COMPUTER-BASED FOREIGN LANGUAGE EXTERNAL ASSESSMENT IN THE ESTONIAN CONTEXT – OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES Kristel Kriisa Foundation Innove
In the globalised world where everyone is expected to speak at least one foreign language in addition to their mother tongue, the ways of evaluating people’s foreign language skills are becoming increasingly important. At the same time, rapid technological developments, as well as a recent worldwide pandemic have led to innovative approaches to how language tests are prepared, administered, assessed and analysed. This has also been the case in Estonia. Up until now, the foreign language tests used in external assessment in Estonia (e.g. national standardised tests and exams) have been traditional paper-based (PB) tests, which have been produced following ALTE Minimum Standards as well as EALTA Guidelines for Good Practice in Language Testing and Assessment. The Year 9 and 12 examinations are linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and measure all four basic language skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing. To implement the Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy, the Ministry of Education and Research initiated the Digital Turn programme where it is stated that computer-based (CB) assessment would create “more and easier opportunities for schools to make use of assessment results in teaching and to measure different types of knowledge and skills” (HTM, 2018). Based on the above, CB standardised tests and CB exams will soon be developed and introduced. The Ministry wants to develop CB foreign language tests that measure all the four skills and are prepared, administered and assessed in the Examination Information System (EIS). Test results can be accessed by different stakeholders (e.g. students, parents, teachers, school management, school administrators, ministry, testing organisation) and should help them make decisions concerning teaching, learning and assessment processes. In 2017, the Ministry and Foundation Innove started cooperating closely to establish an e-assessment system for foreign languages. A document giving an overview of this innovative approach in foreign language assessment was developed in collaboration with several foreign language experts. It concluded, firstly, that students should receive more systematic feedback on the progress of their foreign language learning, and secondly, that CB tests to evaluate as well as indirectly support students’ foreign language learning pathways should be available at the end of Years 6, 9 and 12. Although students’ foreign language proficiency has been evaluated externally in Estonia for more than 20 years, the number of people who can be considered experts in the field of foreign language assessment is relatively small and not many national studies have been carried out in the field. Therefore, a master’s thesis in educational technology was written at Tallinn University in 2019 (Kriisa, 2019), which studied the suitability of CB tests for implementation in the national external evaluation system based on the first pilot CB test in English. Another master’s thesis will be written next year to analyse how CB tests could be used in the Estonian context to evaluate students’ speaking skills. Overview of pilot tests Since 2018, five different CB tests in English have been piloted. Interest in the pilot tests has been remarkable and in total 2,102 students from 81 schools have taken part in the pilot sessions. Three of the tests were at A2 level, one was at B1 level and one was a bilevel (B1/B2) test. Four of the
