Based on chapters one, eight, and nine from Purpura's book "Assessing Grammar"

1. Assessing Grammar summary: Chapter One.
Language views (General
It is predominantly concerned with the structure of clauses and sentences.
Syntactocentric
This view defines “grammar” as a systematic way of accounting for and
perspective predicting an “ideal” speaker’s or hearer’s knowledge of the language.
approaches)
It focuses more on the overall message being communicated and the
Communicative
interpretations that this message might invoke. “Grammar” is treated as
perspective one of the many resources for accomplishing something with language.
It is based on a set of prescriptive rules along with the exceptions. It is
criticized for its inability to provide descriptions of the language that could
Syntactocentric perspectives of the
Traditional grammar
adequately incorporate the exceptions into the framework and for its lack
of generalizability to other languages.
It describes the structure of the language in terms of both its morphology
and its syntax, in which each word in a given sentence is categorized
language
Structural grammar
according to its use and the “patterns” or “structures” are said to
constitute a unique system for that language.
It provides a “universal” description of language behavior revealing the
internal linguistic system for which all humans are predisposed. Underlying
Transformational- properties of any individual language system can be uncovered by means of
generative grammar a detailed sentence-level analysis. This Universal Grammar (UG) has been
criticized for failing to account for meaning or language use in social
contexts.
 The most common practice of compiling linguistic
Katz and Fodor (1963) found that in
corpora, or large and principled collections of natural,
addition to encoding semantic features
authentic spoken and written texts. It shows how
and restrictions, a word also contains a
often and where a linguistic form occurs in spoken or
number of syntactic features including the
Corpus linguistics
written text.
part of speech (noun, verb, adjective),
 It provides information on patters of variation in
countability (singular, plural), gender
language use, language change, and varieties of
(masculine, feminine), and it can mark
language. It also provides information on the different
prepositional co-occurrence restrictions
semantic functions of lexical items, distributional and
such as when the word think is followed
frequency information on the lexico-grammatical
by a preposition (about, of, over) or is
features of the language.
followed by a that-clause. Katz and Fodor
 It challenges languages teachers to rethink how they
called this ‘the grammatical dimension of
view the content of a language curriculum and the
lexis’.
manner in which this curriculum is presented to
students.
Grace Cid Bustos
Verónica Sáez Zambrano
Diego Ulloa Iglesias

2. Context and meaning take precedence over
linguistic form. It typically describes features
of grammatical form that are used to express
Theories of Communication
meaning beyond a single, context-free Both have had a
Systemic-functional
utterance. Rather, grammatical form is seen considerable impact on L2
grammar as having a symbiotic relationship with syllabus design, teaching
meaning and pragmatic use, where each and testing, and are
influences and shapes the other within and credited for shifting the
across utterances. emphasis of language
Effective communication is not simply classrooms from a formal
perceived as a function of linguistic accuracy grammatical focus to a
or acceptable grammar to convey literal and communication-based
Speech act theory intended meaning. Communication must be one.
appropriate for the context, i.e. speakers
must have both ‘linguistic competence’ and
‘communicative competence’.
 It represents an eclectic, but principled description of the target-language forms, created for the
express purpose of helping teachers understand the linguistic resources of communication.
Pedagogical grammar
 These grammars provide information about how language is organized and offer relatively
accessible ways of describing complex, linguistic phenomena for pedagogical purposes.
 The more L2 teachers understand how the grammatical system works, the better they will be able
to tailor this information to their specific instructional contexts.
 Besides formal pedagogical grammars (and, of course, SLA theory), language teachers would be
advised to consult language textbooks when put to the task of specifying grammatical content for
instruction or assessment.
 These books not only provide descriptions, albeit less comprehensive, of the target grammar, but
they also inform teachers of the scope with which a grammar point might be treated at a particular
proficiency level or the sequence with which grammar points might be introduced.
Grace Cid Bustos
Verónica Sáez Zambrano
Diego Ulloa Iglesias

