Local organiser: Alice Micallef, Directorate for Learning and Assessment Programmes

ECML experts: Karine Dekeukelaere, Belgium; Jana Beresova, Slovakia

Participants: 25 (language testers and examiners, item writers, teachers and teacher trainers, curriculum developers, language inspectors, policymakers)

"Alternative forms of assessment are key in current teaching, learning and assessment programmes in the language education area. They provide possibility for teachers and learners to work together in the language learning journey as learners become more aware of ways of how to evaluate the process of language learning. School-based assessment has been recently introduced in the Maltese secondary school assessment system and forms part of the final assessment grade. Validity and reliability of school-based assessment is an area that continues to raise a lot of discussion.

The RELANG workshop introduced a new module in its new programme on the area of alternative assessment and specifically addresses the theme of validity and reliability of such assessment. The workshop organised in Malta in October 2023 addressed a number of salient areas related to validity and reliability of alternative forms of assessment and proposed ways of how to organise and plan such practice at classroom level.

A group of 25 stakeholders from the state and non-state sectors were invited to participate in the ECML workshop. Item writers, examiners, teacher trainers and teachers were introduced to various aspects related to alternative forms of assessment practices to be able to critically analyse current assessment practices. The workshop also served to strengthen the area of professional development related to assessment practices in the FL/ L2 classroom at secondary school level."

Alice Micallef, local organiser, January 2023

ECML project website: RELANG – EU-ECML cooperation agreement 2022 "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning"