Assessment AND Testing IN THE Classroom PDF

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SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:ASSESSMENT AND TESTING IN THE CLASSROOMGENERAL INFORMATION:This assignment has to fulfil the following conditions: Length: between 8 and 10 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-). Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman. Size: 11. Line height: 1.. A...

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Assignment - ATC

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT: ASSESSMENT AND TESTING IN THE CLASSROOM

GENERAL INFORMATION: This assignment has to fulfil the following conditions: -

Length: between 8 and 10 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-). Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman. Size: 11. Line height: 1.5. Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be done in this Word document and has to fulfil the rules of presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are detailed in the Study Guide. Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the Study Guide. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not permitted. In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the Study Guide. The assignment mark is 100% of the final mark, but the participation in the activities performed during the tutorials can improve this mark.

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Assignment - ATC

Assignment: You should devise a formal “progress” or “achievement” test for assessing language learning outcomes of:  Specified objectives in either listening or reading.  Specified objectives in either speaking or writing (you must specify the objectives). The instrument should be justified in relation to its theoretical basis. The test should aim to test the communicative use of language and will therefore include integrative techniques, although these might be objectively or subjectively marked as you feel appropriate. Items which test knowledge of discrete items of grammar and lexis may also be included if you think it is appropriate. The rationale should minimally include discussion of the following:  The type of test according to purpose (see unit 2).  Whether the test could be considered second, or third generation.  Discussion of the principles of language testing as outlined in Unit 3, in relation to the test you design.  Discussion of relevant scales and instructions for marking the test.  Discussion of why you have chosen the test formats elected for the particular skill. Note: You are expected to devise a (i.e. write your own) test. Do not use an already written test from other sources, and please note that plagiarised tests will be given a fail grade.

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Assignment - ATC

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT: ASSESSMENT AND TESTING IN THE CLASSROOM

Name and surname: Login: COFPMTFL1452038

Group: fp_tefl_2013-10 Subject: ASSESSMENT AND TESTING IN THE CLASSROOM

Date: May 17th, 2015

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INDEX INTRODUCTION…………………………..…………………………………….….………...5 SECTION 1: RATIONALE…………………………………………………………………….6 SECTION 2: ANALYSIS OF THE TEST…………………………………………………....7 SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES AND THE GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE TEST………....7 THE TYPE OF TEST ACCORDING TO THE PURPOSE…….………………….……….8 SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF LISTENING………………………….…………………….9 SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF READING………………………………………………….9 SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF WRITING….………………………………………………10 SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF SPEAKING……………………………………………..…10 THE TEST GENERATION ……………………………………...………………………..…11 THE PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE TESTING……………...………………………….…12 RELEVANT SCALES AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR MARKING THE TEST…….…….…14 THE TEST FORMATS ELECTED FOR THE PARTICULAR SKILL ….……………..…15

CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………….…...17

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBOGRAPHY........................................................................18

APPENDIX....................................................................................................................19 .

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INTRODUCTION

For over 10 years, as ESL teacher, I have been using different types of tests and ways of assessing my students. Through this experience of formal assessment, I have found that they complement my English classes by stimulating the lessons and creating a more committed attitude towards learning since they offer the student an opportunity to reflect on his/her own learning in order to improve it. Moreover, it permits to diagnose the problems students have to provide them with useful feedback.

Thus, one of my recent tests designed for the university students will be analyzed to outline the purposes for assessing language learning process and the description of some specified objectives of a formal achievement test with its main communicative abilities. This formal test will be justified in relation to its theoretical basis and it aims the communicative use of language to assess the progress of the students according to the syllabus objectives.

This test also involves some techniques that might be

objectively or subjectively and it will include the way to measure the performance of the students and the progress they are making.

SECTION 1: RATIONALE

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This assignment explains the process of designing a formal “achievement” test for assessing language learning outcomes and a set of activities, their objectives, their setting and the needs perceived. The main purpose of this test aims at helping students of English as a Foreign Language to evaluate their English on some aspects: listening, reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing and speaking.

Talking about context, it is necessary to say that the test that will be analyzed corresponds to a second exam that I designed for a group of students of Universidad Industrial de Santander of different programs who take the course of English III as an additional subject after having taken English I and English II as mandatory subjects to get graduated from the university. The target group ranges between the ages of 18 and 25. According to the classification set by the university where I work, the linguistic level is Pre- Intermediate or B1 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe, n.d: 24). This programme attracts highly educated students who are either already pursuing a professional career, or starting their academic studies at the university. Each course of English III is divided into three different terms and each term must include an achievement exam that measures the level of learning according to the achievement indicators and the syllabus. At the end of the course, the students have presented three achievement tests to reach the promotion to a more advanced course that is English IV.

