ИСТИНА

This research focuses on various methods of foreign language skills assessment in higher education. While national systems of assessment are rapidly developing at the secondary level, accountability and quality assurance in higher education has caused much concern to scholars in different parts of the world (Russia, Japan, Australia, Singapore, the UK and the USA). The paper looks at several methods of evaluation in higher education, including standardized testing and continuous assessment, and tries to balance them in the context of modern higher education to correspond with the national and university curricula and standards, and preserve the university autonomy and academic freedom and diversity of faculty. The outcome is an institutional policy, which is a combination of standardized tests to ensure graduates’ compliance with minimal requirements and course-specific continuous assessment methods reviewed and implemented in the process of consensus moderation (Sadler, 2009; Nulty, 2011) through an integrated electronic assessment system.