Assignment 5
Summary Designing Classroom Language Test
1. TEST TYPES
A. Language Aptitude Tests
One type of test-although admittedly not a very common one-predicts a person's success prior to exposure to the second language. 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.
B. Proficiency Tests
If your aim is to test global competence in a language, then you are, in conventional terminology, testing proficiency. A proficiency test is not limited to anyone course, curriculum, or single skill in the language; rather, it tests overall ability. Proficiency tests have traditionally consisted of standardized multiplechoice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension,and aural comprehension.
Proficiency tests are almost always summative and norm-referenced. They provide results in the form of a single score (or at best two or three subscores, one for each section of a test), which is a sufficient result for the gate-keeping role they play of accepting or denying someone passage into the next stage of a journey. And because they measure performance against a norm, with equated scores and percentile ranks taking on paramount importance, they are usually not equipped to provide diagnostic feedback.
C. Placement Test
Certain proficiency tests can act in the role of placement 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 a curriculum; a student's performance on the test should indicate the point at which the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.
Placement tests come in many varieties: assessing comprehension and production, responding through written and oral performance, open-ended and limited responses, selection (e.g., multiple-choice) and gap-filling formats, depending on the nature of a program and its needs. Some programs simply use existing standardized proficiency tests because of their obvious advantage in practicality-cost, speed in scoring, and efficient reporting of results. Others prefer the performance data available in more open-ended written and/or oral production. The ultimate objective of a placement test is, of course, to correctly place a student into a course or level. Secondary benefits to consider include face Validity, diagnostic information on students' performance, and authenticity.
D. Diagnostic Tests
A diagnostic test is designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language. A test in pronunciation, for example, might diagnose the phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore become part of a curriculum. Usually, such tests offer a checklist of features for the administrator (often the teacher) to use in pinpointing difficulties. A writing diagnostic would elicit a writing sample from students that would allow the teacher to identify those rhetorical and linguistic features on which the course needed to focus special attention.
Diagnostic and placement tests, as we have already implied, may sometimes be indistinguishable from each other. The San Francisco State ESLPT serves dual purposes. Any placement test that offers information beyond simply designating a course level may also serve diagnostic purposes. There is also a fine line of difference between a diagnostic test and a general achievement test. Achievement tests analyze the extent to which students have acquired language features that have already been taught; diagnostic tests should elicit information on what students need to work on in the future. Therefore, a diagnostic test will typically offer more detailed subcategorized information on the learner. In a curriculum that has a form-focused phase, for example, a diagnostic test might offer information about a learner's acquisition of verb tenses, modal auxiliaries, definite articles, relative clauses, and the like.
E. Achievement Tests
An achievement test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even a total curriculum. Achievement tests are (or should be) limited to particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame and are offered after a course has focused on the objectives in question. Achievement tests can also serve the diagnostic role of indicating what a student needs to continue to work on in the future, but the primary role of an achievement test is to determine whether course objectives have been met and appropriate knowledge and skills acquired by the end of a period of instruction.
Achievement tests are often summative because they are administered at the end of a unit dr term of study. They also play an important formative role. An effective achievement test will offer washback about the quality of a learner's performance in subsets of the unit or course. This washback contributes to the formative nature of such tests.
The specifications for an achievement test should be determined by
2. SOME PRACTICAL STEPS TO TEST CONSTRUCTION
a. Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objectives
In addition to knowing the purpose of the test you're creating, you need to know as specifically as possible what it is you want to test.
b. Drawing Up Test Specifications
Test specifications for classroom use can be a simple and practical outline of your test. (For large-scale standardized tests that are intended to be widely distributed and therefore are broadly generalized, test specifications are much more formal and detailed.) In the unit discussed above, your specifications will simply comprise (a) a broad outline of the test, (b) what skills you will test, and (c) what the items will look like.
c. Devising Test Task
You begin and end with nonscored items (wann-up and wind down) designed to set students at ease, and then sandwich between them items intended to test the objective (level cbeck) and a little beyond (Probe).
d. Designing Multiple-Choice Test Items
In the sample achievement test above, two of the five components (both of the listening sections) specified a multiple-choice format for items. This was a bold step to take. Multiple-choice items, which may appear to be the Simplest kind of item to construct, are extremely difficult to design correctly. Hughes (2003, pp. 76-78) cautions against a number of weaknesses of multiple-choice items:
Summary Designing Classroom Language Test
1. TEST TYPES
A. Language Aptitude Tests
One type of test-although admittedly not a very common one-predicts a person's success prior to exposure to the second language. 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.
B. Proficiency Tests
If your aim is to test global competence in a language, then you are, in conventional terminology, testing proficiency. A proficiency test is not limited to anyone course, curriculum, or single skill in the language; rather, it tests overall ability. Proficiency tests have traditionally consisted of standardized multiplechoice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension,and aural comprehension.
Proficiency tests are almost always summative and norm-referenced. They provide results in the form of a single score (or at best two or three subscores, one for each section of a test), which is a sufficient result for the gate-keeping role they play of accepting or denying someone passage into the next stage of a journey. And because they measure performance against a norm, with equated scores and percentile ranks taking on paramount importance, they are usually not equipped to provide diagnostic feedback.
