Looking backward and forward at classroom-based language assessment

In the past few decades, approaches to language assessment and perspectives on learning have changed. This article highlights those developments with the greatest significance for teachers and classroom-based language assessment, including the emergence of new perspectives on the nature of language ability and learning, use of an expanded array of assessment procedures, concern for the consequences of assessment, interest in embedding assessment in teaching and learning, and attention to the assessment of young learners. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of these developments for future research in classroom-based assessment and for teachers.