DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

In this chapter we will examine tests type and we will ask design tests and revise existing ones.

TEST TYPES

Defining your purpose will help you choose the right kind of test, and it will also help you to focus on the specific objectives of the test .

Below are the test types to be examined:

1. Language Aptitude Test

2. Proficiency Test

3. Placement Test

4. Diagnostic Test

5. Achievement Test

1. Language Aptitude Test

· A language aptitude test is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language.

· Task in MLAT includes: Number learning, phonetic script, spelling clues, word in sentence, and repaired associates.

· There’s no unequivocal evidence that language aptitude test predict communicative success in a language .

· Any test that claims to predict success in learning a language is undoubtedly flawed

2. Proficiency Test

· A proficiency test is not limited to any one course, curriculum, or single skill in the language ; rather , it test overall ability.

· It includes: standardized multiple choice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and aural comprehension.

· Proficiency test are almost always summative and norm-referenced.

· They are usually not equipped to provide diagnostic feedback.

· Their role is to accept or to deny someone’s passage into the text stage of a journey.

3. Placement Test

· The ultimate objective of a placement test is to correctly place a student into a course or level.

· A placement test usually includes a sampling of the material to be covered in the various courses in a curriculum.

· In a placement test , a student should find the test material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.

· The English as a Second Language Placement Test ( ESLPT ) at San Francisco State University has three parts, part 1: student read a short article and then write a summary essay. Part 2: student write a composition in response to an article. Part 3: multiple choice; students read an essay and identify grammar errors in it.

4. Diagnostic Tests

· A diagnostic test is designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language.

· A diagnostic test can help a student become aware of errors and encourage the adoption of appropriate compensatory strategies.

· A typical diagnostic test of oral production was created by Clifford prator (1972) to accompany a manual of English pronunciation.

Ø Test-takers are directed to read a 150-word passage while they are tape recorded.

Ø The test administrator then refers to an inventory of phonological items for analyzing a learner’s production.

Ø After multiple listening, the administrator produces a checklist for errors in five separate categories.

Ø Stress and rhythm.

Ø Intonation,

Ø Vowels,

Ø Consonants, and

Ø Other factors.

5. Achievement Test

· An achievement test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even a total curriculum.

· Achievement tests should be limited to particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame and should be offered after a course has focused on the objectives in question.

· The primary role of an achievement test is to determine whether course objectives has been meet – end of a period of instruction.

· Achievement test are often summative because they are administered at the end f a unit or term of study. But effective achievement tests can serve as useful wash back by showing the errors of a students and helping them analyze their weaknesses and strengths.

· Achievement test range from five-or ten-minutes quizzes to three hour final examinations, with an almost infinite variety of item types and formats.

· Some practical steps in constructing classroom tests:

Ø Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objective.

Before giving a test; examine the objectives for the unit you’re testing. Your first task in designing a test, then, is to determine appropriate objectives.

Example: “ students will recognize and produce tag question, with the correct grammatical from and final intonation pattern, in simple social conversation.“

Ø Drawing Up Test Specification

Test specifications will simply comprise

v A broad outline of the test

v What skill you will test

v What the items will look like

This is an example for test specification based on the objective stated above:

“Student will recognize and produce tag questions, with the correct grammatical form and final intonation pattern, in simple social conversation.”

Test specification

1. Speaking (5 minutes per person, previous day)

Format: oral interview, T and S

Task: T ask question to S

2. Listening (10 minutes)

Format: T makes audiotape in advance, with one other voice on it

Tasks: a. 5 minimal pair items, multiple choice

3. Reading (10 minutes)

Format: cloze test items (10 total) in a story line

Task: fill inn the blanks

4. Writing (10 minutes )

Format: prompt for a topic: why I like /didn’t like a recent TV sitcom

Task: writing a short opinion paragraph

Ø Devising Test Task

As you devise your test items, consider such factors as

v How students will perceive them (face validity)

v The extent to which authentic language and contexts are present

v Potential difficult caused by cultural schemata

Ø Designing Multiple-Choice Test Items

There are a number of weaknesses in multiple-choice items:

v The technique tests only recognition knowledge.

v Guessing may have a considerable effect of test scores.

v The technique severely restricts what can be tested.

v It is very difficult to write successfully items.

v Wash back may be harmful.

v Cheating may be facilitated

Some important jargons in Multiple-Choice Items:

1. Multiple-choice items are all receptive, or selective, that is, the test taker chooses from a set of responses rather than creating a response. Other receptive items types include true-false question and matching lists.

2. Every multiple-choice item has a stem, which presents several option or alternatives to choose from.

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.

Production 30%, listening 30%, reading 20% and writing 20% .

B. Grading

Grading doesn’t mean just giving “A” for 90-100, and a “B” for 80-89.

It’s not that simple . How you assign letter grades to a test in a product of

v The country, culture, and context of the English classroom,

v Institutional expectations (most of them unwritten),

v Explicit and implicit definitions of grades that you have set forth,

v The relationship you have established with the class, and

v Student expectations that have been engendered (cause) in previous test and quizzes in the class.

C. Giving feedback

Feedback should become beneficial wash back. Those are some examples of feedback:

1. A letter grade

2. A total score

3. Four sub scores (speaking, listening, reading, writing)

4. For the listening and reading sections

§ An indication of correct/incorrect responses

§ Marginal comments

5. For the oral interview

§ Scores for each element being rated

§ A checklist of areas needing work

§ A post-interview conference to go over the results

6. On the essay

§ Scores for each element being rated

§ A checklist of areas needing work

§ Marginal and end –of-essay comments, suggestions

§ A post-test conference to go over work

§ A self-assessment

7. On all or selected parts of the test, peer checking of results

8. A whole-class discussion of results of the test

9. Individual conferences with each student to review the whole test

group task

DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TEST

Created by

Name: Despita (0711040043)

Estiana (07110400..)

Mita Murtafi’ah (0711040032)

Major: English Education Departement

Semester: VI/A

Subject: Language Testing

Lecturer: Prof. DR. Idham Khalid M.Ag

Winarno S.Pd M.Pd

TARBIYAH FACULTY

THE STATE INSTITUTE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES (IAIN)

RADEN INTAN LAMPUNG

2010