A.)
Approaches to Language Testing
Approximately, language tests can be
categorized according to four main approaches to testing. They are the
essay-translation approach, the structuralist approach, the integrative
approach and the communicative approach.
1.)
The Essay-Translation Approach
a.)
Characteristics and types of Tests
1.) This
approach is commonly referred to as the pre- scientific
stage of language testing.
2.)
No special skill or expertise in testing is required.
3.) Tests usually
consist of essay writing, translation, and grammatical analysis.
4.) Tests have a heavy
literary and cultural bias.
5.) Public examinations
resulting from the tests using this approach sometimes have an oral component
at the upper intermediate and advance levels.
b.)
Strengths
1.) This approach is
easy to follow because teachers will simply use their subjective judgment.
2.) The
essay-translation approach may be used for testing any level of examinees.
3.) The model of tester
can easily be modified based on the essentials of the tests.
c.)
Weaknesses
1.) Subjective judgment
of teachers tends to be biased.
2.) As mentioned, the
tests have a heavy literary and cultural bias.
2.)
The Structural Approach
a.) Characteristics
and types of Tests
1.) This approach views
that language learning is chiefly concerned with a systematic acquisition of a
set of habits.
2.) The structuralist
approach involves structural linguistics which stresses the importance of
constructive analysis and the need to identify and measure the learner’s
mastery of the separate elements of the target language such as phonology,
vocabulary and grammar.
3.) Testing the skills
of listening, speaking,, reading, and writing is separate from another as much
as possible.
4.) The psychometric
approach to measurement with its emphasis on reliability and objectivity forms
an integral part of structural testing.
b.)
Strengths
1.) In testing
students’ capability, this approach may objectively and surely be used by
testers.
2.) Many forms of tests
can be covered in the test in a short time.
3.) Using this approach
in testing will help students find their strengths and weaknesses in every
skill they study.
c.)
Weaknesses
1.) It tends to be a
complicated job for teachers to prepare questionnaires using this approach.
2.) This approach
considers measuring non-integrated skills more than integrated skills.
3.)
The Integrative Approach
a.)
Characteristics and types of Tests.
1.) This approach
involves the testing of language in context and is thus concerned primarily
with meaning and the total communicative effect of discourse.
2.) Integrative tests
are concerned with a global view of proficiency.
3.) Integrative testing
involves functional language but not the use of functional language.
4.) The use of cloze
test, dictation, oral interview, translation and essay writing are included in
many integrated tests.
b.)
Strengths
1.) The approach to
meaning and the total communicative effect of discourse will be very useful for
students in testing.
2.) This approach can
view students’ proficiency with a global view.
3.) A model cloze test
used in this approach measures the reader’s ability to decode interrupted or
mutilated messages by making the most acceptable substitutions from all the
contextual clues available.
4.) Dictation, another
type using this approach, was regarded solely as a means of measuring students’
skills of listening comprehension.
c.
Weaknesses
Even if many think that
measuring integrated skills is better, sometimes there is a need to consider
the importance of measuring skills based on students, need, such as writing
only, speaking only, etc.
4.)
The Communicative Approach
a.)
Characteristics and types of Tests.
1.) Communicative tests
are concerned primarily with how language is used in communication.
2.) Language use is
often emphasized to the exclusion of language usage.
3.) The attempt to
measure different language skills in communicative tests is based on a view of
language referred to as the divisibility hypothesis.
4.) The test content
should totally be relevant for a particular group of examinees and the tests
set should relate to real-life situation.
5.) Communicative
testing introduces the concept of qualitative modes of assessment in preference
to quantitative modes of assessment.
b.)
Strengths
1.) Communicative tests
are able to measure all integrated skills of students.
2.) The tests using
this approach face students in real life so it will be very useful for them.
3.) Because a communicative test can measure all
language skills, it can help students in getting the score.
4.) Detailed statements
of each performance level serve to increase the reliability of the scoring by
enabling the examiner to make decisions according to carefully drawn-up and
well-established criteria.
c.)
Weaknesses
1.) Unlike the
structuralist approach, this approach does not emphasize learning structural
grammar, yet it may be difficult to achieve communicative competence without a
considerable mastery of the grammar of a language.
2.) It is possible for
cultural bias to affect the reliability of the tests being administered.
B. Test Techniques
1.) Direct versus Indirect Testing
Direct Testing- it requires the candidate to perform
precisely the skill that the test wishes to measure.
§
To
know how well candidates can write compositions, get them to write
compositions.
§
To
know how well they pronounce a language, get them to speak.
§
Is
easier to carry out when it is intended to measure the productive skills of
speaking and writing.
*Direct testing has
a number of attractions. 1.) Provide the abilities that should be assessed is
clear, it is relatively straightforward to create the conditions which will
elicit the behavior on which judgment will be based. 2.) The assessment and
interpretation of students’ performance are also quite straightforward and;
there is likely to be a helpful backwash effect.
Indirect Testing
§
Attempts
to measure the abilities that underlie the skills in which the test is
interested.
§
It
contains underlined items which the student needs to identify as erroneous or
inappropriate in formal Standard English.
* It is worth mentioning that some tests are
referred to as semi-direct. The most
obvious examples of these are speaking tests where candidates respond to
tape-recorded stimuli, with their own responses being recorded and later
scored. These tests are semi-direct in
the sense that, although not direct, they stimulate direct testing.
2. Discrete Point versus Integrative Testing
Discrete- a completely discrete-point item would test
simply one point or objective such as testing for the meaning of a word in isolation.
Discrete Point Testing- refers to the testing of 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. This might involve
writing a composition, making notes while listening to a lecture, taking a
dictation, or completing a cloze passage.
-Integrative Test refers to an integrative item that would test more
than one point or objective at a time. (e.g., comprehension of words, and
ability to use them correctly in context).
*Sometimes
an integrative item is really more a procedure than an item, as in the case of
a free composition, which could test a number of objectives; for example, use
of appropriate vocabulary, use of sentences level discourse, organization,
statement of thesis and supporting evidence.
3. Norm-referenced versus Criterion-referenced
Testing
Norm-referenced Test- student’s scores are interpreted relative to
each other in a normal distribution scheme (bell curve). The idea is to spread
the students out on a continuum of knowledge/ability in order to facilitate
proficiency and placement decisions.
Criterion-referenced Test- measure student ability against a
predetermined standard, e.g. the learning objectives of a specific course or
unit of a course.
- This test is by-far
the most commonly used by teachers in language courses, as they are used to
measure achievement and to diagnose strengths and weaknesses.
4. Objective versus Subjective Testing
Objective Testing
§
No
judgment is required on the part of the scorer
§
Objective
test-is objective in that there is only one right answer.
Subjective Testing
§
Judgment
is required.
§
Refers
to a free composition which may be more subjective in nature if the scorer is
not looking for any one right answer, but rather for a series of factors
(creativity, style, cohesion, and coherence, grammar, and mechanics).
* Objectivity in scoring is sought after by
many testers, not for itself, but for the greater reliability it brings. In
general, the less subjective the scoring, the greater agreement there will be
between two different scorers.
