Continuous+and+Comprehensive+Assessment

CONTINUOUS AND COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT A teacher needs to know where his learners stand in terms of their learning. But he cannot always wait till a formal examination is conducted. Learning, particularly at the primary stage, has to be evaluated on a developmental pattern, hence it has to be evaluated in a continuous form. Further, any scheme of evaluation has to cover all the learning experiences of a child. Hence evaluation has to be comprehensive apart from being continuous. In short, as the process of learning is continuous and comprehensive, any scheme of evaluation has to be continuous and comprehensive. Learning a language basically means acquiring the four major skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Of these four skills, listening and reading are receptive in the sense that the language learner receives information, knowledge etc., from the spoken or written form of the language. In other words, he/she understands and comprehends what he/she has heard or read. Speaking and writing are skills that involve production on the part of the language learner. Here the language user is using these two skills to communicate. Thus the skills of listening and reading are comprehension skills, and the skills of speaking and writing are expression skills. It is apparent that any evaluation in the area of language learning should take into account the evaluation of the learners’ competencies in all the four skills. Different types of test items are to be developed for evaluating learners’ comprehension and expression. In view of the above, an attempt has been made in this unit to explain the concept of continuous and comprehensive evaluation, as well as the ways and means by which the different language skills can be evaluated.

Education is a continuous process. Therefore, evaluation and development must go hand in hand. Evaluation has to be carried out in every possible situation or activity and throughout the period of formal education of a pupil. Hence, evaluation has to be continuous. By comprehensive evaluation, we mean that evaluation should not concern itself only with knowledge but it shall also take into account the factors that are inherent in students’ growth such as skills, understanding, appreciation, interest, attitude and habits. In other words, evaluation should cover all the learning experiences of the learner in curricular as well as non-cognitive areas. Let us now discuss what to evaluate in learners while we talk about continuous and comprehensive evaluation. Being a teacher, during the course of lesson planning you might have formulated the objectives in behavioural terms. These objectives are called teaching and learning objectives or instructional objectives. These objectives are the criteria against which you as a teacher are making a value judgement (evaluation). On the basis of the objectives teachers evaluate learners’ progress and performance. Evaluation should be carried out in relation to learners’ cognitive, affective and psychomotor growth. Cognitive growth refers to the intellectual development of learners (such as learners’ knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation). Affective growth emphasizes learners’ attitude, interest and personal development. Psychomotor growth deals with learners’ ability to perform some activity or do some practical work. Therefore, if you want the teaching-learning process to be really effective, you should evaluate the learners continuously and comprehensively. The main purpose of evaluation is to : i) make a judgement continuously about the progress of the learners; and ii) measure achievement of the pupils at the end of instruction.
 * Identifying learning progress of students at regular time intervals on small portions of content.
 * Employing a variety of remedial measures of teaching based on learning needs and potential of different students.
 * Desisting from using negative comments on the learner’s performance.
 * Encouraging learning through employment of a variety of teaching
 * Involving learners actively in the learning process.
 * Recognizing and encouraging specific abilities of students, who do not excel in academics but perform well