Brown and Knight (1994) have stated that "assessment is at the heart of the student experience" (Brown and Knight, 1994, p.12). Thus, assessment should be regarded as an integral part of the teaching and learning process (Brown, Bull and Pendlebury, 1997; Heywood, 2000). Yet, in practice it is too often disconnected from it (Shepard, 2000). In trying to integrate assessment into the learning process, Biggs (2003) argues for an alignment between teaching, learning and assessment. This means that the teaching methods and the assessment practices become a part of the learning activities stated in the objectives. The aim of this paper is to ascertain the impact of innovative assessment practices on students' learning. The evidence to substantiate this claim is drawn from the author's experience of teaching Spanish as a foreign language to university students. From the outset students were introduced to new assessment practices that had been integrated into the teaching and learning process. The first part of this paper deals with the different assessment practices, which were incorporated in the course. The remainder analysis focuses on the implementation of this innovative assessment as perceived by the learners. Three moments of the implementation are considered: a) The beginning of the course: focus groups are used to ascertain the position of the learners regarding innovative assessment and their willingness to embark on this process. b) The middle of the course: each learner completes a self- assessment questionnaire, followed by a semi-structured interview with the teacher. c) The end of the course: a reflective writing incident is produced by the learners; its purpose is to assess the overall impact of assessment to enhance teaching and learning. Finally, the main findings from this research are presented. The pedagogical implications that this innovative assessment practice entails for the teaching of foreign languages to university students are also outlined.