There is considerable planning required to develop an effective programme for school-based assessment before any teaching can begin, including deciding on

• the overall goals of the programme
• the selection of texts
• the teaching and learning activities needed
• the selection and/or design of the assessment tasks
• the role of the students in the assessment process
• the feedback processes to be implemented

Before they can make these decisions, teachers need to know the strengths and weaknesses of their students. Teachers could look at the assessment criteria and reflect on what descriptors best match their students' current oral language level. They may even want to do some informal diagnostic assessment. Ideally there should be some discussion with the teacher(s) who taught the students last year. As schools build up their SBA assessment records, this will also be a valuable resource of information about students' achievements.

The long-term goals of the SBA component are to improve oral language proficiency and promote extensive reading. Short-term goals may include:

• Language enhancement goals
  eg. improving stress and intonation, extending vocabulary range, developing more accurate pronunciation, building note-taking skills
  
  
• Learning how to learn goals
  eg. developing self-assessment skills, helping students set achievable language learning goals, demonstrating how to record progress, encouraging independent reading choices
  
  
• Social/affective goals
  eg. demonstrating cooperative learning, developing student confidence and self-esteem
  
  
• Cognitive/general knowledge goals
  eg. extending knowledge of the world, deepening understanding of particular topics, developing student insights in human emotions
  

Look back at the assessment criteria. Note how some of these short-term goals (but not all) are reflected in the descriptors. "Teaching to the test" would lead to the loss of many valuable opportunities to use the SBA component to develop other important aspects of the English language and broader school curriculum.

To view Dr Chris Davison talking about planning teaching and learning.