Testing : An important part of ELT

TESTING1

Definition of testing and test

Tests are procedures for measuring ability, knowledge or performance.

Testing is the use of tests, or the study of the theory and practice of their use, development, evaluation etc.

Objectives of language testing

Before we can even begin to plan a language test, we must establish its purpose and purposes. The following list summarizes the chief objectives of language testing:

1. To determine readiness for instructional programmes. Some screening test are used to separate those who are prepared for an academic or training programme from those who are not.

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2. To classify or place individuals in appropriate language classes. Other screening tests try to distinguish degrees of proficiency so that examines may be assigned to specific sections or activities on the basis of their current level of competence. Such tests may make no pass-fail distinctions, since some kind of training is offered to everyone.

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3.To diagnose the individual’s specific strengths and weaknesses. Diagnostic screening test generally consist of several short but reliable subtests measuring different language skills or components of a single broad skill. On the basis of the individual’s performance profile which will show his relative strength in the various areas tested.

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4.To measure aptitude for learning. Still another kind of screening test is used to predict future performance. At the time of testing, the examinees may have little or no knowledge of the language to be studied, and the test is employed to assess their potential.

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5. To measure the extent of student achievement of the instructional goal. Achievement tests are used to indicate group or individual progress toward the instructional objectives of a specific study or training program. Examples are progress tests and final examinations in a course of study.

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6. To evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. Other achievement tests are used exclusively to assess the degree of success not of individuals but of the instructional program itself. Such tests are often used in research, when experimental and ‘control’ classes are given the same educational goals but use different materials and techniques to achieve them.

Kinds of Test

Language tests are carried out with specific purposes in mind. As we use them to obtain information about the students, as we may categories test according to the kinds of information being sought. We may put them into the following divisions:

1. Proficiency tests. 2. Placement tests. 3. Achievement tests. 4.Diagnostic tests. 5. Aptitude tests.

Proficiency Test 10

Proficiency tests are designed to measure people’s ability in a language regardless of any training they may have had in that language. The content of a proficiency test is, therefore, not based on the content or objectives of a language course.

In the case of some proficiency tests, ‘proficient’ means having sufficient command of the language ‘ for a particular purpose’. An example of this would be a test used to determine whether a student’s English is good enough to follow a course of study at a British University.

Placement Test 11

Placement tests are designed to place students at an appropriate level in a programme or course on the basis of their current level of competence.

The term ’Placement test’ does not refer to what a test contains or how it is constructed. The most successful of them are constructed for particular situations depending on the key features at different levels of teaching in the institution.

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Various types of test or testing procedure can be used for placement purposes. Dictation, a grammar test or an interview may be ideal.

As the objective of a placement is to place students at the stage of the teaching programme most appropriate to their abilities, it is taken at the beginning of a course or programme. Placement tests make no pass-fail distinction.

Achievement Tests13

Achievement tests measure how much of a language someone has learned with reference to a particular course of study or programme of instruction. They are of two kinds:

A. Final Achievements tests B. Progress Achievement tests.

a. Final Achievement Test

Final achievement tests are those administered at the end of a course of study. They are norm-referenced since they show the standard which a student has now reached in relation to other students at the same stage. This standard may be worldwide, as with the Cambridge Examinations in EFL; or established for a country, as with school-leaving certificates; or it may relate to an individual school or group of schools which issue certificates to students attending courses.

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Progress Achievement tests are intended to measure the progress that students are making. Like final achievement tests, these tests, too, should relate to objectives. The best way of measuring progress is to establish a series of well- defined short –term objectives. These should make a clear progression towards the final achievement test based on course objectives. The result of the progress tests will show if the syllabus and teaching are in line with the course objectives. The teacher’s responsibility would be to bring in changes in the syllabus or teaching technique if there is any incongruity or lack of fit is found in entire system.

Aptitude Test 16

Aptitude tests assess learner’s ‘aptitude’ for learning a language. They are designed to measure the student’s probable performance in a foreign language which he has not started to learn.

Language learning aptitude is a complex matter. It consists of such factors as intelligence, age, motivation, phonological sensitivity and sensitivity to grammatical patterning. An aptitude test takes all these factors into consideration.

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Aptitude tests generally seek to predict the student’s probable strengths and weaknesses in learning a foreign language by measuring his performance in an artificial language.

Diagnostic Test 18

Diagnostic tests are those tests which are used to identify student’s strengths and weaknesses and to pinpoint the areas of difficulty they encounter. They are intended primarily to ascertain what further teaching is necessary or what remedial action should be taken. Tests used for diagnostic purposes may include phoneme discrimination tests, grammar and usage tests and certain controlled writing tests.

Direct VS Indirect testing

Testing is said to be direct when it requires the candidate to perform precisely the skill that we wish to measure. If we want to know how well candidates can write compositions, we get them to write compositions. The tasks and the texts that are used should be as authentic as possible.

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Direct testing is easier to carry out when it is intended to measure the productive skills of speaking and writing. The very acts of speaking and writing provide us with information about the candidate’s ability.

Direct testing has a number of attractions. First, provided that we are clear about just

what abilities we want to assess, it is relatively straightforward to create the conditions which will elicit the behaviour on which to base our judgement.

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Secondly, at least in the case of the productive skills, the assessment and interpretation of students’ performance is also quite straightforward.

Thirdly, since practice for the test involves practice of the skills that we wish to foster, there is likely to be a helpful backwash effect.

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The main appeal of indirect testing is that it seems to offer the possibility of testing a representative sample of a finite number of manifestations of them.

The main problem with the indirect tests is that the relationship between performance on them and the performance of the skills in which we are usually more interested tends to be rather weak in strength and uncertain in nature.

Discrete point versus Integrative testing 23

Discrete point testing refers to the testing of one element at a time, item by item. This might, for example, take the form of a series of items, each testing a particular grammatical structure.

Integrative testing, by contrast, requires the candidate to combine many language elements in the completion of a task. This might involve writing a composition, making notes while listening to a lecture, taking a dictation, or completing a cloze passage. Discrete point tests will almost always be indirect, while integrative tests will tend to be direct.

Objective testing versus subjective testing 24

The distinction here is between methods of scoring and nothing else. If no judgment is required on the part of the scorer, then the scoring is objective. A multiple choice test, with the correct responses unambiguously identified, would be a case in point. If judgment is called for, the scoring is said to be subjective. There are different degrees of subjectivity in testing.