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Nile Valley University
Open Education
Faculty of Education
Department of English
Lecture Notes
Fourth Level
By: Ustaz Karrar Mustafa Karrar
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Contents
Subject
Page No.
Unit One: Introduction to Language Testing
Definition
1.1 Testing and Teaching
1.2 Why Test?
1.3 What Should be Tested and to what Standard
1.4 Testing the Language Skills
1.5 Testing the Language Elements
1.6 Problems of Sampling
1.7 A voiding Traps for The Students
Unit Two: Criteria and Types of Tests
2.1 Validity
2.2 Reliability
2.3 Discrimination
2.4 Administration
2.5 Test Instructions to Candidates
2.6 Backwash Effects
2.7 Types of Test
Unit Three: Objective Testing and approaches to language testing
3.1 Subjective and objective testing
3.2 Objective test
3.3 Approaches to Language Testing
References
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Unit One
Introduction to Language Testing
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Definition of a test:
Tests, like examinations, invite candidates to display their knowledge or skills in a concentrated fashion, so that the results can be graded, and inferences made from the standard of performance in the test about general standard of performance that can be expected from the candidate, either at the time of the test or at some future time.
The difference between tests and examinations is in the marking. The marker of an examination must use his judgment, whereas the marking of a test is not dependent on the judgment of any individual. However, as Pilliner (1968) points out, the only objective thing about "objective" tests is the marking; the compiling and the answering of a test is necessarily just as subjective as the setting and answering of examinations.
A test is a measuring device which we used when we want to compare an individual with other individuals who belong to the same group. If we want to compare people for height, we use a yardstick; if we want to compare them in terms of their command of foreign language, we may use a language test.
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1.1. Testing and Teaching:
Both testing and teaching are so closely interrelated that it is virtually impossible to work in either field without being constantly concerned with the other. Tests may be constructed primarily as devices to reinforce learning and to motivate the student, or primarily as a means of assessing the students' performance in the language. In the former case, the test is geared to the teaching that has taken place, whereas in the latter case the teaching is often geared largely to the test.
Consider the effect of the following type of test items on the teaching of English:
Analyse into clauses, stating the kind and function of each clause:
We cannot go until we have finished these exercise.
When compared with the effect of the following item:
Rewrote each of the following sentences in another way but do not change the meaning. Begin each new sentence with the words given.
We can not go until we have finished these exercises.
When……………
The former test item encourages teaching about the language while the latter encourages practice in using the language.
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It can be argued with some justification that language examinations in the past have exerted a harmful influence on the language teacher and have considerably inhibited language learning by encouraging teachers to teach about the language. As a consequence, relatively few teachers sought to provide the maximum opportunity for their students to practice the language itself.
Fortunately, many external examining bodies today seek to measure the candidate's actual performance in the language, and in this way sometimes exerts a beneficial influence on syllabuses and teaching strategies. Yet, however much concerned a public examining body may be about the effects on teaching (i.e. the backwash effects) of its particular examination, the main purpose of that examination is to measure the candidate's ability to use the target language. The examination is thus primarily an instrument for measuring and evaluating performance.
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1.2. Why Test?:
The function indicated in the preceding paragraphs provides one of the answers to the question: Why test? But it must be emphasized that it is only one of the functions of a test and that furthermore, as far as the practicing teacher is concerned; it is perhaps one of the more negative functions.
Although most teachers also wish to evaluate individual performance, the aim of the classroom test is different to that of external examination. While the latter is generally concerned with evaluation for the purpose of selection, the classroom test is concerned with evaluation for the purpose of enabling the teacher to increase his own effectiveness by making adjust ments in his teaching to enable certain groups of students or individuals in the class to benefit more. Too many teachers gear their teaching towards an ill-defined 'average' group without taking into account the abilities of those students in the class who are at either end of the scale.
A good classroom test will also help to locate the precise areas of difficulty encountered by the class or by the individual student. Just as it is necessary for the doctor first to diagnose his patient's illness, so it is equally necessary for the teacher to diagnose his student's weakness and difficulties. Unless the teacher is able to identify and analyse the errors a student makes in handling the target language, he will be in no position to
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render any assistance at all through appropriate anticipation, remedial work and additional practice.
The test should also enable the teacher to ascertain which parts of the language programe have been found difficult by the class. In this way, the teacher can evaluate the effectiveness of the syllabus as well as the methods and materials he is using. The test results may indicate, for example, certain areas of the language syllabus which have not taken sufficient account of L learner difficulties or which, for some reasons, have been glossed over.
A well-constructed classroom test will provide the student with an opportunity to show his ability to recognise and produce correct forms of the language. Provided that details of his performance are given as soon as possible after the test, the student should be able to learn form his errors and consolidate the pattern taught. In this way a good test can be used as a valuable teaching device.
1.3. What Should be Tested and to What Standard?:
The development of modern linguistics theory has helped to make language teachers and testers aware of the importance of anlaysing the language being tested. Modern descriptive grammars are replacing the older, Latin – based prescriptive grammars; linguists are examining the whole complex system of
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language skills an patterns of linguistic behaviour. Indeed, language skills are so complex and so closely related to many other nonlinguistic skills (gesturers, eye – movement, etc.) that it may often seem impossible to separate them for the purpose of any kind of assessment. A person always speaks and communicates in a particular situation at a particular time. Without this kind of context, language may lose much of its meaning.
Before a test is constructed; it is important to question the standards which are being set. What standards should be demanded of learners of a foreign language? Should foreign language learners, for example, be expected to communicate with the same ease and fluency as native speakers? Are certain habits of second language learners regarded as mistakes when these same habits would not constitute mistakes when belonging to native speakers? What, indeed, is correct English?
1.4. Testing the Language Skills:
Four major skills in communicating through language are often broadly defined as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In many teaching situations it is desirable that areas of the language are first presented orally before reading and writing are practiced. Where this is the case, it is important for the test writer to include those types of questions which appear relevant to the ability to speak the language, e. g. questions
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testing the student's ability to manipulate structures encountered in the spoken language and to make the correct response to a given stimulus.
Success in traditional examinations all too often simply demonstrates that the student has been able to perform well in the examination he has taken – and very little else. For example, the precise (one of the important components of many traditional examinations) measures a skill which is more closely associated with examinations and answering techniques than with language used in real – life situations. In this sense, the traditional examination may tell us relatively little about the student's general fluency and ability to handle the target language, although it may give some indication of the student's ability in some of the skills he needs as student. Ways of assessing performance in the four major skills many take the form of tests of:
Listening (auditory) comprehension, which single utterances, dialogues, talks and lectures are given to the testee;
Speaking ability, usually in the form of an interview, a picture description, and reading aloud;
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Reading comprehension, in which questions are set to test the student's understanding of a written text; and
Writing ability, usually in the form of essays, letters and reports.
It is the test constructor's task to assess the relative importance of these skills at the various levels and to devise an accurate means of measuring the student's success in developing these skills. Many test writers consider that their purpose can best be achieved if each separate skill can be measured on its own. But it is usually extremely difficult to separate one skill form another, for the very division of the four skills is an artificial one and the concept itself constitutes a vast over – simplification of the issues involved in communication.
1.5. Testing the Language Elements:
Inorder to isolat