TASK-BASED ASSESSMENT IN THE ALBANIAN CONTEXT
Task-based assessment is timely, because issues of critical thinking and lifelong learning have come to the fore in discussions of the national educational reform. TBA is of increasing interest to teachers and educators, because of its emphasis on active, transferable learning, its potential for motivating students to develop problem-solving skills and in becoming effective collaborators. TBA has been widely explored and studied by many researchers in the field of English language teaching. However, there are few or no official studies that specifically deal with task-based assessment and its implementation in the Albanian context. In addition, due to insufficient data, these studies fail in providing a well-documented account of the present situation in Albania with regard to Task- based assessment model and its utilization in EFL classrooms. This paper aims to lay out firstly a general overview of this model of learning, and secondly it explores some attempts of how to situate it within the Albanian context. It’s a long and challenging undertaking, but we (teachers) should move forward and try these new experiences out, however demanding they appear.
Task-Based Language Learning
Task Design and Second Language Performance: The Effect of Narrative Type on Learner Output (Parveneh Tavokli & Pauline Foster ) (from 58:2, 439-473, 2008). Creativity and Narrative Task Performance: An Exploratory Study Agnes (Albert & Judit Kormos) (from 54:2, 277-310, 2004). The Role of Task-Induced Involvement and Learner Proficiency in L2 Vocabulary Acquisition (YouJin Kim )(from 58:2, 285-325, 2008). Teacher- and Learner-Led Discourse in Task-Based Grammar Instruction: Providing Procedural Assistance for Morphosyntactic Development (Paul Toth) (from 58:2, 237-283, 2008). Task-Based Interactions in Classroom and Laboratory Settings Susan Gass, (Alison Mackey & Lauren Ross-Feldman) (from 55:4, 575-611, 2005).
The New ‘U’
Today's talk about tenure must be framed within broader discussions about the role of the university. Our university system is now over one hundred years old, the “Old-Time College” is gone, the “cold war” university is no longer viable, and the foundations of the modern “multiversity” are cracking, so it is time to talk about change. But change is not necessarily reform, and resisting change probably will not keep things the way they are, so academics must understand the forces reshaping the university. Whenever I listen to colleagues defend the status quo by saying that the United States has a university system that is the envy of the world, I hear echoes of the Detroit automobile industry's casual dismissal of foreign competitors in the early 1960s. The decision not to change did not preserve the auto industry, and it is unlikely to preserve public universities as we know them. The current debates about tenure began with ideological attacks on “tenured radicals” who used their secure jobs to subvert conservative cultural values. The attack on tenure gathered steam as fiscal hawks in financially-strapped states looked for ways to save money and found huge state university systems with budgets to match. When asked why he robbed banks, the legendary Willie Sutton replied, “Because that's where the money is.” When asked why they are robbing tenure, legislators, regents, and administrators reply, “Because that's where the money is.” Personnel costs are a large share of university budgets and tenure ties the hands of administrators and legislators accustomed to using purse strings to control universities.