Assignment 5

Summary Designing Clasroom Language Tests

A. Test Types
1. Language Aptitude Tests

One type of test-although admittedly not a very common one-predicts a person's success prior 'to exposure to the second language. A language aptitude test is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language and ultimate success in that undertaking. Language aptitude tests are ostensibly designed to apply to the classroom learning of any language.

2. Proficiency Tests

A proficiency test is not limited to anyone course, curriculwn, or single skill in the language; rather, it tests overall ability. ProfiCiency tests have traditionally consisted of standardized multiple-choice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and aural comprehension. A typical example of a standardized proficiency test is the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) produced by the Educational Testing Service.

3. Placement Tests

Certain proficiency tests can act in the role of placement tests, the purpose of which is to place a student into a particular level or section of a language curriculum or school. A placement test usually, but not always, includes a sampling of the material to be covered in the various courses in a curriculum; a student's performance on the test should indicate the point at which the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.

The English as a Second Language Placement Test (ESLP1) at San Francisco State University has three parts. In Part I, students read a short articre and then write a summary essay. In Part II, students write a composition in response to an article. Part III is multiple-choice: students read an essay and identify grammar errors in it. The maximum time allowed for the test is three hours.

4. Diagnostic Tests

A diagnostic test is designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language. A test in pronunciation, for example, might diagnose the phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore become part of a curriculum. Usually, such tests offer a checklist of features for the administrator (often the teacher) to use in pinpointing difficulties. A writing diagnostic would elicit'a writing sample from students that would allow the teacher to identify those rhetorical and linguistic features on which the course needed to focus special attention.

A typical diagnostic test of oral production was created by Clifford Prator (1972) to accompany a manual of English pronunciation. Test-takers are directed to read a ISO-word passage while they are tape-recorded. The test administrator then refers to an. inventory of phonological items for analyzing a learner's production. After multiple listenings, the administrator produces a checklist of errors in five separate categories, each of which has several subcategories. The main' categories include.

• stress and rhythm,
• intonation,
• vowels,
• consonants, and
• other factors. 

5. Achievement Tests

An achievement test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even a total curriculum. Achievement tests are (or should be) limited to particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame and are offered after a course haS focused on the objectives in question
Achievement tests are often summative because they are administered at the end of a unit dr term of study. They also play an important formative role. An effective achievenlent test will offer washback about the quality of a learner's performance in subsets of the unit or course. This washback contributes to the formative nature of such tests.
The specifications for an achievement test should be determined by

• the objectives of the lesson, unit, or course being assessed,
• the relative importance (or 'weight) assigned to each objective,
• the tasks employed in classroom lessons during the unit of time,
• practicality issues, such as the tinle frame for the test and turnaround time, and
• the extent to which the test structure lends itself to formative washback. 

B. Some  Practical Steps To Test Construction

1. Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objectives

In addition to knowing the purpose of the test you're creating, you need to know as specifically as possible what it is you want to test.

2. Drawing Up Test Specifications

Test specifications for classroom use can be a simple and practical outline of your test.

3. Devising Test Tasks

You begin and end with nonscored items (wann-up and wind down) designed to set students at ease, and then sandwich between them items intended to test the objective (level cbeck) and a little beyond (Probe).

4. Designing Multipie-Choice Test Items

In the sample achievement test above, two of the five components (both of the listening sections) specified a multiple-choice format for items. Multiple-choice items, which may appear to be the Simplest kind of item to construct, are extremely difficult to design correctly. Hughes (2003, pp. 76-78) cau￾tions against a number of weaknesses of multiple-choice items:

• The technique tests only recognition knowledge.
• Guessing may have a considerabIe effect on test scores.
• The technique severely restrict what can be tested.
• It is very difficult to write successful items.
• Washback may be harmful.
• Cheating may be facilitated. 

The two prinCiples that stand out in support of multiple-choice formats are, of course, practicality and reliability.
Since there will be occasions when multiple-choice items are appropriate, consider the following four guidelines for designing multiple-choice items for classroom-based and large-scale situations (adapted from Gronlund, 1998, pp.60-75, and]. D. Brown, 1996, pp. 54-57).

• Design each item to measure a specific objective.
• State both stem and options as simply and directly as possible.
• Make certain that the intended answer is clearly the only correct one.
• Use item indices to accept, discard, or revise items

C. Scoring, Grading, and Giving Feedback 

1. 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. The integrated-skills class that we have been using as an example focuses on listening and speaking skills with some attention to reading and writing.

2. Grading

Your first thought might be that assigning grades to student performance on this test would be easy: just give an "A" for 90-100 percent, a "B" for 80-89 percent, and, so on.

3. Giving Feedback

A section on scoring and grading would not be complete without some consideration of the forms in which you will offer feedback to your students, feedback that you want to become beneficial washback. Washback is achieved when students can, through the testing experience, identify their areas of success and challenge.

References:
Brown, H. Douglas. 2004. Language Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Education