Designing assessment tasks with language awareness: Balancing cognitive and linguistic demands

Abstract

In schools using English as the medium of instruction (EMI schools), students’ performance in assessments may be hindered by the fact that they are asked to express their grasp of the content knowledge through their second language (L2). Hence, teachers may wonder whether students do not understand the concepts or whether they are not able to read the questions or write down their answers. This assessment issue is important yet under-explored. In this paper, we first highlight some issues concerning the validity of assessment in EMI education. Then, we propose a framework for teachers to evaluate the cognitive and linguistic demands of their assessment tasks. Finally, we suggest some strategies that teachers can adopt to provide scaffolding for students to attempt challenging assessment tasks. It is hoped that with the theoretical framework and scaffolding strategies, students’ actual learning progress will be better understood.