Assessment and testing

ASSESSMENT AND TESTING
ASSIGNMENT

Index
INTRODUCTION Page 3
1) SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF THE TESTS Page 3
2) TYPES OF TESTS Page 4
3) FIRST, SECOND OR THIRD GENERATION TEST Page 5
4) PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE TESTING Page 6
4.1) COMPETENCE VS PERFORMANCE Page 6
4.2) USAGE VS USE Page 6
4.3) DIRECT VS INDIRECTASSESSMENT Page 7
4.4) DISCRETE POINTS VS INTEGRATIVE ASSESSMENT Page 7
4.5) OBJECTIVE VS SUBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT Page 7
4.6) BACKWARD AND FORWARD LOOKING ASSESSEMENT Page 8
4.7 CONTEXTUALIZED VS DISEMBODIED LANGUAGE Page 8
4.8) RELIABILTY VERSUS VALIDITY Page 8
5) TESTS FORMATS Page 9
6 ) SCALES AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR MARKING THE TEST Page 10
CONCLUSION Page 11REFERENCES Page 12

INTRODUCTION

Bachman (1990) gives two main roles for tests, the role that tests play in making educational decisions within the context of an educational programme, and the role they play as indicators of abilities or attributes that are of interest in research on language, language acquisition and language teaching. If a test is regarded as important, its preparationwill dominate all teaching and learning activities, and a beneficial backwash effect the effect of testing and learning will take place (Hughes, 1990). Constructing better tests for EFL learners is essential for teachers in enabling students to develop their language skills. Deep down inside, most students and teachers dislike tests or exams. Students hate the pressure and worry of studying for andtaking tests, especially if they don't know the test material very well. Teachers don't like the time and effort expended in making up a test and then grading it. Just the same, testing is a necessary part of the educational process, because it affords an objective tool for measuring the progress and mastery of students in acquiring a skill or subject of learning. A progress test will assess thestudent's progress while he is learning a corpus of material or a skill. An achievement test, on the other hand, is given after a student has completed study. It evaluates how well a learner has mastered a subject or a skill. The objective of this assignment is to devise a formal progress test for assessing language learning outcomes of specified objective in reading and in writing
What basicquestions should a teacher/tester ask him/her before setting a test? What to test? How to do it? Whether to test at all. Why the assessment is being made? What it should contain. The consequences for teaching, learning and administration. The quality of the proposed test material.
1. SPECIFIED OJECTIVES OF THE TESTS
Assessment of reading
Students should be able extend their abilities to readeffectively in a variety of situation for a variety of purposes, including to gather information, to follow directions, to give a response, to form an opinion, to understand information, to enjoy and appreciate. They should recognize that reading is an active process in which readers interact with the text to construct meaning within the context of their own understanding and experiences they shoulddraw on prior knowledge and experiences by considering what they know and need to know about topic the students should read with purpose in mind and make connections to prior knowledge and experiences (i.e. relate text to self, text to other text, and text to world): they should be able to recognize author's main ideas, draws conclusions based on evidence in texts and identify ideas expressed astrue or false. In our test, the students from an intermediate level will have to read an authentic text about the difference between women and men as gossiping is concerned. This test should enable the students to use the vocabulary learned previously in a chapter of their course book dedicated to the differences between men and women in a western culture.
Assessment of writing
Students...