TESTING, SLIDES 2023.pptx. There is a very strtucted description of testing criteria

A testing criteria to be used with English tecaher

1. TESTING In an educational system, testing is considered as an attempt to identify and explain the effectiveness of a teaching program and an attempt to find out how much or little the student has achieved in a course or learning.

2. TESTING There are different types of tests depending on the method, purpose and objectives for which it is designed, thus it is very important that one knows exactly what to measure in order to obtain accurate measurement.

3. The role of testing in language teaching Testing provides very useful information for variety of people in the education system about the results or effects of the program for possible and necessary changes which might lead to the improvement of the program as a whole.

4. The communicative language testing The tester`s commitment is to make tests more communicative and entail a high degree of explicitness both at the test design stage and at the testing stage .

5. The communicative language testing The test designers need more tangible attributes to ascertain the degree of communicativeness of a test or to make their tests as communicative as possible. There must be a virtual communication between the test and testee .

6. Features of communicative testing Language test is: Interactive, unpredictable, purposeful, authentic, contextualized . Non-Communicative ..................... Communicative Discrete point…………….....……..Integrative Indirect form………………….…..Direct Form Norm-Referenced ……….Criterion Referenced In oral testing , tests have to address problems which are similar to those in real life .

7. Relationship between Teaching and Testing The communicative language teaching should match with communicative language testing in order to keep the nature of teaching features in the language testing. Hughes (1989:2) discloses that ‘‘the proper relationship between teaching and testing is surely that of partnership.”

8. Relationship between Teaching and Testing Davies (1968:5) claims, “The good test is an obedient servant since it follows and apes the teaching ”. The only necessary difference between teaching and testing within the communicative setting relates to the amount of help that is available to the amount of help that is not available to the student from his/her teacher.

9. TEST TYPES The tests are categorised in different ways depending on the kinds of information being sought . Hughes (1989:5) categorizes the tests in four different types, such as: proficiency tests, achievement tests (progressive and summative) , diagnostic test and placement tests.

10. ACHIEVEMENT TESTS Achievement tests are used to assess how effective and efficiently a student has followed a particular course of instruction in terms of syllabus, course book and other materials employed. According to Hughes (1989:10) achievement tests are of two kinds: final achievement tests and progress achievement tests.

11. DIAGNOSTIC TESTS Diagnostic tests are those used to ascertain students strengths and weakness so that appropriate tasks and levels of teaching and learning are chosen adequately.

12. PROFICIENCY TESTS Proficiency tests are objectively designed to measure people`s ability in a language regardless of any training they may have had in that language.

13. PLACEMENT TESTS Placement tests are those which intend to provide information which will help to place students at the stage of the teaching program most appropriate to their ability. Typically, they assign students to classes at different levels.

14. QUALITIES OF A GOOD TEST A test can be good or bad depending on the characteristics of validity, reliability, practicality, objectivity and backwash or washback . These requirements are regarded to be the basic qualities of every good test.

15. Validity Validity reveals a number of aspects, each of which deserves our attention. Face validity pertains to whether the tests look valid to the testees who take it, the administrative personnel who decide on its use and other technically untrained observers.

16. VALIDITY Content validity has to measure the achievement of the objectives and adequately samples representing the teaching inputs. Construct validity are tests which are designed taking into account the contemporary approaches of language learning.

17. VALIDITY Predictive validity - the test accurately predicts performance in some subsequent situation. Concurrent validity - the test gives similar results to existing tests that have already been validated. A test is said to be valid if it provides consistent results no matter how many times the students take it.

18. RELIABILITY The reliability is determined by how consistently a test measures what it is supposed to measure and produces similar results on different occasions under similar circumstances. A test is said to be reliable if it provides consistent results no matter how many times the students take it.

19. Practicality Practicality of a test is seen in terms of finance, time, effort, materials including preparation, administration, scoring and interpretation of the test scores.

20. Washback or Backwash Language teachers operating in a communicative framework normally attempt to equip students with skills that are judged to be relevant to present or future needs. The effect of testing on teaching and learning is known as washback or backwash .