On the other hand, it is commonly known, that the most popular word in the world of language teaching is Communicative, and this is mainly because classes should be planned around the concept of ‘learner centeredness’. For the reason expressed before and under the broad umbrella of Communicative Language Teaching, the tests designed by teachers in the university where I work must include not only the ability to form correct sentences but to use them at appropriate times since the basic idea of communicative competence remains the ability to use language appropriately, both receptively and productively, in different situations. As a result, we, teachers from the Institute, have to do our best to create tests for the students that integrate the four comprehension skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, without forgetting the study of vocabulary which is also an essential part of learning a foreign language. Apart from this, we must take into account our students’ interests. For this reason, it is very important to include in the test interesting tasks and readings that will allow students not only to develop fluency but also accuracy in the learning of a foreign 6

Assignment - ATC

language. All of this will generate a more positive attitude toward student´s learning process, who will be immersed in a multidimensional English experience.

SECTION 2: ANALYSIS OF THE TEST SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES AND THE GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE TEST

One of the main issues in communicative language testing is the definition of Communicative language Ability which is the theoretical base to build a communicative test. Some examples of communicative language testing propose that it consists of both knowledge of language and the capacity for implementing that knowledge in communicative language use. Thus, the content of the previous test assesses the students’ proficiency in the second term of the Curricular English III Program. This program is based on the Common European Framework and guided completely by the book Cutting Edge Pre- Intermediate Third Edition. The units 3, 4 and 5 are the ones to be tested. Although it is not an external test and not so formal as the carefully constructed language examination, the exam presented before, is considered as a “formal achievement assessment” since it focuses on a wide range of language and is done in order to assess learning. It is administered in three sections and it contains the topics of the mentioned units in a contextualized way since students are asked to do tasks which have clear reference in reality.

Thus, this exam of Curricular English III Program has the specified objectives to assess the students’ performance according to listening, reading, writing and speaking skills acquired in this part of the program. It is supposed that every student in the second term of Curricular English III can accomplish the next CAN DO statements, assessed in the previous achievement test: LISTENING: 

Students can complete information about habits and routines.



Students can identify personal events and special occasions in a listening exercise.



Students can understand specific information associated with important dates.



Students can understand the majority of audio material on topics of personal interest.

READING 

Students can understand simple texts related to historical facts.



Students can understand a text about physical appearance descriptions.



Students can understand a variety of language about common topics.

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Students can read a text related to people, cities and vocabulary.



WRITING 

Students can use a variety of language and strategies to help keep a conversation or discussion going.



Students can give advices and make suggestions.



Students can express my opinions and agree/disagree with others.



Students can complete missing information with the appropriate vocabulary and expressions.

SPEAKING

 Students can discuss opinions about image, appearance and fashion.  Students can use brief expressions to describe wants and needs and make requests for information.

 Students can talk about arrangement in the future.  Students can use simple expressions in appropriate situations. THE TYPE OF TEST ACCORDING TO THE PURPOSE Achievement tests are “those which come at the end of a relatively long period of learning, and whose content derives from the syllabus that has been taught over that period of time” (Lennon A. n.d.:15). Thus, the analysed test can be clearly considered as an “achievement” test because its purpose is to assess the student’s performance at the end of a period of time. The calendar is set by the university and it covers a wide range of language and skills since it evaluates three long units, including the previous knowledge they have learned. Achievement tests can also be used for a variety of purposes. In this case, this one evaluates the learner's understanding of a specific study programme since the learners have finished units 3 – 5 of a coursebook and the teacher now gives them an achievement test based on what they have seen in these units. Each of these tests is designed to assess how much students know at a specific point in time about a certain topic. Its content derives from the syllabus that has been taught over the specific period of time and it includes the four skills.

SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF LISTENING Listening is an important part of language learning, its effects directly affect the learner’s language knowledge and it is considered one of the most important skill for 8

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EFL learners as “it internalizes the rules of language and facilitates the emergence of other language skills” (Vandergrift 2011 p.455). In this way, all the exercises proposed in the test are focused on assessing the student’s performance in the listening skill, so each one of the recording will be repeated twice. Thus, in the first exercise of listening, students will hear recorded information about Philip talking to a friend about his photography course.

