- Test types:
- Achievement/attainment tests are based on syllabus. Test what was learned/taught in class. They look backwards.
- Proficiency tests are not based on syllabus. They find out language level and look forwards.
- Placement tests are not based on syllabus and are meant to group students of similar competence and performance together in order to better collaborate to improve their language skills.
- Diagnostic tests are (not) based on syllabus and are meant to find out students’ areas of weaknesses. They are looking backwards and forwards, since re-teaching may be necessary.
- Aptitude tests find out if students have aptitude for learning a foreign language. They are looking forwards.
- Historical presentation of English testing:
- Traditional/pre-scientific, Spolsky (1984)
Grammatico-literary,
Carroll & Hall (1985)
Garden
of Eden, Morrow (1979)
E.g.
written composition; oral interview; translation passage.
Features:
non-authentic; disembodied; subjective
- Modern/scientific, Spolsky (1984)
Psycho-linguistic,
Carroll & Hall (1985)
Vale
of tears, Morrow (1979)
E.g.
multiple-choice; transformations; cloze; dictation.
Features:
non-authentic; disembodied; discrete-point; objective; integrative;
objective.
- Post-modern, Spolsky (1884)
Socio-communicative,
Carroll & Hall (1985)
Promised
Land, Morrow (1979)
E.g.
authentic texts (reading and listening); authentic tasks (writing and
speaking).
Features:
authentic; contextualized; integrative; objective and subjective.
- Making test items more communicative:
- give students some purpose to communicate
- establish audience/reader
- create some information gap or conflictual situation
- test enabling skills rather than products
- make items integrative rather than discrete-point
- use contextualized language rather than disembodied language
- make them both objective and subjective, e.g. cloze /C-cloze tests
- make them criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced
NB:
make them both relevant to students’ needs and expectations and
reliable!
- Reflection as Exercise
Since
teachers need to evaluate students’ performance they have to
administer either ready-made tests or their own tests.
Please,
always reflect twice whether the task you give students is meant to
teach them something or just test their competence/performance.
GOOD
LUCK!