Abstract:

Assessment is one of the most complex educational processes that can be tackled from a wide range of perspectives, changing its focus according to aims set at different scales and meant to serve key-actors in an integrative system. As it is tightly knit with the learning process, assessment can take a multitude of shapes and, thus, tends to become an intricate web wherein teachers and students can get structurally and scientifically overwhelmed, especially if also placed in a new educational environment such as the online. Under these circumstances, one of the most successful methods of conducting an active, engaging and effective assessment is applying the gamifying frame which allows for both norm compliance and jocular competitiveness with the added value of flexibility. As such, the coercive, sometimes rigid standards of assessment yield to contextualized and individualized results, which are much more relevant to both assessors and assessed. Out of the commonly known forms of assessment, this study targets the instances of formative and ipsative assessment in the case of English for Specific Purposes students, the gamification element playing a major part. Gamified evaluation systematically accounts for students’ progress degree of applied language and skill acquisition (with formative assessment) while also maintaining their motivation at higher levels and improving their work accuracy and communication abilities (with ipsative assessment). Practical examples of the above mentioned types of assessment have been carried out with English for Specific Purposes students, examples varying form group projects, game-based and project-based learning activities, quizzes and virtual classroom tools to escape rooms and two-stage testing process, with rewarding results showcasing students’ language and communication skills improvement.

Keywords:

Gamification, formative and ipsative assessment, flexibility.