ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present various types of classroom-based assessment (CBA). The authors discuss how different approaches and methods might link to individual learner trajectories as well as to external standards. They explore the kinds of decisions teachers must make in relation to assessment to ensure that what, when, how, and why they assess is congruent with their approach to instruction, the individual learners and external standards. The authors focus on classroom assessments that fit with an assessment cycle involving some degree of planning and emphasizing learning as a joint enterprise between the teacher and the individual learner through negotiated processes such as feedback and scaffolding, but are nonetheless accountable to external expectations such as curriculum standards. They consider research that examines the efficacy of these approaches in terms of language learning and acquisition, and they relate this research to K. Hill and T. McNamara's model of classroom assessment.
