The aim of this chapter is to introduce language testing. Firstly, the relation between teaching and testing are discussed. Then the reason for testing, the content and the standard of tests are presented. Testing language skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) and language areas (grammar and vocabulary) are also introduced. Next the writer presents the difference between recognition and production together with the issue of sampling. Finally ways of avoiding traps for the students are suggested. Now please go to page 36 to fill in the first two columns of the table provided before you start studying the chapter.
The following tasks and / or questions aim to help you in understanding the important points in the chapter.
Before You Begin: Try to answer the following questions. Your experiences as a student might help in answering these questions:
– What is the relation between teaching and testing?
– Why do we as teachers need to test?
– What should the teachers test?
– How should we test language skills?
– What do “testing grammar”, “testing vocabulary”, and “testing phonology” mean?
– To what extent should we test language areas? To what extent should we test language skills?
– What is the difference between recognition and production? Check the meanings of these words in a monolingual dictionary and try to write the difference(s) in your own words.
– What do you understand from the concept “sampling”? What might be the possible problems of sampling?
– What are the traps for students in a test?
Now, scan the chapter to compare your answers with the information in the chapter. Write the correct answer if you have answered any question incorrectly.
The aim of these questions was to activate students’ background knowledge. Most of the issues will be covered in the answers of the following question.
While reading the chapter answer the following questions / do the following tasks:
1.1 1.1 Testing and Teaching:
1- What are the two reasons of testing mentioned in the chapter? How do they affect teaching?
First reason: reinforce learning and to motivate students. Testing is based on teaching as the aim is to find out whether students’ have mastered the content or not
Second reason:assessing students’ performance. Teaching is based on testing. for example there are TOEFL or KPDS courses. In these courses the goal of teaching is to help students gain the skills that will help them in these tests.
2- Define “mechanical test” and “communicative test” based on the information and samples (item 1 is an example of a mechanical whereas item 2 is an example of a communicative test). What makes a communicative test better than a mechanical test?
Comunicative tests aim to test students’ success in using the language for communication. For this purpose, real life tasks are used for testing purposes. Sample 2 is an example of a communicative test as students are reqıired to select the relevant information according to the aim of listening. However, the first one is a mechanical test as students are required to listen for irrelevant information just to fill in the blanks.
3- Have the public examining bodies started using communicative tests?
Yes
4- What does the writer criticise about public examinations? Why?
Public tests aim to compare candidates performance either with each other or with a certain criteria. The writer critizes this as the aim of test is considered be assessing students’ performance independent of other students. However, comparing students’ performance with each other is inevitable as most of these exams are used for selecting or placing students.
1.2 Why test?
Fill in the blanks given in the table below according to the information provided in section 1.2
