Self-assessment, self-evaluation, or self-grading: What’s in a name?

The ability of judging one’s own performance seems to be an increasingly attractive topic in foreign language learning and teaching research. Although there have been numerous studies confirming the positive impact of such a competence of students at various levels of education on the improvement of the foreign languageacquisition process, questions regarding terminology conventions remain and discussions continue. The aim of this article is, therefore, to respond to some of those questions, namely: What should we call this ability, self-assessment? Is self-assessment the same as self--evaluation? What does it mean to self-grade? This article provides an insight into the origins of the terms self-assessment and self-evaluation and their development in the fields of psychology and pedagogy, before focusing on their use in the area of teaching and learning a foreign language.