Our Story
We, in the SBLA Lab, believe that second and foreign language (SFL) assessment (and pedagogy for that matter) should endeavor to mirror the kinds of meaningful contextualized activities we engage in in real life--that is, the kinds of activities we need to be successful in in home, school, and work situations. For example, we, as SFL learners, might need to "read an online forum and contribute to the discussion" or "work with peers to generate and deliver an online presentation" or just "maintain and nourish relationships with friends over a meal." These language use contexts, for SFL learners, require more than being passive participants; they require the ability to marshal a complex range of resources in order to be fully contributing members of the group. For example, they involve the ability to use language accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately to communicate ideas, and to achieve overall communicative goals. They also require the ability to process what others have to say, even when some words are new or unfamiliar, so that we can respond and share our own ideas. And they require the ability to be courageous by asking others to repeat or explain.
Given this backdrop, the SBLA lab is interested in designing assessments that will measure students' ability use a range of linguistic and non-linguistic resources in order collaboratively solve problems or make decisions with others as a fully engaged member of the group. These assessments are situated within "scenarios," involving an internally consistent set of naturally-occurring, imagined scenes or events in which characters have to engage a full range of mental, social, and dispositional resources to carry out actions and interact with each other until they bring the overarching scenario goal to conclusion. Scenarios are flexible in that, similar to real life, just about anything can be engineered into the assessment design.
Given that scenarios provide a context in which examinees need to engage in, display, develop, and coordinate a range of topical, linguistic, sociocultural, socio-cognitive, dispositional, and other resources while moving through the scenario narrative with peers, we assume that they will come away with new understandings and insights as a result of assessment protocol.
We believe that SFL assessment in this context provides all the design elements to move SFL assessment beyond measures of SFL proficiency to measures of "Situated SFL Proficiency," and that the assessments are intrinsically "Learning-Oriented."