The Studies and Educational Context
Study 2: Student Perceptions of Assessment in CLIL Courses
which is an objective of his CLIL course, through these assessments. Content accuracy was assessed not only in a task requiring students to demonstrate understanding of the content but also in a task in which students needed to apply conceptual knowledge in explaining a new phenomenon. Other teach- ers examined content mastery using different assessment instruments, such as paper-and-pencil tests (tests in which students read questions and respond to them by writing or selecting the correct answer).
To summarise, in their CLIL courses, the majority of the teachers employed essay and presentation tasks that required students to research and demon- strate findings or argue their opinions. Through these tasks, teachers assessed not only language aspects of texts but also higher-order thinking skills includ- ing logicality or interestingness of ideas. However, some teachers voiced their concerns about assessing the quality of content, including the quality of research findings, ideas, and information from research, in essays and presen- tations. Moreover, content accuracy and mastery of the content learnt in the course was seldom assessed through research papers and presentations.
Although Study 1 identified a limited range of assessment tasks implemented by the teacher participants in their CLIL courses, it must be noted that a wider range of types of tasks to assess language, content knowledge, and criti- cal thinking does exist, as discussed in the previous section, Assessing Content and Critical Thinking.
Study 2: Student Perceptions of Assessment
content understanding as well as language skills should be evaluated through tests, presentations, and writing. A five-point Likert scale, where 1 indicated
“strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree” was used to indicate to what extent the participants agreed or disagreed with each of the statements. In addition, each section included an open-ended item where the participants could pro- vide the rationale for their numerical responses and any additional notes about their responses.
Student Perceptions Regarding Assessment on CLIL Courses
In terms of how students perceive they have been assessed in the CLIL courses, students largely felt that they had been assessed for both content and language in presentations, writing, and paper-and-pencil tests, although they perceived tests to have been used for assessment slightly less. This may be because paper- and- pencil tests were not mandatory, whereas essays and presentations had to be incorporated into grading. Also, the extent to which students perceived having been assessed for content and language was very similar for presenta- tions and writing, with slightly more perceiving they had been assessed for content than language in both. For tests however, the difference was greater, with 60% overall agreement that they had been assessed for language in tests compared to 71% overall agreement for content (Fig. 1).
In this section of the questionnaire inquiring on the assessment methods employed in CLIL, 124 students provided written responses. Among them, 33 mentioned that both language and content were evaluated through- out CLIL:
• Both content and grammar were evaluated in every evaluation method. (S108)
• Both content and language were included in the criteria for both presenta- tions and essays. (S58)
• Tests and presentations evaluated content, and writing evaluated language skills in addition to content. (S68)
Comments suggest that the principle of dual assessment in CLIL (e.g., Ball et al., 2015) appears to be have been realised in the CLIL courses at least from students’ perspective. Their written responses also reveal that the students were evaluated through different methods, including tests, presentations, and
writing and that the teachers evaluated students’ performance with these methods in terms of both content and language skills.
Although 33 students reported that both content and language were assessed using various methods, 13 written responses revealed that some stu- dents felt the emphasis in assessment was on content rather than language skills:
• Tests, presentations, and essays were all based highly on understanding of the content. (S50)
• Content was emphasised more than grammar. (S79)
• The main evaluation was the content. (S8)
Although strong emphasis on the content in assessment may be appropriate for content-driven CLIL (Ball et al., 2015), it is a concern in language-driven CLIL because these respondents might focus primarily on demonstrating content mastery rather than linguistic elements learnt in the course during assessment. This may influence how students prepare for the assessments
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Writing was used to evaluate language skills
Writing was used to evaluate understanding of content Presentations were used to evaluate language skills Presentations were used to evaluate understanding of content
Tests were administered to evaluate language skills Tests were administered to evaluate understanding of content
Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree
Fig. 1 Perceived methods of assessment in CLIL
(Sato, 2019); that is, they might make little effort to improve their language skills during preparation against teachers’ intention.
Student Opinions Regarding Assessment in CLIL Courses As can be seen from Fig. 2, overall, students have a preference for being assessed for understanding of content through presentations and writing, for which the results were broadly similar, over tests. For tests, it is notable that there was more strong disagreement and less strong agreement from students that they should be used in comparison to presentations and writing. This suggests that assessment tasks measuring students’ content knowledge pro- posed by the CLIL literature, including a keyword approach (Lin, 2016), may be perceived less appropriate by students. In contrast, open-ended response tests (see Genesee & Hamayan, 2016) may be regarded as suitable by students to demonstrate their content knowledge.
As for how students feel about being assessed for language in CLIL, in a similar way to content, it can be seen in Fig. 3 that students have a clear pref- erence for evaluation being done through presentations or writing rather than paper-and-pencil tests. This result is in line with Gorsuch and Griffee (2018) in that performance-based assessment, which measures the ability to perform
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Understanding of content should be evaluated through writing
Understanding of content should be evaluated through presentations
Understanding of content should be evaluated through tests
Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree
Fig. 2 Students’ opinions on evaluation methods for content in CLIL
productive language tasks, is generally preferred by students over standardised tests and teacher-made examinations. As they claim, feedback on performance or multiple drafts for writing assignments may motivate students. When con- tent and language assessment methods are compared, it is evident that slightly more students indicated agreement that they should be assessed for language in CLIL through presentations and writing (e.g., 72.2% overall agreement that language skills should be evaluated through presentations compared to 65% in terms of understanding of content). In contrast, fewer students believe they should be assessed for language skills in tests (50% overall agreement) than for content in tests (53%).
In the section of the questionnaire soliciting students’ opinions on evalua- tion methods in CLIL, 126 students provided written responses regarding their opinions about how their performance in terms of language and content should be assessed in the CLIL course. Among those 126 students, the most common response concerned their preference of presentations and essays to paper-and-pencil tests. These responses taken together show that the students believe that presentations and writing should be employed to assess both the students’ language proficiency and understanding of content:
• Presentations and essays are more appropriate than tests to evaluate how well students have understood the course content. (S170)
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Language skills should be evaluated through writing Language skills should be evaluated through presentations
Language skills should be evaluated through tests
Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree
Fig. 3 Students’ opinions on evaluation methods for language in CLIL
• Language skills should be evaluated based on the abilities to express the students’ own opinions and ideas about the given topic through essays and presentations. (S120)
Some of the responses indicate that the reasons for their preference of presen- tations and writing over tests are based on the opportunity to put language into use, which they seem to value.
• I think it is important to use the language skills through writing and speak- ing. (S179)
• Presentations and essays are more practical and useful in the future than tests. (S182)
Students’ perspectives on what assessment methods should be used must not determine teachers’ selection of methods. However, it must be noted that the students’ perception of assessment methods has an impact on their perfor- mance on the test. If students perceive that the test does not measure what it intends to measure, they do not try hard to demonstrate the ability measured by the test (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2019).
Also, the responses from a further 18 students showed that they believe that various methods should be employed to evaluate their performance on both content and language in the CLIL course:
• Both understanding of the content and language skills should be evaluated from different aspects. (S214)
• It is the best that students are evaluated in a well-balanced way. (S216)
• Tests, presentations, and essays are all important, so we should have all of them. (S233)
To summarise, it seems that students recognise a content-based approach in CLIL courses and are generally comfortable with being assessed on those courses for both content and language. Written responses from the students also revealed that they agree that both understanding of the content and lan- guage skills should be evaluated using multiple methods including presenta- tions and writing, although there was slight preference towards presentations and writing over tests.