C. Placement Test
Certain proficiency tests can act in the role of placement 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 a curriculum; a student's performance on the test should indicate the point at which the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.
Placement tests come in many varieties: assessing comprehension and production, responding through written and oral performance, open-ended and limited responses, selection (e.g., multiple-choice) and gap-filling formats, depending on the nature of a program and its needs. Some programs simply use existing standardized proficiency tests because of their obvious advantage in practicality-cost, speed in scoring, and efficient reporting of results. Others prefer the performance data available in more open-ended written and/or oral production. The ultimate objective of a placement test is, of course, to correctly place a student into a course or level. Secondary benefits to consider include face Validity, diagnostic information on students' performance, and authenticity.
D. Diagnostic Tests
A diagnostic test is designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language. A test in pronunciation, for example, might diagnose the phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore become part of a curriculum. Usually, such tests offer a checklist of features for the administrator (often the teacher) to use in pinpointing difficulties. A writing diagnostic would elicit a writing sample from students that would allow the teacher to identify those rhetorical and linguistic features on which the course needed to focus special attention.
Diagnostic and placement tests, as we have already implied, may sometimes be indistinguishable from each other. The San Francisco State ESLPT serves dual purposes. Any placement test that offers information beyond simply designating a course level may also serve diagnostic purposes. There is also a fine line of difference between a diagnostic test and a general achievement test. Achievement tests analyze the extent to which students have acquired language features that have already been taught; diagnostic tests should elicit information on what students need to work on in the future. Therefore, a diagnostic test will typically offer more detailed subcategorized information on the learner. In a curriculum that has a form-focused phase, for example, a diagnostic test might offer information about a learner's acquisition of verb tenses, modal auxiliaries, definite articles, relative clauses, and the like.
E. Achievement Tests
An achievement test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even a total curriculum. Achievement tests are (or should be) limited to particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame and are offered after a course has focused on the objectives in question. Achievement tests can also serve the diagnostic role of indicating what a student needs to continue to work on in the future, but the primary role of an achievement test is to determine whether course objectives have been met and appropriate knowledge and skills acquired by the end of a period of instruction.
Achievement tests are often summative because they are administered at the end of a unit dr term of study. They also play an important formative role. An effective achievement test will offer washback about the quality of a learner's performance in subsets of the unit or course. This washback contributes to the formative nature of such tests.
The specifications for an achievement test should be determined by
- the objectives of the lesson, unit, or course being assessed,
- the relative importance (or 'weight) assigned to each objective,
- the tasks employed in classroom lessons during the unit of time,
- practicality issues, such as the tinle frame for the test and turnaround time,and
- the extent to which the test structure lends itself to formative washback.
2. SOME PRACTICAL STEPS TO TEST CONSTRUCTION
a. Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objectives
In addition to knowing the purpose of the test you're creating, you need to know as specifically as possible what it is you want to test.
b. Drawing Up Test Specifications
Test specifications for classroom use can be a simple and practical outline of your test. (For large-scale standardized tests that are intended to be widely distributed and therefore are broadly generalized, test specifications are much more formal and detailed.) In the unit discussed above, your specifications will simply comprise (a) a broad outline of the test, (b) what skills you will test, and (c) what the items will look like.
c. Devising Test Task
You begin and end with nonscored items (wann-up and wind down) designed to set students at ease, and then sandwich between them items intended to test the objective (level cbeck) and a little beyond (Probe).
d. Designing Multiple-Choice Test Items
In the sample achievement test above, two of the five components (both of the listening sections) specified a multiple-choice format for items. This was a bold step to take. Multiple-choice items, which may appear to be the Simplest kind of item to construct, are extremely difficult to design correctly. Hughes (2003, pp. 76-78) cautions against a number of weaknesses of multiple-choice items:
- The technique tests only recognition knowledge.
- Guessing may have a considerabIe effect on test scores.
- The technique severely restricts what can be tested.
- It is very difficult to write successful items.
- Washback may be harmful.
- Cheating may be facilitated.
3. SCORING, GRADING, AND GIVING FEEDBACK
a. Scoring
As you design a classroom test, you must consider how the test will be scored and graded. Your scoring plan reflects the relative weight that you place on each section and items in each section. The integrated-skills class that we have been using as an example focuses on listening and speaking skills with some attention to reading and writing.
b. Grading
Your first thought might be that assigning grades to student performance on this test would be easy: just give an "A" for 90-100 percent, a "B" for 80-89 percent, and so on. Not so fast! Grading is such a thorny issue that all of Chapter 11 is devoted to the topic. How you assign letter grades to this test is a product of:
- the country, culture, and context of this English classroom,
- institutional expectations (most of them unwritten),
- explicit and implicit definitions of grades that you have set forth,
- the relationship you have established with this class, and
- student expectations that have been engendered in previous tests and quizzes in this class.
c. Giving Feedback
A section on scoring and grading would not be complete without some consideration of the forms in which you will offer feedback to your students, feedback that you want to become beneficial washback.
Reference
Brown, H. Douglas. 2004. Language Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practice. New York: Pearson Education
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