REACTIO ON "Computer-based Language Asessment: Prospects for innovative Assessment

Currently having a computer at home is something essential, a cellphone is part of our lives and internet is the witness that we exist. In other words, technology has spread all around the world that it is unavoidable to be in this century without it. It has change old and new generations, it has modified behaviors and why not it has impacted education. Language is not learned or used as it was taught years ago, the internet and computers have transformed the way how people learn and use the language, the world has changed, we are moving forward and computers assisted language testing (CALT) is part of that.

Since technology is immersed in most of the education settings CALT or also called CBT (computer based testing) has raised validation it has shown the advantages of using them. Comparing with paper based testing (PBT) CBT is more innovative, it carries out multimedia like photos, videos, audios and links which allows the test to be more authentic, more engaging and visual. Moreover, the facility to get scores and delivering the test where it needs to be taken.

However, there might be some drawbacks with CBT. Some of them could be not to have a computer or internet access or not having enough familiarity with computers use. As a result, the test would lose validity because the student may fall not because he or she does not know to answer the test but because the lack of knowledge of how to use the electronic device. Other huge disadvantage which affects the validity of CBT is that learners might find easy to cheat or guess the answer. As a fact, the text will lose authenticity. Anyway, as Carr (2011) states it depends on the specific assessment situation

Despite pros and contrast using CBT, there have been gorgeous advances in CALT which combine learning and assessment. Some of them like: Computer-mediate communication (CMC), electronic portfolios, computer-adaptive testing (CAT), web-based testing (WBT) and computer- automated scoring (CAS) which allow having a variety of resources for assessment and communication, moreover, the possibility of adapting them to any context. To sum up, they change traditional models to more conventional, they reduce paper cost, it is easy to covey and gets results, they can be given and taking without mattering the distance and time, they can make teachers´ work easier and faster.

In my opinion, as a teacher CBLA must be part of our practice because we have students who belong to the technology word, where they are using electronic devices 24/7 and whose learning styles are far away from paper. Those computer-bases assessments programs are created to make teachers’ jobs more innovated. It is clear that not all teachers have the resources to apply them in the school context but I consider we should try to use them outside the school then.