In education, there has long been dissatisfaction with evaluation which has been methodologically inflexible and uncertain or misguided as to its role (Alderson and Beretta: 1996: 1). That is why, stressing the idea of ongoing evaluation of learning goals by both learners and teachers is now necessary and becomes integral to a process syllabus. Further, continuous evaluation is the mechanism through which learning can become consciously experiential. It is formative and addresses all the components of learning tasks, language input, topic content, the affective climate, methodology and the syllabus itself. Involving learners in the evaluation process has developed impressively as stated by Brown and Hudson, 1998: For the past two decades, instructors in language classrooms have started to use various assessments in classrooms, such as assessment by learners and also by their peers

For many teachers, decisions related to the assessment of the students’ learning are equally an important task of their work. Such decisions relate to a wide spectrum of issues, including assigning grades to students, evaluating the suitability of textbooks, assigning students to an appropriate class in a language program and deciding on the design and content of classroom tests. Hence, in order to carry out these tasks,, teachers need more than access to different assessment techniques and instruments; they need the understanding of the nature and purposes of evaluation, procedures for collecting data and interpreting different kinds of information about the students and their learning. Additionally, instructors need to be able to make appropriate decisions about instruction and instructional plans that can have a significant impact on the students (Genesee, F. and Upshur, J. A. (1998).

Aims and Scope

This special issue comes to treat the above-mentioned issues and raise questions about the reality of assessment and testing in education. The issue addresses instructors at all levels and invite them to discuss the challenges they meet while assessing their learners.

The special issue welcomes papers related but not limited to :

1. Modern Views of Evaluation
2. New Approaches, Methods and Techniques in Evaluation and Assessment.
3. Self-assessment and Portfolios
4. Peer-assessment in education
5. Teachers’ Assessment: Dealing with Errors and Giving Feedback
6. Content and Context Evaluation
7. Evaluation of Materials
8. Curriculum Design & Evaluation
9. Program Evaluation
10. Assessment and scoring in Education
11. Assessment and online instruction