This first comprehension exercise uses five multiple choice-

questions to choose the best answer and assess the ability to identify personal events and special occasions. There are five matching questions in the second exercise of the listening part in which the students will hear recorded information about Sarah and some problems with her things at the sports centre. The focus of this exercise is listening to identify information by matching each word into the correct column. The third objective testing technique used is completion since the instruction is to complete a set of notes by filling five gaps with words or numbers. Thus, this third exercise is focused on listening and writing down information so students will hear a man asking for information about a school and they will have to fill in the missing information. To finish this section, it is important to remember that this section tests the student’s ability to listen for basic interpersonal, instructional and academic purposes and comprises of a variety of tasks that not only use the language competence but also the main points of the people’s speech which are graded according to the length of the task and the difficulty level. SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF READING Different types of assessment can be used for measuring development in reading skills. This reading part is mainly focused on the student’s ability to understand the main idea of the text and to use this comprehension to select the best option. Therefore, in the first part of the reading, the technique used is the "correct/Incorrect" in which the students after reading the short text called "Robot birds" have to read eight different statements and decide if they are or "true or false". The main purpose of this technique is to be attentive on the several details of the text, vocabulary knowledge and the ability to work with the whole information of the text. On the other hand, in the second task of the reading part, the most common reading comprehension assessment is presented It involves asking the students to read a passage of text that is levelled appropriately for them, and then asking some explicit, detailed questions about the content of the text. So, in this case, the students will read about the ideal beauty through the ages and will write the answer to eight different questions.

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SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF WRITING “Parallel to the speaking skills, current testing practice in writing suggests the need for real- world tasks. They reflect real language use, and therefore can be used to predict language performance” (Lennon A.n.d.:54). Thus, the writing part of this test tries to emphasize on more realistic tasks such as the dialogues on the second part or the e-mail from the third part. Hence, the writing part of the test is focused on three test formats for writing: gap filling, form completion and continuous writing. The first part of the written test is focused on vocabulary because the students have to read the descriptions about physical appearance and write the most suitable word according to the first letter given. The second part presents some short conversations with a missing word with the purpose of writing down the appropriate word or number. Besides these two exercises, I consider that an on-going assessment of writing is integral to the effective teaching of writing to students. That is why the third part of the exam is focused on the writing production since the students have to use their writing skills to create a short message to answer to one of his /her closest friends, to give him/her useful pieces of advice. So, students put into practice their knowledge of grammar, syntax and vocabulary in order to be comprehensible and coherent to produce something meaningful for the people who read. SPECIFIED OBJECTIVES OF SPEAKING The speaking part of this test presents assessment tasks in responsive speaking. It is guided by an interview and a group of speaking cards that are oriented communicatively since the student has to use the acquired structures and vocabulary to act out and to talk to others.

These two speaking exercises expect the student to

use the acquired abilities in order to produce real-life communication. As it is possible to see, in the first part of the interview, an interview tests the level of performance in terms of different criteria such as accuracy, fluency and vocabulary. It consists of 5 questions to each student from the teacher who is the interviewer. They can vary from simple questions to complex questions.

On the other hand, the second activity

presents a spoken interaction exercise in which each couple of students will be given some minutes to prepare the conversation according to the situation selected. The student will use not only the grammar, pronunciation and general speaking competence to produce the speech, but he or she will also use the general communicative competence in order to be comprehensible, interesting and motivating to others, through the use of such techniques as body and face language, eye contact, the tone 10

Assignment - ATC

of voice, intonation and public management. In this way, many of the acquired speaking skills will be used by the student in order to produce something meaningful for others.

THE TEST GENERATION The test analysed can be clearly considered as “second generation”, where every item is assessed and tested separately and very objectively. “Questions in second generation testing normally measure one item of language, known as a discrete point. Since each question tests one tiny aspect of language, these tests are often very long, consisting of many questions.” (Lennon A.n.d.:19). In the target test, every skill and exercise has a certain number of marks that score totally 100 points. Each skill has no or very little connection with other abilities and exercises, so every task is tested separately from others. Although some of the exercises can be considered as integrative in some way for the students, referring to a real-life use of the language, this “second” generation test assesses objectively and the tasks are not enough “authentic” to be considered as a “third generation” test. For instance it is clearly affirmed that the “third generation” tests contain third generation techniques, contextualized by their very nature as authentic. “Candidates are asked to do tasks which have clear reference to reality. Third generation tests assess integrative language. The nature of the tasks in speaking and writing demand integrative language use…that has to be assessed subjectively”. (Lennon A.n.d.:20) According to the previous description, it can be seen that some of the exercises, especially in the reading and listening parts of the test are not completely integrative, since they have too little connection to the students’ reality and the language is not oriented meaningfully for a reallife purpose. In this way, the reading and listening part do not demand the student’s involvement in order to give an opinion, to solve out a problem, to find out some necessary information to act out, etc. For this reas...