the other students. According to Hughes (ibid.), this type of test does not
show us what exactly the student knows. Therefore, we presume that the best
test format for the following type of testing could be a placement test,
for it concerns the students’ placement and division according to their
knowledge of the foreign language. There the score is vital, as well.
4.4 Objective and subjective testing
It worth mentioning that apart from scoring and testing the learners’
abilities another essential role could be devoted to indirect factors that
influence evaluating. These are objective and subjective issues in testing.
According to Hughes (1989:19), the difference between these two types is
the way of scoring and presence or absence of the examiner’s judgement. If
there is not any judgement, the test is objective. On the contrary, the
subjective test involves personal judgement of the examiner. The author of
the paper sees it as when testing the students objectively, the teacher
usually checks just the knowledge of the topic. Whereas, testing
subjectively could imply the teacher’s ideas and judgements. This could be
encountered during speaking test where the student can produce either
positive or negative impression on the teacher. Moreover, the teacher’s
impression and his/her knowledge of the students’ true abilities can
seriously influence assessing process. For example, the student has failed
the test; however, the teacher knows the true abilities of the student and,
therefore, s/he will assess the work of that student differently taking all
the factors into account.
4.5 Communicative language testing
Referring to Bynom (ibid.), this type of testing has become popular
since 1970-80s. It involves the knowledge of grammar and how it could be
applied in written and oral language; the knowledge when to speak and what
to say in an appropriate situation; knowledge of verbal and non-verbal
communication. All these types of knowledge should be successfully used in
a situation. It bases on the functional use of the language. Moreover,
communicative language testing helps the learners feel themselves in real-
life situation and acquire the relevant language.
Weir (1990:7) stipulates that the current type of testing tests
exactly the “performance” of communication. Further, he develops the idea
of “competence” due to the fact that an individual usually acts in a
variety of situations. Afterwards, reconsidering Bachman’s idea he comes
with another notion – ‘communicative language ability’.
Weir (1990:10-11) assumes that in order to work out a good
communicative language test we have to bear in mind the issue of precision:
both the skills and performance should be accurate. Besides, their
collaboration is vital for the students’ placement in the so-called ‘real
life situation’. However, without a context the communicative language test
would not function. The context should be as closer to the real life as
possible. It is required in order to help the student feel him/herself in
the natural environment. Furthermore, Weir (ibid.) stresses that language
‘fades’ if deprived of the context.
Weir (ibid., p.11) says: “to measure language proficiency adequately
in each situation, account must be taken of: where, when, how, with whom,
and why the language is to be used, and on what topics, and with what
effect.” Moreover, Weirs (ibid.) emphasises the crucial role of the
schemata (prior knowledge) in the communicative language tests.
The tasks used in the communicative language testing should be
authentic and ‘direct’ in order the student will be able to perform as it
is done in everyday life.
According to Weir (ibid.), the students have to be ready to speak in
any situation; they have to be ready to discuss some topics in groups and
be able to overcome difficulties met in the natural environment. Therefore,
the tests of this type are never simplified, but are given as they could be
encountered in the surroundings of the native speaker. Moreover, the
student has to possess some communicative skills, that is how to behave in
a certain situation, how to apply body language, etc.
Finally, we can repeat that communicative language testing involves
the learner’s ability to operate with the language s/he knows and apply it
in a certain situation s/he is placed in. S/he should be capable of
behaving in real-life situation with confidence and be ready to supply the
information required by a certain situation. Thereof, we can speak about
communicative language testing as a testing of the student’s ability to
behave him/herself, as he or she would do in everyday life. We evaluate
their performance.
To conclude we will repeat that there are different types testing used
in the language teaching: discreet point and integrative testing, direct
and indirect testing, etc. All of them are vital for testing the students.
Chapter 5
Testing the Language Skills
In this chapter we will attempt to examine the various elements or
formats of tests that could be applied for testing of four language skills:
reading, listening, writing and speaking. First, we will look at multiple-
choice tests, after that we will come to cloze tests and gap filling, then
to dictations and so on. Ultimately, we will attempt to draw a parallel
between them and the skills they could be used for.
5.1 Multiple choice tests
It is not surprising why we have started exactly with multiple-choice
tests (MCQs, further in the text). To the author’s concern these tests are
widely used by teachers in their teaching practice, and, moreover, are
favoured by the students (Here the author has been supported by the
equivalent idea of Alderson (1996:222)). Heaton (1990:79) believes that
multiple-choice questions are basically employed to test vocabulary.
However, we can argue with the statement, for the multiple choice tests
could be successfully used for testing grammar, as well as for testing
listening or reading skills.
It is a well-known fact how a multiple-choice test looks like:
1. ---- not until the invention of the camera that artists
correctly painted horses racing.
A) There was
B) It was
C) There
D) It
“Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test”:
A task basically is represented by a number of sentences, which should
be provided with the right variant, that, in its turn, is usually given
below. Furthermore, apart from the right variant the students are offered a
set of distractors, which are normally introduced in order to “deceive” the
learner. If the student knows the material that is being tested, s/he will
spot the right variant, supply it and successfully accomplish the task. The
distractors, or wrong words, basically slightly differ from the correct
variant and sometimes are even funny. Nevertheless, very often they could
be represented by the synonyms of the correct answer whose differences are
known to those who encounter the language more frequently as their job or
study field. In that case they could be hardly differentiated, and the
students are frustrated. Certainly, the following cases could be implied
when teaching vocabulary, and, consequently, will demand the students’
ability to use the right synonym. The author of the paper had given the
multiple-choice tests to her students and must confess that despite
difficulties in preparing them, the students found them easier to do. They
motivated their favour for them as it was rather convenient for them to
find the right variant, definitely if they knew what to look for. We
presume that such test format as if motivated the learners and supplied
them additional support that they were deprived during the test where
nobody could hope for the teacher’s help.
Everything mentioned above has raised the author’s interest in the
theory on multiple-choice test format and, therefore, she finds extremely
useful the following list of advantages and disadvantages generated by
Weir. He (1990:43) lists four advantages and six disadvantages of the
multiple-choice questions test. Let us look at the advantages first:
. According to Weir, the multiple-choice questions are structured in
such a form that there is no possibility for the teacher or as he
places “marker” to apply his/her personal attitude to the marking
process.
The author of the paper finds it to be very significant, for employing
the test of this format we see only what the student knows or does not
know; the teacher cannot raise or lower the marker basing on the students’
additional ideas displayed in the work. Furthermore, the teacher, though
knowing the strong and weak points of his/her students, cannot apply this
information as well to influence the mark. What s/he gets are the pure
facts of the students’ knowledge.
Another advantage is:
. The usage of pre-test that could be helpful for stating the level of
difficulty of the examples and the test in the whole. That will
reduce the probability of the test being inadequate or too
complicated both for completing and marking.
This could mean that the teacher can ensure his/her students and
him/herself against failures. For this purposes s/he just has to test the
multiple-choice test to avoid troubles connected with its inadequacy that
later can lead to the disaster for the students receiving bad marks due to
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