Performance Assessments

Performance assessments can be a great way to assess all students in your classroom, especially English Language Learners (ELLs). Examples of performance assessment include, but are not limited to, presentations, journals, skits, and group projects. Performance assessments give students a varied and authentic way to demonstrate what they know.

Here are some key features of performance assessments (taken from Standards Based Instruction and Assessment for English Language Learners by Mary Ann Lachat):

1. Measure student achievement against a continuum of agreed-upon standards of proficiency

2. Emphasize the importance of context through real-life tasks that are "authentic" to the learner

3. Focus on higher order thinking processes and how students integrate information and skills in performing tasks.

4. Require students to display what they know and are able to do by solving problems (performance tasks) of varying complexity, some of which involve multiple steps, several types of performance, and significant student time

5. Often involve group as well as individual performance on a task