Implementing a learning-oriented approach within English Language assessment in Hong Kong schools: practices, issues and complexities.

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the multiple studies carried out between 2005 and 2011 on the Hong Kong School-based assessment (SBA), which was designed to implement an assessment for learning philosophy, and places the work within a learning-oriented language assessment (LOLA) paradigm (Hamp-Lyons & Green 2014) which is growing worldwide. The Hong Kong SBA continues to be used Hong Kong-wide to formatively assess the English as a second language speaking of all students in secondary years 4, 5 and 6. After discussing the structure and goals of this innovative assessment and its teacher language assessment literacy aims and processes, the chapter then discusses some of the constraints and issues, which have inhibited the degree to which the intended consequences have transpired. It points to compulsory ‘statistical moderation’, which undermines teachers’ trust in the new system; and to local contextual issues such as heavy reliance on ‘cram schools’, competition among school and teachers’ perceptions of fairness as being ‘the same for everyone’.