate students were able to use academic and complex words to enhance content-specific learning skills. Finally, the chapter depicts affective changes of the students and the instructor, thus informing the future implementation of IC skills instruction and assessment.
