There are a multitude of test types that foreign language learners have and will encounter throughout their language-learning career, such as standardized tests, proficiency exams, authentic assessments, etc. It is important for language educators to recognize how these assessments function differently. Do they measure performance (the ability to use language in highly circumscribed, controlled settings), proficiency (the ability to use language in real-world settings), or some admixture of both? Are students measured against a normed grouping of other scores? Are students measured according to preset criteria? Are students measured according to ability to perform a “real-world” task? Are the assessments formative or summative?
As indicated in the parent page of this section, whatever the response to the aforementioned questions may be, educators ought to strive to align their instruction with their assessments, such that the knowledge and skills engaged in the classroom are reflected in assessments. This page offers resources for better understanding the differences between performance and proficiency, as well as the differences between formative and summative assessments. It also provides resources for understanding authentic assessments which correspond with a communicative teaching approach, as well as further research into foreign language assessment
Proficiency refers to an individual’s ability to use the target language in all possible real-world situations, whether the learner has rehearsed a particular topic/subject previously or not. Proficiency exams typically measure whether an individual evinces competence in all categories of a particular level of language attainment (for instance, ACTFL’s “Intermediate-High” level), even when tested on previously unscripted subjects.
Performance, on the other hand refers to an individual’s ability to perform “communication tasks” that have been previously studied and practiced inside or outside the classroom. Performance measures what students are able to do with the target language when presented with prompts or situations that are to a certain extent familiar to them.
Source: ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024, p. 7.
*ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024. ACTFL, 2024
Formative assessment
The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:
Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:
Summative assessment
The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:
There is a growing body of research (see Florencia Henshaw and Maris Hawkin's book Common Ground: Second Language Acquisition Theory Goes to the Classroom) that supports privileging formative assessments over summative assessments. Partisans of this approach note the increased possibility of engaging students with feedback that can be operationalized. Moreover, they emphasize that formative assessments tend to turn assessments themselves into forms of input and interaction that help language students further grow their performance and proficiency.
*This information is adapted from Carnegie Mellon University's Eberly Center webpage "What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?" which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Assessment by 
Handbook of Second Language Assessment by 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.