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Advanced Assessment in Language Teaching

Designing Classroom Language Test

Constructing the language assessment needs to have five principles, such as

practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity, and washback. In this chapter, the
process of designing classroom language tests will be discussed. To start the
process, you need to ask some critical questions. These five questions are the basis
of the teachers approach in designing tests for classrooms.
1. What is the purpose of the test?
The teachers need to determine the reasons of creating the test, the significance
relative to your course (for example: to evaluate overall proficiency or place a
student in a course), the importance of the test compared to other students
performance, and the impact to the teachers and the students before and after
the assessment.
2. What are the objectives of the test?
The teachers should clearly state what kind of language knowledge and/or skills
they are trying to find out and assess.
3. How will the test specifications reflect both the purpose and the objectives?
To design or evaluate a test, the teachers must make sure that the test has a
structure that logically follows from the unit or lesson it is testing. The class
objectives should be present in the test through appropriate task types and
weights, a logical sequence, and a variety of tasks.
4. How will the test tasks be selected and the separate items arranged?
The test tasks need to be practical. For the test to be valid, they should also
mirror tasks of the course, lesson or segment. They should be authentic (i.e.
reflect realworld language use). The tasks must be ones that can be evaluated
reliably by the teacher.
5. What kind of scoring, grading, and/or feedback is expected?
The appropriate form of feedback on tests will vary, depending on the purpose.
For every test, the way results are reported is an important consideration. Under
 some circumstances, a letter grade or score may be appropriate. Other
circumstances may require that the teacher provide detailed feedback to the
students.

TEST TYPES
The first task which the teachers need in designing a test is to determine the
purpose of the tests. Defining you purpose of the text will help the teachers to
choose the right kind of test, and it will also help you to focus on the specific
objectives to the test. There are two types of tests, such as:

1.The test which the 1.The test which

teachers may not have the teachers
the chance to create as a certainly need to
classroom teacher. create.

a.The language a.The

aptitude test placement test

a.The a.The
proficiency diagnostic test
test

a.The
achievement
test

The Language Aptitude Test

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. USA has two standardized aptitude tests; The Modern Language Aptitude
Test (MLAT) and Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB). Both are English
language tests and require students to perform a number of language related tasks.
The MLAT and PLAB show some significant correlations with ultimate
performance of students in language courses. (Carroll, 1981)
Task in the MLAT
a. Number learning: Examinees must learn a set of numbers through aural input
and then discriminate different combination of those numbers.
b. Phonetic script: Examinees must team a set of correspondences between speech
sounds and phonetic symbols.
c. Spelling dues: Examinees must need words that are spelled some what
phonetically
d. Word in sentence: Examinees are given a key word in a sentence and are then
asked to select a word in second sentence that performs the same grammatical
action as the key word.
e. Paired associates: Examinees must quickly team a set of vocabulary words from
another language and memorize their English meaning.

The Proficiency Test

A proficiency test is not limited to any one course, curriculum, or single
skill in the language; rather it tests overall ability. A proficiency test is a test which
measures how much of a language someone has learned. It is not linked to a
particular course of instruction, but measures the learners general level of language
mastery (Richard, Platt & Heidi, 1993) For example, TOEFL, IELTS and other
standardized tests. This test has traditionally consisted of standardized multiple
choice of items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and aural
comprehension. TOEFL, IELTS, and other standardized tests are the examples of
this test.
The results of this test are in the form of a single score (or at best two or
three sub scores, one for each section of the test). This test also has the role as the
gate keeping, which will determine the students can pass the next stage or not. The
issue in testing proficiency is how the construct of language ability are specified.
Creating and validating this test with research are time consuming and costly
process.
Placement Test

The aim of this test is to assign students to classes or programs appropriate

to their level of proficiency. A placement test includes a sampling of the material
to be covered in the various courses in a curriculum. A placement test come in many
varieties: assessing comprehension and production, responding through written and
oral performance, open-ended and limited responses, and multiple choices and gap
filling formats. The English as Second Language Placement Test (ESLPT) at San
Francisco has three parts; Part 1, students read a short article and then write a
summary essay. In part 2, students write a composition in response to an article.
Part 3 is multiple-choice: students read an essay and identify grammar errors in it.

The Diagnostic Test

A diagnostic test is designed to show what skills or knowledge a learner
knows and doesnt know. E.g. A test in pronunciation might diagnose the
phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore
become part of a curriculum. The aim of this test is to identify a students strengths
and weaknesses in order to benefit future instruction.

The Achievement Test

An achievement test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even
a total curriculum. These tests are (or should be) limited to particular material
addressed in curriculum within a particular time frame and are offered a course has
focused on the objectives in question. Achievement tests are often summative
because they are administered at the end of a unit or term of study.
The specification for an achievement test should be determined by:
a. the objectives of the lesson, unit, or course being assessed.
b. the relative importance (weight) assigned to each objective.
c. the tasks employed in classroom lessons during the unit of time.
d. practically issues, such as the time frame for the test and turnaround time.
e. the extent to which the test structure lends itself to formative washback
Midterm examination outline, high intermediate
Section A. Vocabulary
Part I (5 items): match words and definition
Part II (5 items): use the word in sentence
Section B. Grammar
(10 sentences): error detection
Section C. Reading Comprehension
(2 one-paragraph passages): four short answers
Section D. Writing
There is also a fine line of difference between a diagnostic test and a general
achievement test. Achievement test analyze the extent to which students have
acquired language features that have already been taught, diagnostic tests should
elicit information on what students need to work on in the future. Therefore, a
diagnostic test will typically offer more detailed subcategorized information on the
learner, while achievement test offers the whole test.

