A testing criteria to be used with English tecaher

1. TESTING
In an educational system,
testing is considered as an
attempt to identify and explain
the effectiveness of a teaching
program and an attempt to
find out how much or little the
student has achieved in a
course or learning.

2. TESTING
There are different types of tests
depending on the method,
purpose and objectives for
which it is designed, thus it is
very important that one knows
exactly what to measure in order
to obtain accurate measurement.

3. The role of testing in
language teaching
Testing provides very useful
information for variety of people in
the education system about the
results or effects of the program for
possible and necessary changes
which might lead to the
improvement of the program as a
whole.

4. The communicative language
testing
The tester`s commitment is to
make tests more
communicative and entail a
high degree of explicitness
both at the test design stage
and at the testing stage.

5. The communicative
language testing
The test designers need more
tangible attributes to ascertain
the degree of communicativeness
of a test or to make their tests as
communicative as possible. There
must be a virtual communication
between the test and testee.

6. Features of communicative
testing
Language test is: Interactive, unpredictable,
purposeful, authentic, contextualized.
Non-
Communicative.....................Communicative
Discrete point…………….....……..Integrative
Indirect form………………….…..Direct Form
Norm-Referenced……….Criterion Referenced
In oral testing, tests have to address problems
which are similar to those in real life.

7. Relationship between Teaching and Testing
The communicative language teaching
should match with communicative
language testing in order to keep the
nature of teaching features in the
language testing. Hughes (1989:2)
discloses that ‘‘the proper relationship
between teaching and testing is surely
that of partnership.”

8. Relationship between
Teaching and Testing
Davies (1968:5) claims, “The good test
is an obedient servant since it follows
and apes the teaching”.
The only necessary difference between
teaching and testing within the
communicative setting relates to the
amount of help that is available to the
amount of help that is not available to
the student from his/her teacher.

9. TEST TYPES
The tests are categorised in
different ways depending on the
kinds of information being sought.
Hughes (1989:5) categorizes the
tests in four different types, such as:
proficiency tests, achievement tests
(progressive and summative),
diagnostic test and placement tests.

10. ACHIEVEMENT TESTS
Achievement tests are used to
assess how effective and efficiently a
student has followed a particular
course of instruction in terms of
syllabus, course book and other
materials employed.
According to Hughes (1989:10)
achievement tests are of two kinds:
final achievement tests and progress
achievement tests.

11. DIAGNOSTIC TESTS
Diagnostic tests are those used to
ascertain students strengths and
weakness so that appropriate
tasks and levels of teaching and
learning are chosen adequately.

12. PROFICIENCY TESTS
Proficiency tests are objectively
designed to measure people`s
ability in a language regardless of
any training they may have had in
that language.

13. PLACEMENT TESTS
Placement tests are those
which intend to provide
information which will help to
place students at the stage of
the teaching program most
appropriate to their ability.
Typically, they assign students
to classes at different levels.

14. QUALITIES OF A GOOD
TEST
A test can be good or bad
depending on the characteristics
of validity, reliability, practicality,
objectivity and backwash or
washback. These requirements
are regarded to be the basic
qualities of every good test.

15. Validity
Validity reveals a number of
aspects, each of which deserves
our attention.
Face validity pertains to whether
the tests look valid to the testees
who take it, the administrative
personnel who decide on its use
and other technically untrained
observers.

16. VALIDITY
Content validity has to measure
the achievement of the objectives
and adequately samples
representing the teaching inputs.
Construct validity are tests which
are designed taking into account
the contemporary approaches of
language learning.

17. VALIDITY
Predictive validity - the test
accurately predicts performance
in some subsequent situation.
Concurrent validity - the test gives
similar results to existing tests that
have already been validated. A test
is said to be valid if it provides
consistent results no matter how
many times the students take it.

18. RELIABILITY
The reliability is determined by
how consistently a test measures
what it is supposed to measure
and produces similar results on
different occasions under similar
circumstances.
A test is said to be reliable if it
provides consistent results no
matter how many times the
students take it.

19. Practicality
Practicality of a test is seen in
terms of finance, time, effort,
materials including preparation,
administration, scoring and
interpretation of the test scores.

20. Washback or Backwash
Language teachers operating in a
communicative framework
normally attempt to equip students
with skills that are judged to be
relevant to present or future needs.
The effect of testing on teaching
and learning is known as washback
or backwash.

