INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE TESTING

INTRODUCTION TO
LANGUAGE TESTING

Teaching and Testing

•         Teaching:

            The process of transferring information, science, knowledge, and skills which is done systematically and consciously

•         Testing

            the process of measuring how well the students have mastered the teaching materials

Teaching and testing are closely interrelated

We can see the progress/result 

of teaching through testing

WE CAN’T SEPARATE IT

Evaluation

The process of making judgements based on criteria of evidence

Test

An instrument

•      A set of techniques

•      A set of procedures

•      A set of items

Test
(Brown 2004)
A test is a method of measuring person’s ability, knowledge, performance in a given domain

given domain: certain aspect

E.g.: Writing Test

            Punctuation, coherence

Why test?

•         To know how well the students have mastered the teaching materials

•         To motivate students in learning

•         To see how effective the teaching learning process is

•         To locate/identify which part of the lesson has not been mastered by the students

•         To ascertain which part of the language program the students find difficult

To what standard?

1. MASTERY OF TEACHING MATERIALS

            (CRITERION REFERENCED TEST)

            Whether the test takers performed well/poor on a given test

2. THE STUDENTS SCORES IN THE CLASSROOM

            (NORM REFERENCED TEST)

            Whether the test taker performed better/worse than others.

Test vs Assessment

Test:

A prepared administration procedures that occurs at identifiable time in a curriculum to examine someone’s knowledge of something and  to determine what she has learned

Assessment:

The process of describing, collecting, recording, scoring, and interpreting information about learning

4 types of assessment

1. Informal assessment

The one that does  not incorporate data  collection for statistical analysis

e.g.: reading non verbal cues when speaking with someone, feedback, verbal critique

2. Formal assessment

Specifically designed to measure students ability

e.g.: exercise, quizzes, test

           

3. Formative assessment

•                     Evaluating the students in the process of forming their competences and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process, occurs in the process of the study

•         E.g.:quiz, UH

4. Summative assessment

•                     Aims to measure or summarize what a student has grasped and typically occurs by the end of the study

•         E.g.: UN, UAS

Approaches to language testing

1. Discrete point testing

            one test at one time/one element/skill at one time)

            e.g.: - grammar

           

2. Integrative testing

            testing that measure all language in one time/some elements of skills at one time

            e.g.: - dictation

                          - writing