3. Assessing Grammar summary: Chapter Nine.
Defining grammatical At the moment of assessing grammatical form and meaning in communicative
ability language testing, it is relevant to provide teachers and learners with a more complete
assessment, taking into account the grammatical ability of the test takers than just
Challenge 1
providing information about the form or the meaning.
Theoretical challenges It is concerned to language educators who need to make comprehensible distinctions
about the definition of between the form and meaning components of grammatical knowledge in terms of
grammatical the test purpose in order to integrate these distinctions in construct definition.
knowledge
Scoring grammatical It is related to scoring form, meaning and grammar assessments and also how
ability language teachers need to adapt their scoring procedures to reflect the two
dimensions of grammatical knowledge. It requires the use of measurement models to
contain dichotomous and partial- credit data in analyzing test scores.
In scoring extended-production tasks descriptors, rubrics must be adapted to grade
Challenge 2
performance in form and meaning more noticeably.
Advantages and “The advantage of using complex performance tasks that are highly authentic is the
disadvantages generalizability of the inferences these tasks allow us to make about grammatical
ability”.(p.259)
The disadvantages are related to the lack of accuracy with which teachers are able to
infer what students or test takers know about grammar, taking into other constructs
that could be intended or no measured in such tasks by raters.
Assessing meanings It is concerned about the meaning and how meaning in a model of communicative
language ability can be defined and assessed.
The assessment of  The primary goal in grammar assessment is to notice if students are able to
Challenge 3
meaning in terms of use forms to acquire their basic point across correctly and significantly. If
grammatical meaning is construct-relevant, as a result communicative meaningfulness
should be scored.
meaning and
 Pragmatic meaning involves an amount of implied meanings that originate
pragmatic meaning
from context relating to the interpersonal relationship of the interlocutors.
 The distinctions between grammatical meaning and pragmatic meanings are
observable when L2 students fail at the moment of understanding how
meanings could be extended or intentionally confusing.
Grace Cid Bustos
Verónica Sáez Zambrano
Diego Ulloa Iglesias

4. Reconsidering To design tasks that are authentic and engaging measures of performance, it is
grammar-test tasks necessary to consider:
It is related to the  The assessment purpose and the construct that is going to be measure.
design of test tasks  To consider the kinds of grammatical performance required in order to
Challenge 4
provide evidence in support of the inferences.
that are able to
 After the inferences are specified, it is required to support these claims to
measure grammatical
design test tasks to measure what students know about grammar or how
ability and provide they are able to use grammatical resources to accomplish a wide range of
authentic and engage activities in the target language.
measures of
grammatical
performance.
Assessing the Ellis (2001) states that grammar scores should be calculated to provide a measure of
development of grammatical accuracy and the underlying acquisitional development of L2 students.
grammatical ability
 With limited or extended production tasks. Teachers can give learners credit
for and feedback by judging performance on these tasks by means of
“The challenge for
analytic rating scales.
Challenge 5
language testers is to
design, score and  Rating scales need to be based on construct and task based methods in
interpret grammar which the different level of grammatical abilities can be described
assessments with a completely.
consideration for
developmental
proficiency” (Pupura,
2005; p. 273)
Grace Cid Bustos
Verónica Sáez Zambrano
Diego Ulloa Iglesias

