The well-known academic (and textbook writer) Professor David Nunan
ran a very successful STETS workshop on November 28 - 29. He also gave
a well-attended and well-received free public lecture on the preceding
Thursday evening. David brought together his academic and writing experience
in the one and a half day workshop on Developing Materials for ELT -
An Analytical Approach. Workshop participants explored principles for
designing materials; while these could be applied to the design and
evaluation of materials for a wide range of learners, at any level,
the practical activities in the workshop focused mainly on materials
for an upper intermediate level of proficiency.
In his evening public lecture on the day before the workshop, David talked about Performance-based Approaches to Curriculum and Assessment. The standards movement in North America, the Common European Framework in Europe, and competency-based education in Australia are all examples of such approaches. Their focus is on at least supplementing, and perhaps even replacing, standardised (and stand-alone) tests with assessment through such things as contextualised open-ended problems and hands-on tasks. David's lecture looked at some of the challenges and options for directly assessing learner outcomes in such curricula, including the use of records of achievement, observation, and learner portfolios.