CURRICULUM DESIGN

1. PLACEMENT ASSESSMENT:

The placement test is applied to know what level or course a student should be at; it is

always done at the beginning of each course.

Students are assessed at the beginning of each course and the results must be available

quickly. Also, they may not give their best on a placement test and feel confused about it,

because they are unfamiliar with the tests or formats, due to the fact that their language

skills are not adequate, as they do not count with opportunities to use it or simply feel

anxious, as the time available for evaluation may be limited.

On the other hand, this test focuses on the knowledge of the elements of language rather

than the ability to use language. For that reason, the evaluation must be reasonably accurate

because it is often difficult to transfer students to other groups once they have joined one.

Placement test focuses on the elements of language, including pronunciation, vocabulary,

and grammar tests. In addition, it consists of a computerized test in which students can see

the individual and they must answer whether they have knowledge of some words or not.

Therefore, includes interviews, role plays, listening comprehension tests with message-

focused questions, reading passages with message-focused questions, and composition

writing.

Test results that involve language use can be difficult to interpret, difficult to grade

and take a long time to sit down. Therefore, they may not meet many of the requirements

for an effective placement test.

2. SHORT TERM ACHIEVEMENT ASSESSMENT:

This test is used to verify if the students are producing negative or positive results

on the activities they carried out. The objective of this type of test is to verify if the students

are progressing daily or weekly. Also, it is possible to determine the result of the activities

given by the teacher. Therefore, it should not take up too much class time, but should be a

regular part of class activity.

On the other hand, students can record their performance on a graph each time they

complete an activity, for activities such as rapid reading, written composition, extensive

reading, and dictation, in order to determine the progress that the students have made and

also allows the teacher to denote who needs help and who is doing it well.

Furthermore, it is really important that there are clear performance objectives for

some of the learning goals, as short-term achievement will be more easily assessed. This

will generate a way to motivate students to continue working towards the objectives of the

course.

3. DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT:

It is used to know what are the weaknesses and strengths of students to help

improve and work on them.

The diagnostic test is used to find the weaknesses in the students' knowledge so that

something can be done about it or also to find what they know well and do not waste time

teaching. Therefore, this test is a very important part of the needs analysis both before and

during a course.
 On the other hand, the results of the diagnostic test aim to determine which topics,

activities, methodologies, etc. will be included during a course. Having said this, a good

diagnostic evaluation must be accurate and easy to interpret so that good results can be

obtained.

Although, the student's self-evaluation is also another possible form of this test. Due

to the fact it generally involves students working with checklists or scales to determine their

perceived areas of strength and weakness. Consequently, this test will help students to

establish personal goals for each course, since they will know what their needs are and will

take responsibility for trying to improve them.

4. ACHIEVEMENT ASSESSMENT:

Achievement assessment aims to verify if the students reached the objectives of the

course and increased their competences and manage the topics taught, because of this it is

done at the end of this.

The tests carried out throughout a course have the purpose of choosing students who

are not making progress and trying to help them. For this reason, this test measures the

achievement of the students during a course, the materials used during it, and the

effectiveness of the course as such.

On the other hand, proficiency achievement tests generally focus on a small area of

knowledge so that students are clear about what needs to be learned and so that a series of

short-term objectives can be established to eventually cover the area of knowledge.

Therefore, students must write more than one composition to obtain a reliable measure of
writing skills, although this is generally not feasible in the limited time available on this

test. Because of this, it is best to base writing assessments on various assignments done in

class.

Therefore, the achievement test is a very important element in curriculum design, as

it not only provides important feedback for teachers, students, and curriculum designers but

can also positively affect teaching and learning.

5. PROFICIENCY ASSESSMENT:

This test assesses the students' language proficiency, which means that if the

students develop the four skills well: listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

Proficiency tests such as TOEFL or IELTS sometimes wait for a student at the end

of a course, since they would function as a criterion reference test to determine whether or

not that student enters a medium-level university. Because of this, this type of test extracts

elements for the language test itself, not the course the students are in.

Therefore, an important benefit of proficiency testing is that they are a source of

assessment data for a program and represent an independent measure of the relevance and

adequacy of a language course. Therefore, performance measures favor the course and

favor the students who have taken it.

Although, TOEFL, which is used as a criterion-referenced test, can have a profound

washback effect on a language course that precedes the test session, as an environmental

factor can directly affect the course or even the course content because it resembles the

content of the test formats.