Students’ reflections on learning English for specific purposes

Abstract

Active participation of learners in the self-evaluation of their learning and the development of reflective thinking are the key features of alternative assessment. Alternative assessment is often defined as any type of assessment in which learners create a response to an assignment. The success of alternative assessment in language teaching is predetermined by students’ performance which demonstrates what learners can do with language in contemporary communicative classrooms. This research aimed at investigating influence of students’ assessment of utility of various assignments for their linguistic development in English for Specific Purposes. The study employed a survey on the usefulness of different assignments and learners' written reflections on the perceptions of benefits to language mastery. Learners’ assignments included various contributions to portfolios such as essays, summaries of professional texts, outlines of oral presentations, creative computer tasks, tests as well as students’ written self-assessment notes, i.e. their reflections on various classroom activities. The research involved the students who study Social Sciences at Mykolas Romeris University. The results demonstrated that self-assessment was beneficial for learners’ linguistic development. The learners’ reflections reveal their attitudes to various assignments and judgments of their usefulness in learning. Reflective practice might help teachers develop ways of dealing with specific difficulties and improve the quality of teaching. Training learners to reflect on learning outcomes is beneficial from the perspective of lifelong learning.