Chapter 3 DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

Chapter 3 DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

CRITICAL QUESTION TO START DESIGNING A TEST

1. What is the purpose of the test?
- What are you creating this test, or why was it created by a textbook writer?
- What is its significance relative to your course (for example, to evaluate overall proficiency or place a student in a course)?
- How important is the test compared to other student performance?
- What will its impact be on you and your students before and after the assessment?

2. What are the objectives of the test?
- What exactly are you trying to find out?
- What language knowledge and/or skills are you assessing?

3. How the test specifications reflect both the purpose and the objectives?
- To design or evaluate test, you must make sure that the test has a structure that logically follows from the unit or lesson it is testing.
- The class objectives should be present in the test through appropriate task types and weights, a logical sequence, and a variety of tasks.

4. How will the test tasks be selected and the separate items arranged?
- The test tasks need to be practical.
- For the test to be valid, they should also mirror tasks of the course, lesson or segment.
- They should be authentic (i.e reflect real-world languge use).
- The tasks must reliably by the teacher.

5. What kinds of scoring, grading, and/or feedback expected?
- The appropriate form of feedback on tests will vary, depending on the purpose.
- For every test, the way results are reported is an important consideration.
- Under some circumstances, a letter grade or score may be appropriate.
- Other circumstances may require that the teacher provide detailed feedback to the student.

TYPES OF TEST

1. Language aptitude tests
- A language aptitude test is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language and ultimate success in that undertaking. Language aptitude tests are ostensibly designed to apply to the classroom learning of any language (Brown, 2004)
- To predict a person’s future success in learning a (any) foreign language.
- Taken before actual learning
Task in the modern language aptitude test
a. Number learning: Examinees must learn a set of numbers through aural input and then discriminate different combination of these numbers.
b. Phonetic script: Examinees must learn a set of correspondences between speech soundsand phonetic symbols.
c. Spelling clues: Examinees must read that are spelled somewhat phonetically, and then select from a list the one word whose meaning is closest to the “disguised” word.
d. Words in sentence: Examinees are given a key word in a sentence and are then asked to select a word in a second sentence that performs the same grammatical function the key word.
e. Paired associates: Examinees must quickly learn a set of vocabulary words from another language and memorize their English meaning.

2. Proficiency tests
- A proficiency test is not limited to any one course, curriculum, or single skill in the language; rather it tests  overall ability.
- A proficiency test is a test which measures how much of a language someone has learned. It is not linked to a particular course of instruction, but mesures the learner’s general level of language mastery (Richard, Platt & Heidi, 1993)
- For example, TEOFL, IELTS and other standardized tests.

3. Placement tests
Certain proficiency test can act in the role of pkacement tests, the purpose of which is to place a student into a particular level or section of a language curriculum or school. A placement test usually, but not always includes a sampling of the material to be covered in the various courses in curriculum. Placement test come in many varieties: assessing comphrehension and production, responding through written and oral performance, open-ended and limited responses, selection (e.g., multiple-choiece) and gap-filling formats, depending on the nature of program and its needs.

4. Dioagnostic tests
- A diagnostic test is designed to show what skills or knowledge a learner knows and doesn’t know.
- i.g a test in pronounciation might diagnose the phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore become part of a curriculum.
- Identify a students’strenghts and weaknesses.
- To benefit future instruction.

5. Achievement tests
An achievement tests is related directly to classroom lesson, units, or even a total curriculum. Achievement test are or should be limited to practical material addressed in a curriculum within a practical time frame and are offered after a course has focused on the objective in question. Achievement tests are often summative because they are administered at the end of a unit or term of study.
The specification for an achievement test should be determined by:
a. The objective of the lesson, unit or course being assessed.
b. The relative importance (or weight) assigned to each objective.
c. The tasks employed in classroom lessons during the unit of time.
d. Practicality issues, such as the time frame for the test and turn-around time.
e. The extended to which the test structure lends itself to formative wash-back.

3. Feedback
Forms of feedback:
a) A letter grade
b) A total score
c) Four sub scores (S, L, R, w)
d) For the L and R sections:
- An indication of correct/incorrect responses
- Marginal responses
e) For the oral interview:
- Scores for each element being rated
- A checklist of areas needing work
- Oral feedback after the interview
- A post-interview conference to go over the result
f) On the essay:
- Scores for each element being rated
- A checklist of areas needing work
- Marginal and end essay comments, suggestion
- A post-test conference to go over work
- A self assessment
g) On all or selected parts of the test, peer checking of result
h) A whole class discussion of result of the test
i) Individual conferences with each student to review the whole test

REFERENCES:

Brown, H. Douglas. (2004). LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT: Principles and Classroom Practices. Pearson Education. Newyork.

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