PRACTICAL STEPS TO TEST CONSTRUCTION

In this chapter, the focus will be on equipping the teachers with the tools
they need to create such as classroom-oriented tests.
Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objectives
The first step is to examine the objectives of the unit you are testing. Each objective
needs to be stated in terms of the performance elicited and the target linguistic
domain.
Drawing Up Test Specifications
These informal, classroom-oriented specifications give you an indication of:
a. The topic (objectives) you will cover
b. The implied elicitation and response formats for items
c. The number of items in each section
d. The time to be allocated for each
Devising Test Tasks
The oral interview comes first, and so you draft questions to conform to the
accepted pattern of oral interviews. The teachers may begin and end with non-
scored items (warm-up and wind down) designed to set students at ease, and then
sandwich between them items intended to test the objective (level check) and a little
beyond (probe).

The teachers are now ready to draft other items. To provide a sense of authenticity
and interest, the teachers have decided to conform your items to the context of a
recent TV sitcom that the teachers used in class to illustrate certain discourse and
form-focused factors. Lets say the first draft of items produces the following
possibilities within each section.

In revising the draft, the teachers should consider these questions:

a. Are the directions to each section absolutely clear?
b. Is there an example item for each section?
c. Does each item measure a specific objective?
d. Does each multiple-choice item have appropriate distractors; that is, are the
wrong items clearly wrong and yet sufficiently alluring that they arent
ridiculously easy?
e. Is the difficulty of each item appropriate for the students?
 f. Do the sum of the items and the test as a whole adequately reflect the learning
objectives?

Designing Multiple-Choice Items

In the sample achievement test above, two of the five components (both of the
listening sections) specified a multiple-choice format for items. This was a bold
step to take (multiple-choice items, which may appear to be the simplest kind of
item to construct, are extremely difficult to design correctly. Hoghes (2003:76-78)
cautions against a number of weaknesses of multiple choice items:
The technique tests only recognition knowledge
Guessing may have a considerable effect on test scores.
The technique severely restricts what can be tested
It is very difficult to write successful items
Wash back may be harmful
Cheating may be facilitated
The primary principles of multiple choices items:
1. Multiple choice items are all receptive, or selective, response items in that test-
taker chooses from a set of responses (commonly called a supply type of
response) rather than creating a response. Other receptive item types include
true-false questions and matching lists.
2. Every multiple choice item has a stem, which present stimulus, and several
(usually between three and five) options or alternatives to choose from.
3. One of those options, the key, is the correct response, while the others serve
as distractors
Design Each Item to Measure a Specific Objective
The specific objective being tested here is comprehension of WH-Questions.
Distractor (a) is designed to ascertain that the student knows the difference between
an answer to a why-question and a yes/no question. Distractors (b) and (d), as well
as the key item (c) test comprehension of the meaning of where as opposed to why
and when. The objective has been directly addressed.

Distractor (a) is designed to lure students who dont know how to frame indirect
questions and therefore serves as an efficient distractor. But distractor (c) intend to
show unintentional clues. And the answer key is (b).
State Both Stem and Options as Simply and Directly as Possible

This might be arguable that the first two sentences of this item give it some
authenticity and accomplish a bit of schema setting. But, the teachers simply want
a student to identify the type of medical professional who deals with eyesight issues,
those sentences are superfluous. Moreover, by lengthening the stem, you have
introduced a potentially confounding lexical item, deteriorate, that could distract
the students.
Make Certain that the Intended Answer is Clearly the Only One Correct

A quick consideration of the distractor (d) reveals that it is plausible answer, along
with the intended key, (c). Eliminating unintended possible answers is often the most
difficult problem of designing multiple choice items. With only a minimum of
context in each stem, a wide variety of responses may be perceived as correct.

SCORING, GRADING, AND GIVING FEEDBACK

Scoring
As you design a classroom test, you need to consider how the test will be scored and
graded. coring plan reflects the relative weight that you place on each section and
items in each season. The inter grated skills class that we have been using as an ex.
Focuses on listening and speaking skills with some attention to reading and writing.
Your next task is to assign scoring for each item. This may take a little numerical
common sense, but it doesnt require a degree in math. To take matters simple, you
decide to have a 100-point test in which. To make it simple, here is the example:
 Percent Total Possible Total
of Grade Correct
Oral interview 40% 4 scores, 5 to 1 range x 2 40
Listening 20% 10 items @ 2 points each 20
Reading 20% 10 items @ 2 points each 20
Writing 20% 4 scores, 5 to 1 range x 2 20
Total 100

Grading
How you assign letter grades to this test is a product of:
The country, culture, and context of English classroom.
Institutional expectations
Explicit and implicit definitions of grades that you have set forth.
The relationship you have established with this class.
Student expectations that have been engendered in previous tests and quizzes in
the class.

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 the students,
feedback that the teachers want to become beneficial wash back. In the example
test that we have been referring to here which is not unusual in the universe of
possible formats for periodic. Classroom test insider the multitude of options. The
teachers might choose to return the test to the student with one of or a combination
of, any of the possibilities below.