Classroom assessments do more than just to measure the learning. What we assess, how we assess, and how we communicate the results send a clear message to students about what is worth learning, how it should be learned, and how well we expect them to perform. Teachers must remember the goal for classroom assessment is to help them find out what students are learning in the classroom and how well they are learning it. Apart from knowing the purpose of the assessment, teachers also should know how to carry it out and test it on their students. As we all know, assessment is a process of collecting, synthesizing and interpreting information and data. The data refers to the information regarding the students performance, competency, disabilities, and field of weaknesses. This data will help to assist teachers to do the evaluation on each of the students and also their teaching.

There are a few general ways of collecting data which include paper-and pencil ( writing ) and oral questioning ( speaking ). Paper-and-pencil methods refer to assessments in which students write their own comments and feedbacks of the learning process. The purpose is to find out about students reaction and whether the learning process takes place or not. There are two general types of paper-and-pencil assessments which are selection and supply. Selection or selected response items such as multiple-choice, true-false, and matching items aims to let students respond to the question by selecting an answer from the choices provided. Supply or constructed response items require the students to construct or give response to a question or a task. The length of the response may vary depends on the types of answer that students need to produce for example an essay question requires students to briefly write a detailed response. On the other hand a short-answer or fill-in-the-blank question requires student to write only a word, phrase or sentence.

The second major method that teacher can use to collect assessment data is oral questioning method. Questioning the students is actually very useful and important especially when we want to know about their feedbacks. It can used to review the previous lesson, brainstorm on the new topic or to find out the lesson is being understood by the students. Besides that, through questioning also we can make sure that students are paying their attention to the lesson and to be focus during the teaching and learning process. Oral questioning is actually very common among the teachers in school but they only ask question to know about their teaching and not focusing on the learning process. Thus it makes oral questioning method as not a method to collect the data but as part of teaching process.

There are few other techniques that can be used by the teachers to apply the classroom assessments. In the Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers, second edition by Angelo, Thomas A. and K. Patricia Cross (1993) there are at least fifty techniques that can be used but the focus is only on three kinds of evaluations which are course-related knowledge and skills, the second one is student attitudes, values, and the third evaluation is on self-awareness and reactions to instruction methods. Before applying any techniques teacher must follow the steps in doing classroom assessment. The first is choosing the learning goal to assess for example the goal of learning writing. Next is choosing an assessment techniques that are based on the three kinds of evaluation and the last step is to apply the techniques.

Through evaluation of course-related knowledge and skills students are being evaluated on their performance in academic skills including prior knowledge, recall and understanding, analysis and critical thinking skills, synthesis and creative thinking skills, problem solving skills and application and performance skills. The techniques that can be applied for example Minute Paper also known as Half-Sheet Response which is actually a review of the lesson been taught. The teacher will end the class earlier and ask the students some question on the lesson for example what was the most important thing you learned during this class? and then students will have to write their response on index cards or half-sheets of scrap paper and hand them in. usually students also will comment on the weaknesses of the teacher and what are the thing that they do not understand about the lesson.

Besides Minute Paper the teacher also can use the Muddiest Point technique. It is actually the same with the Minute Paper techniques only the focus is on what they didn't understand and what they think might help. The technique requires students to write down a quick response to one question for example "What was the muddiest point in ........?. By asking this kind of question teacher has limit the students to only commenting on the topic that they dont understand. The other techniques are Chain Notes, Application Article, and Student-generated test question. All these techniques function to let the teacher get direct response from the students.

The other evaluation is on students affective domain which focusing on their feelings and interior developments. This evaluation is important especially in classroom assessment because as teacher we should know that we are dealing with human being and it is very important to understand the connection between human which include dealing with emotion. The technique that can be applied is Journal Writing. Based on this technique, students can freely express their feelings toward the learning process and teacher may ask them to be specific, writing only about the attitudes, values, or self-awareness. The last evaluation is on reactions to instruction method. This method has several techniques that can help teacher to evaluate and improve their teaching to suit with students preferences. Among the techniques that can be used are Exam Evaluations, Peer Review, Classroom Observation and Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID).

In order to make classroom assessments success, teacher needs to plan everything in order and understand each of the techniques before execute it in the teaching and learning process. Teacher also can use different techniques to see the effectiveness of classroom assessments to improve the teaching style and most importantly improve the quality if learning among the students. The methods that the teacher used should be relevant with their own pupils. Assessments were done in order to asess our own pupils comprehension or understanding. It would not be the same with the materials used with other pupils.

In any part of language learning, teachers should assess their pupils based on their pupils abilities not by the criterias set by other people. The techniques used may vary from one to one another. These local based assessments will give us the reflections of the standard of our own pupils. From the results then we should think or assess our teaching effectiveness and how much does our pupils understand what we teach. For me this is very important because from that results, the teachers will reset their objectives to suit their own pupils abilities so that the pupils will benefit the most from it. Guidance should be given where necessary especially when testing oral capibilities of the pupils. Sometimes they need some sort of pushing from their teachers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelo, A.T. & Cross, K. P. (2007) Classroom assessment technique. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd Ed. Retrieved on25th March 2011 fromhttp://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/assess-2.htm

Airasian, W. P. (2001). Classroom assessment concepts &applications (4th ed). New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Airasian, P. W., & Russel, M. K. (2008). Classroom assessment. New York: McGraw-Hill

Brown, H. D. (2004). Language assessment principles and classroom practices. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Gardner, J. (Ed.). (2006). Assessment and learning. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

McKenna, B. W. (2007). Classroom assessment: What teachers already know and what they will need to benefit student learning. Retrieved on 25th March 2011 from http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=765018621&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=60729&RQT=309&VName=PQD