5. Learning-oriented assessment of grammatical ability: Chapter Eight.
What is learning-oriented assessment of grammar?
In the context of learning grammar learning-oriented assessment of grammar, is believed among the
educational assessment experts, that student learning would improve if assessment, curriculum and
instruction were more connected.
In reaction to conventional test, many experts have been working in new assessments techniques that
better elicit students’ outcome and that better connect to classroom goals, curricula and instruction. In this
process we find alternative, authentic and performance assessment, all of them seems to be the same, but
they have slightly differences. According to Purpura (2004) Alternative assessment encourage assessments
in which students are asked to perform or produce meaningful tasks that need both higher level thinking
and real world implication. Authentic assessment requires knowledge and skills where can be observed
some real life or authentic tasks, to perform these tasks students need some complex and extended
production, self-assessment is an important component of these tasks. Performance assessment refers to
the evaluation of outcome, which is derived from the observation of more complex tasks that implicates real
life situation. Self-assessment is required by making explicit scoring in a rubric.
The objective of learning-oriented assessment of grammar is to provide information about the grammar
students know, understand or are able to use in different contexts, and the repercussion that this
information might have for grammar processing; moreover, teachers can be provided with information
about what students feel about learning grammar and about themselves as learners. In terms of method,
learning-oriented assessment of grammar believe that assessment must be open to all task types, and this
include the use of selected-response, limited-production and complex production tasks that may not involve
real-life implication. Finally, learning-oriented assessment is designed to be an integral part of instruction, it
can occur at formal or informal situation, at any stage of the learning process. The data can be collected at
one point in time or over a period of time.
Implementing learning-oriented assessment of grammar. Considerations from grammar testing theory.
For implementing learning-oriented assessment of grammar some implications must be consider as design
and operationalization, and also test developers need to plan for and specify how assessment will be used to
promote further leaning. .
Implications for test design:
First consideration: in the design stage of a test construction, classrooms teacher need to specify whom we
are doing the assignment for, why assessment information is needed and what kind of information
(essential information to specify assessment purpose).
Second consideration: construct definition. Learning-oriented assessment aims to measure simple or
complex constructs depending on both the claim that the assessment is designed to make and the feedback
that can result from observation of performance. Third consideration: the need to measure the students’
explicit as well as their implicit knowledge of grammar, but also the students’ implicit or internalized
knowledge of the grammar.
Implications for operationalization:
The learning mandates will affect the specification of test task so can be better to align some characteristics
with instructional goals. Learning oriented-assessment of grammar promotes the collection of data on
students’ ability and methods in classroom, and also collects information about students’ attitudes and
Grace Cid Bustos
Verónica Sáez Zambrano
Diego Ulloa Iglesias

6. feeling toward learning grammar. This data collection can be taken one point in time or accumulated over a
period of time.
In classroom assessment design, the scoring process results in a written or oral evaluation of candidate
responses. At the same time, this provides learners with summative or formative evaluation as for example
feedback. Therefore, scoring process allows test-takers to discover themselves, positive and negative
evidence on their grammatical ability. The information resulting from achievements test can provide much
more meaningful and constructive guidance on what to notice and how to improve. Feedback and scoring
method can involve students; this can develop their capacity for self-assessment, and also develop the
responsibility of their own learning.
Planning for further learning: The test blueprint should include explicit information on how the assessment
plans to satisfy the learning mandate. Teachers have many options for presenting assessment results to
students. They could present student with feedback, a score for each test component, scoring rubrics,
narrative summary of teachers’ observation, etc.
Consideration from L2 learning theory
In implementing learning-oriented assessment of grammar, teachers need to consider how assessment
relates to and can help promote grammar acquisition. This will affect not only what is and how is assessed,
but also when in the lesson grammar knowledge are best assessed, and what the results mean for learners
to improve.
SLA processes – briefly revisited:
Research in SLA suggests that learning an L2 involves three simultaneously process: Input processing: relates
to how the learner understands the meaning of a new grammatical feature or how form-meaning
connections are made. System change: refers to how learners accommodate new grammatical forms to
their interlanguage and how this change helps restructure their interlanguage. Output processing: relates to
how learners access or make use of implicit grammatical knowledge to produce utterances spontaneously in
real time.
Assessing for intake:
This process is described as the first critical stage of acquisition, as the process of converting input into
intake. Students are given a communicative language classroom and are encouraged to use tasks in which
they must use language meaningfully and use comprehensible input as an essential component of
instruction. Assessing for intake requires learners understand the target forms, but do not produce them
themselves. This can be achieved by selected-response and limited-production tasks in which learners need
to make form-meaning connections.
Assessing to push restructuring:
Once input has been converted into intake, the new grammatical feature is ready to be accommodated into
the learners’ developing linguistic system. To initiate this process, teaches provide them with tasks that
enable them to use the new grammatical forms in decreasingly controlled situations. By attending to
grammatical input and by getting feedback learners are able to accommodate the differences between their
interlanguage and the target language.
Assessing for output processing:
Even though learners have showed explicit knowledge of form and meaning of new grammatical points, it
does not mean they can access this knowledge automatically in spontaneous communication. Learners need
to be able to produce unplanned, meaningful output in real time showing that the grammatical knowledge is
already unconscious part of their developing system of language knowledge.
Grace Cid Bustos
Verónica Sáez Zambrano
Diego Ulloa Iglesias