Hi Alie

My institution teaches English to international students wishing to undertake post-secondary vocational training. They are scored against the ISLPR (International Second Language Proficiency Rating)

Our tests are for all the students - they all sit the same tests at the same time.  Tests are criterion-referenced and come with a detailed marking guide to ensure inter-rater reliability. They also go through a validation process by a qualified assessor to ensure that they meet the requirements of the Australian Nationally Recognised Training principles (AQTF).   After the test teachers meet to moderate the test � this is also an AQTF requirement.

All tests come with both teacher and student instructions (only in English) which also include information on scoring.  The scoring is clearly mapped out and students know the ISLPR scale

Our teachers come from different backgrounds and are not all native speakers.  Educational qualifications and years of TESOL experience vary.  This does impact on interpretation and to ensure consistency in marking we cross-mark a selection of each others papers to ensure reliability.  This is also catered for during moderations sessions where we are all given a sample of a paper undertaken by a low performer, medium performer and high performer and we all individually mark those papers using the scoring guide (without knowing the original score) and then we compare our results.

I did a unit on assessment for my post graduate TESOL qualification.  If you would like some references for your research paper please PM me.

Cheers

Jayho