In recent years, many areas of instruction and evaluation have undergone reforms in response to changing theories of learning, teaching and testing. One 'such reform is that the era of testing has changed into an era of assessment (Birenbaum, 1996, p.22).This study aims at comparing and contrasting the traditional methods of testing and the new trends of assessment. In the course of this overview, the traditional testing model and its drawbacks have been drafted. This is followed by dealing with the contributions of testing and assessment to language learning through providing feedback to the students. It continues with the discussion of alternative assessment in the domain of language skills and attempts to form the theoretical basis of the current study on the effectiveness of alternative assessment techniques in language learning. Finally, report of an experiment conducted by the researchers will be given supporting the view that alternative assessment techniques can significantly affect students' writing performance.