Approaches in Language Testing

The Essay-Translation EssayApproach a pre-scientific stage 1950 pre Associated with grammargrammartranslation approach to language teaching


The Essay-Translation EssayApproach



No special skills/ testing expertise required Constructed by untrained classroom teachers

The Essay-Translation EssayApproach

    

TestTest-Types Translation free composition writing Very cultural bias E.g. Write about American Civil War and its Impact on USA.

The Essay-Translation EssayApproach

Difficult to objectively score, thus subjectively judged by teachers  No application of statistical analysis, not scientific


  

Disadvantages: Disadvantages: very unreliable lack of objectivity

The Essay-Translation EssayApproach

 Reliable?  Testing

language or content knowledge??  How to score?

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950

Influenced by structuralist linguistics (Robert Lado Language Testing) Associated with audio-lingual audiomethod of language teaching and behaviorism

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950

based on assumption that language learning is concerned with the systematic acquisition of habit forming

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950-1960)



Seeing language as consisting of features of the language system (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar)

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950

DeDe-contextualizing the language knowledge to be tested and test language aspects in isolation (discrete point testing)

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950 

Measuring students mastery of separate elements of language macro language skills (reading, writing, etc.) are tested in isolation Testing discrete structural points taught in audio-lingual methods audio-

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950  

Main concerns: objectivity, reliability, validity Tests were carefully constructed by specialists and trained teachers Tests become more scientific, scientific, more reliable, use of statistics reliable,

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950 

Test Types: Types: testing discrete language points through multiple choice, T-F. Tmatching

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950    

Advantages: Very objective easy to score reliable covering a wide range of language points

Test Examples
 

1. Is Mary still in Bangkok? No, _____ in Chiangmai since 2004. 1. she lives
  

2. shes living 3. shed lived 4. shes lived

   

The old woman was too _____ to push open the heavy door. a. feeble b. deaf c. sincere d. generous

listening
  

cotcot- caught same pin bin same law law same

different different different

The Psychometric-structuralist PsychometricApproach (1950-1960) (1950   

Opponents: Oller Spolsky Morrow

Criticism


Testing linguistic knowledge is important but not sufficient

John Oller


Discrete point analysis necessarily breaks the elements of language apart and tries to teach them or test them separately with little or no attention to the way those elements interact in a larger context of communication

Oller


The whole is greater than the sum of parts

Morrow
Knowledge of the elements of a language is useless if the user is not able to combine them in new and appropriate ways to use the language

Still in use supplemented by integrative tests

The Integrative-pragmatic IntegrativeApproach (1960-1970) (1960-1970)

 

Main concerns: creative, more than a sum of discrete language knowledge Global testing, integrating knowledge of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, with appropriate context

The Integrative-pragmatic IntegrativeApproach (1960-1970) (1960 

Believing in Unitary Competence Hypothesis Performance on a whole range of tests depends on the same underlying capacity in the learners the ability to integrate grammatical, lexical, contextual and pragmatic knowledge in test performance

Test Types: Types:

   

cloze dictation composition Functional test

Advantages:
 More

economical and efficient to construct and score  Objective  Reliable  contextualized

The Integrative-pragmatic IntegrativeApproach (1960-1970) (1960  

Advocate: Advocate: John Oller General Language Proficiency (GLP) is a single language factor underlying all language skills. skills.

5th/7th/9th/11th exact word/ acceptable word Employment Studies



Society offers many jobs and it is wise to consider carefully many aspects before applying for a position. When applying for a_job you must always be realistic _____ the one you apply for. You might be good yet ___ no interest in that particular work.

Example: Functional Test



Situation: Chai wants to introduce his friend to his mother.

1. Samarn, Id like you to meet my mother. 2. How do you do? 3. Im pleased to introduce my mother to you. 4. How are you?

 

The Integrative-pragmatic IntegrativeApproach (1960-1970) (1960

Disadvantages:

Indirect testing  Problems with cloze tests



Problems with Cloze Test not realistic, measuring linguistic knowledge rather than actual performance  moderately correlated with other language skills  Changes of word order = changes in test scores


  

Cloze: systematic deletion Gap filling: Text completion

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)



Influenced by Hymess notion of communicative competence Knowing a language is more than knowing its rules of grammar An ability to use language appropriately for different situations

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)



Believing in Divisibility Language Ability

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)



Assessing learners ability when he is engaged in an extended act of communication and considering the social roles he is likely to assume in real word settings.

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)

 Communicative

Competence



Canale and Swain, 1980

Models of Communicative Competence

1. Grammatical Competence:
 Knowledge

of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentencesentence-grammar semantics, and phonology

2. Discourse competence


ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaning series of utterances in extended use of language in context.

3. Strategic competence


verbal and non-verbal noncommunicative strategies used to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to imperfect or insufficient linguistic competence in the second language.

4. Sociolinguistic competence


Knowledge of the sociosociocultural rules of language and of discourse

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)



Thus, constructing a test requires a careful study of communicative roles and tasks facing the learners

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)




Job analysis: analysis:

when, where, with whom, how and why language is to be used, on what topics, with what effect and the prior knowledge/ experience/ ability, and extraextralinguistic factors

The Communicative Approaches (1970 --) --)

 Test-types: Test-types:  task-based task-

tests, roleroleplay, composition, interview, problem solving tasks

Problems
1. Which communicative task to be included in the test?  e.g. a group of students in English for Secretaries


Problems 2. the more specific the task, the less we can generalize about the students ability  3. Conditions for actual realreallife communication are not replicable in a test situation.


Problems 4. How much to be included in the test: The larger the sample of tasks, the more realistic the test, but the longer the test  5. How to score: reliability ?