21. TESTING CRITERIA or TEST DESIGN
Direct testing: When it requires the
testee to perform precisely the skills that
the tester wants to measure. E.g, if we want
to know how well students write essays,
then we get them to write an essay.
Indirect test offers possibility of testing a
representative sample of a finite number of
abilities (e.g. vocabulary, grammatical
structures) which underlie a potentially
indefinitely large number of manifestations
of them. E.g. Identify the similar sounds:
Like vs life in a written test.

22. Discrete point vs integrative testing
A discrete point testing assesses
the student’s knowledge of one
specific language point, or one
element at a time, item by item.
Integrative testing, by contrast,
requires the candidate to combine
many language elements in the
completion of a task. Could be
writing a composition, taking
lecture notes, giving directions, etc.

23. Norm-referenced testing
Norm-referenced testing
compares the level of performance
of an individual with the general
standard of performance shown by
the total group that he or she
belongs to and can be compared
with.
Norm-referenced testing places a
student in a percentage category. It
relates one candidate’s performance
to that of other candidates.

24. Criterion-referenced testing
Criterion-referenced testing
emphasis on whether or not individual
student knows something rather specific
that (s)he ought to know or can perform
something specific that (s)he is supposed
to be able to do.
In criterion-referenced testing we
assume that there are two kinds of
individuals - those who can carry out the
operation and those who cannot.

25. Objective vs subjective tests
Objective tests are often
constructed with selected-response
item format, such as multiple-
choice, matching, and true-false.
Subjective test is : generally
speaking, the productive skills
such as speaking and writing are
difficult to test objectively, in
these skills judgement is required.

26. Test Techniques
Multiple Choice
Advantages : scoring is reliable and can
be done rapidly and economically.
Possible to include many more items
than would otherwise be possible in a
given period of time – making the test
more reliable.
Disadvantages : It tests only recognition
knowledge or guessing may have a
considerable but unknowable effect on
test scores

27. Cloze test
A cloze test is essentially a fill-in-the-
blank test. A testee is asked to
attempt to replace the original
words. A better and more reliable
method is to carefully choose which
words to delete from a passage. It
can be used with a tape-recorded
oral passage to indirectly test oral
ability.
E.G. Cabo Delgado province is
located in-----of Mozambique.

28. C-Test
Instead of whole words it is the second
half of every word that is deleted.
Advantages: only exact scoring is
necessary. It is shorter (and so more)
passages are possible
A wider range of topics, styles, and
levels of ability is possible.
Disadvantage : May end up rather
testing one’s ability to figure out
puzzles than in testing language ability.
E.g. Lion is a very dangerous ani.....

29. Dictation
Test is set in prediction of overall ability
and has the advantage of involving
listening ability.
It is easy to create and administer.
However, it is not easy to score;
poorer students scoring becomes
tedious.
Partial-dictation may be considered as a
better alternative since it is easier for
both the test taker and the scorer.

30. Other forms of testing techniques
Testing writing
Testing speaking
Testing listening
Testing reading.
READ HUGHES (1989)

31. Rubrics or Rating Scales
Rubrics, also commonly referred to as
rating scales, are increasingly used to
evaluate performance assessments.
Rubrics help us to set anchor points
along a quality continuum so that we
can set reasonable and appropriate
expectations for learners and
consistently judge how well they have
met them.

32. REFLECTION
1. Is there any difference between test,
testing, assessment and evaluation?
2.Why do we assess students learning
according to Cohan(1994)?
3. How can we test the four language skills
in isolation?
4. To what extent would you depict the
holistic versus analytic rating criteria?
5. What implications are there for not
having English oral exam in grade 12th
?

33. THE END
THANK YOU
VERY MUCH
By Cachele, M.A

34. REFERENCE
Bachman, L. ( 1990) Fundamental Considerations in
Language Testing, London: OUP.
Davies, A. (1965) Communicative Language Testing,
Cambridge: CUP.
Harris, D.P. (1968) Testing English as a Second
Language, New York: McGraw Hill.
Hughes, A. (1989) Testing for Language Teachers,
Cambridge: CUP.
Lado, R. (1961) Language Testing, London: Longman.
McNamara, T. (2000) Language Testing. Oxford: OUP.
Valette. R. M. ( 1977) Modern Language Testing.
Harcourt: New York.
Weir
, Cyril J. (1990) Communicative Language Testing,
United Kingdom: Compus 400.