Assessment practices in some language centers in public Universities of Ecuador and student proficiency outcomes

Abstract This research paper describes the variety of the evaluation process in three language centers of public universities in Ecuador. The main objective is to explore the evaluation practices that are used, their effectiveness in the teaching-learning process and the results obtained in English language learning. Researchers conduct interviews with teachers, principals, and students. In addition, evaluation instruments such as tests and other evaluation materials were analyzed. The study reveals that the students who achieved the highest scores are those who study in a language center which uses a more structured evaluation system. Therefo- re, the data analysis shows that there is a close relationship bet- ween student performance and the evaluation systems applied in the different language centers.