21. TESTING CRITERIA or TEST DESIGN Direct testing : When it requires the testee to perform precisely the skills that the tester wants to measure . E.g , if we want to know how well students write essays , then we get them to write an essay . I ndirect test offers possibility of testing a representative sample of a finite number of abilities (e.g. vocabulary, grammatical structures) which underlie a potentially indefinitely large number of manifestations of them. E.g. Identify the similar sounds: Li ke vs li fe in a written test.

22. Discrete point vs integrative testing A discrete point testing assesses the student’s knowledge of one specific language point, or one element at a time, item by item. Integrative testing, by contrast, requires the candidate to combine many language elements in the completion of a task. Could be writing a composition, taking lecture notes, giving directions, etc.

23. Norm-referenced testing Norm-referenced testing compares the level of performance of an individual with the general standard of performance shown by the total group that he or she belongs to and can be compared with. Norm-referenced testing p laces a student in a percentage category. It r elates one candidate’s performance to that of other candidates.

24. Criterion-referenced testing Criterion-referenced testing emphasis on whether or not individual student knows something rather specific that (s)he ought to know or can perform something specific that (s)he is supposed to be able to do. In criterion-referenced testing w e assume that there are two kinds of individuals - those who can carry out the operation and those who cannot.

25. Objective vs subjective tests Objective tests are often constructed with  selected-response item format , such as multiple-choice, matching, and true-false. Subjective test is : generally speaking, the productive skills such as speaking and writing are difficult to test objectively, in these skills judgement is required.

26. Test Techniques Multiple Choice Advantages : scoring is reliable and can be done rapidly and economically. Possible to include many more items than would otherwise be possible in a given period of time – making the test more reliable. Disadvantages : It t ests only recognition knowledge or g uessing may have a considerable but unknowable effect on test scores

27. Cloze test A cloze test is essentially a fill-in-the-blank test. A testee is asked to attempt to replace the original words. A better and more reliable method is to carefully choose which words to delete from a passage. It can be used with a tape-recorded oral passage to indirectly test oral ability. E.G. Cabo Delgado province is located in-----of Mozambique.

28. C-Test Instead of whole words it is the second half of every word that is deleted. Advantages: only exact scoring is necessary. It is shorter (and so more) passages are possible A wider range of topics, styles, and levels of ability is possible. Disadvantage : May end up rather testing one’s ability to figure out puzzles than in testing language ability. E.g. Lion is a very dangerous ani .....

29. Dictation Test is set in prediction of overall ability and has the advantage of involving listening ability. It is easy to create and administer. However , it is not easy to score; poorer students scoring becomes tedious. Partial-dictation may be considered as a better alternative since it is easier for both the test taker and the scorer.

30. Other forms of testing techniques Testing writing Testing speaking Testing listening Testing reading. READ HUGHES (1989)

31. Rubrics or Rating Scales Rubrics, also commonly referred to as rating scales, are increasingly used to evaluate performance assessments. Rubrics help us to set anchor points along a quality continuum so that we can set reasonable and appropriate expectations for learners and consistently judge how well they have met them.

32. REFLECTION 1 . Is there any difference between test, testing, assessment and evaluation ? 2. Why do we assess students learning according to Cohan(1994)? 3. How can we test the four language skills in isolation? 4. To what extent would you depict the holistic versus analytic rating criteria? 5. What implications are there for not having English oral exam in grade 12 th ?

33. THE END THANK YOU VERY MUCH By Cachele, M.A

34. REFERENCE Bachman, L. ( 1990) Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing, London: OUP. Davies, A. (1965) Communicative Language Testing , Cambridge: CUP. Harris, D.P. (1968) Testing English as a Second Language , New York: McGraw Hill. Hughes, A. (1989) Testing for Language Teachers , Cambridge: CUP. Lado , R. (1961) Language Testing , London: Longman. McNamara, T. (2000) Language Testing . Oxford: OUP. Valette . R. M. ( 1977) Modern Language Testing. Harcourt : New York. Weir, Cyril J. (1990) Communicative Language Testing , United Kingdom: Compus 400.