Educational Alternatives ISSN 1314-7277, Volume 13, 2015 Journal of International Scientific Publications www.scientific-publications.net GAPS BETWEEN LEARNERS’ PERFORMANCES AND TEACHERS’ EXPECTATIONS Jana Bérešová Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Trnava University in Trnava, Priemyselná 4, P.O. BOX 9, 918 43 Trnava, Slovakia Abstract The paper outlines a study related to the impact of regular teachers’ judgements of students’ performances, which resulted in a certain shift from the previous approach of teachers to judging their students’ performances (2008) to the current ones (2013, 2014). While in 2008, teachers overestimated learners’ performances, taking into account their experience from classroom testing rather than high-stakes testing, in recent years they formed their opinions more carefully. While classroom testing is based on an immediate reflection of material gone over in class, high-stakes testing measures the ability to use English in real life. The paper is based on the official statistical data and compared with the data achieved from the trained teachers. Key words: statistical analyses, classroom testing, high-stake testing, learners’ performances, teachers’ judgements INTRODUCTION Communicative language teaching focuses on both the functional and structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative view (Littlewood 1994). Language learners are expected to develop skills that will enable them to process the received information and produce an appropriate response. To be able to use a foreign language efficiently, learners need to acquire both a repertoire of linguistic items as well as strategies for using them in real-life situations. Canale and Swain (1980) influenced language testing by broadening Hymes’s (1972) appropriateness of language use (whether something is possible, feasible, appropriate in context and ever actually performed), completing linguistic competence with sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. The term communicative language ability provided by Bachman (1995) as ability encompassing both knowledge, or competence, and the capacity for implementing that competence in appropriate, contextualized communicative language use has influenced the practical development and use of language tests: the nature of measurement, the contexts that determine the use of language tests, the nature of communicative language abilities, and the nature of testing methods that are used to measure them. Many international testing centers provide various tests to measure language competence when language learners need to prove their language acquisition. Therefore current summative testing philosophy is related to a wide variety of assessment batteries that cover both productive and receptive skills, a range of assessment tasks, and increase attention to the communicative properties of tests. In the late 1990s, Slovakia as many other Central and Eastern European countries being involved in piloting the first draft of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (2001) started the reform of the school-leaving examination to change the traditional approach of testing structural aspects of foreign languages. This effort resulted in newly designed tests, officially recognized by the Ministry of Education in 2004. The reform was induced by foreign language teachers who were not satisfied with the imbalance between teaching and testing. From the very beginning, English teachers were intensively trained by language experts from foreign universities and reputable testing centers, mainly from Great Britain. Page 161