![[AlternativeAssessmentbyAlMahrooqiDenman.pdf]] - For example, according to the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction (1999), it may capture authentic examples of the achievement of complex outcomes by assessing and evaluating higher-level skills such as problem solving, reflecting, synthesising, and creative thinking. - Such characteristics include being nonintrusive, as they are often an extension of everyday classroom activities; employing tasks that are associated with meaningful instructional activities; focusing on both process and product; being sensitive to cultural diversity among students; encouraging transparency in the expected standards and in the rating criteria; and requiring teachers to engage with new roles in instruction and assessment - concerns about issues of subjectivity, reliability, and validity and the large investment of the time and energy that these forms of assessment often require from teachers. - Commonly employed alternative assessments in EFL/ESL classrooms are portfolios, journals and diaries, writing folders, teacher observations, peer and teacher–student conferences, audiovisual recordings, checklists, and self-assessments. -