Black and Wiliam's (1998) influential article Inside the Black Box prompted an increasing
interest in assessment processes within the classroom. However to date most of this research
has been done in general and science education. This book reports on a detailed ethnographic
study of Indonesian as a Foreign Language classrooms at two consecutive levels of schooling in
Australia. Using the broadest possible definition of classroom-based assessment (CBA) and a
grounded approach to analysis data were used to develop a comprehensive framework for
analysing CBA. This framework was then used to describe and compare assessment practices in the
respective classrooms. The results demonstrate inter alia that how assessment was conducted
was as important as what was assessed in these classrooms.
