Since 2001, the Education Bureau (EDB) in Hong Kong has been promoting a shift from traditional assessment of learning to assessment for learning, where classroom-based assessment is linked to teaching and learning, with students taking an active role in the assessment process. In particular, secondary school students are encouraged to assess…

This paper describes an oral English course for non-English majors at a university in the People's Republic of China. In the first year of the course, the students were very resistant to participating in group-based speaking activities, and their end-of-year results were disappointing. In the second year, the teacher decided to involve the…