"Assessment" is the process that a teacher/examiner conducts to measure how much a student/candidate has learned. e.g.

The students will be assessed at the end of the year. Assessment is done weekly. (Assessment is a process by which information is obtained relative to some known objective or goal. Assessment is a broad term that includes testing.) "Evaluation" is the process used to measure how effective a particular approach or method is to achieve specified ends. eg: The students are using computer-based learning this term and the teachers will evaluate its effectiveness at the end of the year. (Evaluation is perhaps the most complex and least understood of the terms. Inherent in the idea of evaluation is "value." When we evaluate, what we are doing is engaging in some process that is designed to provide information that will help us make a judgment about a given situation.) -It is the the process of obtaining and analyzing information. It concerned with making judgements. We must evaluate the new methods of assessment to ensure that they are valid, reliable, relevant and fair. Measurement Uses variety of instrument: Test, rating scale. Quantifying of how much the learner learned. Assessment- It is the process of gathering and organizing data. Methods of measuring and evaluating the nature of the learner Why Is Assessment Important? Assessment is an integral part of instruction, as it determines whether or not the goals of education are being met. Assessment affects decisions about grades, placement, advancement, instructional needs, curriculum, and, in some cases, funding. Assessment inspire us to ask these hard questions: "Are we teaching what we think we are teaching?" "Are students learning what they are supposed to be learning?" "Is there a way to teach the subject better, thereby promoting better learning?" Today's students need to know not only the basic reading and arithmetic skills, but also skills that will allow them to face a world that is continually changing. They must be able to think critically, to analyze, and to make inferences. Changes in the skills base and knowledge our students need require new learning goals; these new learning goals change the relationship between assessment and instruction. Teachers need to take an active role in making decisions about the purpose of assessment and the content that is being assessed.

- Assessment is important because of all the decisions you will make about children when teaching and caring for them.

The Importance of Educational Measurement & Evaluation

1. Student Needs o The most basic purpose of educational evaluation is to determine what a student's needs are. With proper testing and evaluation in the early grades, learning disabilities and handicaps can be identified and dealt with. Without testing, problems can go unrecognized for years. While educational testing cannot in itself be the basis for a diagnosis, it can point students in a direction that may ultimately lead to psychologist, who can diagnose conditions. Student Aptitudes
o

In the 21st century, there is much emphasis on specialization in education. In today's complex, knowledge-based economy, students must have specialized skills before they can have a successful career. The streaming of students into educational programs begins with standardized testing, which identifies student aptitudes and abilities. While standardized tests are somewhat controversial due to their potential for misuse, there is no denying that they can be effective in identifying intellectual gifts and helping students know the areas in which their talents can be useful. Education is effective when students improve over time. Without measurement and evaluation, it is impossible to know whether students are making any progress. Tests and assignments can tell teachers which students know the material, which students are trying to learn and which students are not trying at all. While evaluations are not perfect in determining student achievement (some students underperform in spite of effort because of learning disabilities), the progress in a student's grades over time can say a lot about where that student is and where he needs to be.

- Assessment is important because of all the decisions you will make about children when teaching and caring for them. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.[1][2][3][4][5] Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest known activities in descriptive linguistics have been attributed to Pini around 500 BCE, with his analysis of Sanskrit in Ashtadhyayi.[6] One subfield of linguistics is the study of language structure, or grammar. This focuses on the system of rules followed by the users of a language. It includes the study of morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words), and phonology (sound systems). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived.

The study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logical structures and real-world references to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. This category includes the study of semantics (how meaning is inferred from words and concepts) and pragmatics (how meaning is inferred from context). Linguistics also looks at the broader context in which language is influenced by social, cultural, historical and political factors. This includes the study of evolutionary linguistics, which investigates into questions related to the origins and growth of languages; historical linguistics, which explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at language processing in the brain; language acquisition, on how children or adults acquire language; and discourse analysis, which involves the structure of texts and conversations. Although linguistics is the scientific study of language, a number of other intellectual disciplines are relevant to language and intersect with it. Semiotics, for example, is the general study of signs and symbols both within language and without. Literary theorists study the use of language in literature. Linguistics additionally draws on and informs work from such diverse fields as acoustics, anthropology, biology, computer science, human anatomy, informatics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and speech-language pathology. Linguistics Scope and Objectives The goal of linguistics is the enrichment of knowledge about the nature, grammar, and history of human language. Linguistics is a theoretical discipline, akin to philosophy, anthropology, and cognitive psychology. It is important for prospective students to understand that studying linguistics is not a matter of learning to speak many languages. Linguistics courses draw examples from the grammars of a wide variety of languages, and the more languages linguists know about in depth (as distinct from possessing fluency in the use of them), the more likely they are to discover universal properties. It is also possible to pursue these universal aspects of human language through the intensive in-depth study of a single language. This accounts for the high proportion of examples from English and familiar European languages found in linguistics courses and research publications. The core areas of linguistic theory are phonology (with its roots in phonetics), morphology, syntax, and semantics. A grammar is a system of rules that characterize the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of a natural language. The properties of grammars are the central focus of linguistic theory. Because language is central to all humanistic disciplines, as well as to several social science areas, it is studied from many points of view. Linguistics itself cannot be said to recognize a single optimal approach to the subject. Hence, the courses provide a variety of approaches which reflect the diversity of the field. Phonetics (pronounced /fntks/, from the Greek: , phn, 'sound, voice') is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, orin the case of sign

languagesthe equivalent aspects of sign.[1] It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the abstract, grammatical characterization of systems of sounds or signs. The field of phonetics is a multiple layered subject of linguistics that focuses on speech. In the case of oral languages there are three basic areas of study:

Articulatory phonetics: the study of the production of speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical transmission of speech sounds from the speaker to the listener Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception and perception of speech sounds by the listener

These areas are inter-connected through the common mechanism of sound, such as wavelength (pitch), amplitude, and harmonics. Phonetic transcription The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is used as the basis for the phonetic transcription of speech. It is based on the Latin alphabet and is able to transcribe most features of speech such as consonants, vowels, and suprasegmental features. Every documented phoneme available within the known languages in the world is assigned its own corresponding symbol. Speech production is the process by which spoken words are selected to be produced, have their phonetics formulated and then finally are articulated by the motor system in the vocal apparatus. Speech production can be spontaneous such as when a person creates the words of a conversation, reaction such as when they name a picture or read aloud a written word, or a vocal imitation such as in speech repetition. A consonant is a speech sound produced by occluding with or without releasing (p, b; t, d; k, g), diverting (m, n, ng), or obstructing (f, v; s, z, etc.) the flow of air from the lungs (opposed to vowel ). A vowel is the sound of greatest sonority, as i in grill. Compare consonant (def. 1b). basically any letter that is an "a e i o or u"