tests and the reach of instructional goals and obejctives
...test results we make inferences about the degree to which an examinee possesses some trait or theoretical construct. Construct-related validity asks: What do these test scores really mean? Evidence of construct-related validity involves making hypotheses and collecting information over a period of time, using many sources and methods. As reliability and validity play a very important role in language teaching and evaluation, there must be a relation between testing and teaching because they are so closely interrelated and its almost impossible to separate them. 2. Testing and teaching. As it is said before, testing and teaching are so closely interrelated and it is almost impossible separate them. It means that working in either field without being constantly concerned with the other is no possible. Test may be constructed primarily as devices to reinforce learning and to motivate the student. Other characteristic of tests is that it must serve as a means of assessing the students’ performance in the language. In the first case, the test is generated by the teaching that is taken place. In the second case, teaching is often conducted largely to the test. A language test which seeks to find out what candidates can do with language provides a focus for purposeful, everyday communication activities. Such a test will have a more powerful effect on the learning of a particular language than a mechanical test of structure. A good communicative test of language, however, should have a more positive effect on learning and teaching and should generally result in improved learning habits. 3. Role of tests in teaching The evaluation of student performance for purposes of comparisons or selection is only one of the functions of a test. Although most teachers also wish to evaluate individual performance, the aim of classroom test is different. It is concerned with evaluation for the purpose of enabling teachers to increase their own effectiveness by making adjustments in their teaching to enable certain groups of students or individuals in the class to benefit more. According to Heaton (1998), a good classroom test will also help to locate the precise areas of difficulty encountered by the class or by the individual student. He points out that as well as patients diagnose the patients’ illness, it is equally necessary for the teacher to diagnose the students’ weaknesses and difficulties. “Unless the teacher is able to identify and analyze the errors a student makes in handling the target language, he or she will be in no position to render any assistance at all through appropriate anticipation, remedial work and additional practice” (p. 6). It is important to notice also that a test should enable the teacher to observe which parts of the language program have been difficult to manage by the class. In this way the teacher can evaluate the effectiveness of the syllabus as well as the methods and materials he or she is using. A test which sets out to measure students’ performances as “fairly as possible (Heaton, 1998 p. 7) without in any way setting traps for them can be effectively used to motivate them. A well-constructed classroom test will provide the students with an opportunity to show their ability to perform certain tasks in the language. If a teacher applies the test and provides as soon as possible students with the results, he or she will be able to learn from their weaknesses. Valete (1977) suggests that as much as possible, the time given over ton classroom testing should provide a rewarding experience. They should give the students the opportunity to show how well they are can manage specific elements of the target language. Also she points out that tests should be announced in advanced to permit students prepare adequately. Finally, classroom tests play their role in the language programs in terms of defining course objectives. According to Valete (1977), the classroom tests define the short range course objectives of the teacher. In that way, test must be according to the skills teachers are planning to work. For example, if there is a test to evaluate students’ oral performance students need to feel that they are planning to work using their oral skill so the inclusion of a written part is not necessary because the focus is on oral production and it is not in written or other skill production. 4. type of tests According to Brown (2001), there are five types of tests: the first one is called the aptitude test, the second one is called the achievement test, the third one is the placement test, the fourth one is the diagnostic test and finally the fifth one is called the proficiency test. 4.1 The aptitude test The aptitude tests are designed to measure person's capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language and to be successful in that. Examples require students to perform such tasks as memorizing numbers and vocabulary, listening to foreign words, and detecting spelling clues and grammatical patterns. 4.2 The achievement test The achievement test is limited to particular material covered in a curriculum within a particular time frame, and are offered after a course has covered the objectives in question. Its primary role is to determine acquisition of course objectives at the end of a period of instruction. 4.3 The Placement test The purpose of the placement test is to place student into appropriate level or section of language curriculum or school. Typically includes a sampling of material to be covered in the curriculum. It also aims to identify point at which student is at in the curriculum. 4.4 The diagnostic test It is useful to diagnose a particular aspect of a language e.g. pronunciation. Usually, such tests offer checklist of features for administrator to use in pinpointing difficulties. Give teacher information on areas that need to be worked on. 4.5 The proficiency test It tests global competence not isolated skills. TOEFL is an example of them. 5. Testing the language skills There are four major skills in language teaching. They are often called as listening, writing, reading and speaking. In determinated contexts where English is taught for general purposes as in many schools in Colombia, these skills should be carefully integrated and used to generate as many genuinely communicative tasks as possible. Heaton (1998) suggests that it is important for test writers to concentrate on those types of test items which appear directly relevant to the ability to use language for real-life communication, especially in oral interaction. He also points out that ways of assessing performance in the four major skills may take the form of tests of: • Listening: (auditory) comprehension, in which short utterances, dislogues, talks and lectures are given to the test takers. • Speaking ability, usually in the form of an interview, a picture, description, role play, and a problem-solving task involving pair work or group work. • Reading comprehension, in which questions are set to test the students’ ability to understand the gist of a text and to extract key information on specific points in the text. • Writing ability, usually in the form of letters, reports, memos, messages, instructions, and accounts of past events, etc. In order to carry out that evaluation of the four skills, some approaches have been proposed according to the periods in the development of language testing. 6. Approaches to language testing Language tests can be classified according to four main approaches to testing: the essay-translation approach, the structuralist approach, the integrative approach and the communicative approach. A useful test will generally incorporate features of several of these approaches. Indeed, a test may have certain inherent weaknesses simply because it is limited to one approach, however attractive that approach may appear. (Heaton, 1998 p. 15) 6.1 The essay-translation approach. This approach is commonly referred to as the pre-scientific stage of language testing. No special skill is required: the subjective judgment of the teacher is considered to be of paramount importance. Tests usually consist of essay writing, translation, and grammatical analysis. 6.2 The structuralist approach This approach is characterized by the point of view that language learning is close related to the systematic acquisition of a set of habits. It draws on the work of structural linguistics, in particular the importance of contrastive analysis and the need to identify and measure the learners’ mastery of the separate elements of the target language: phonology, vocabulary and grammar. 6.3 The integrative approach This approach involves the testing of language in context and is thus concerned primarily with meaning and the total communicative effect of discourse. Consequently, integrative tests do not seek to separate language skills into neat divisions in order to improve test reliability: instead, they are often designed to assess the learner’s ability to use two or more skills simultaneously. Integrative tests are best characterized by the use of cloze testing (they measure the readers’ ability to decode “interrupted” or “mutilated” messages by making the most acceptable substitutions from all the contextual clues available). 6.4 The communicative approach The communicative approach to language testing is sometimes linked to the integrative approach. Communicative tests are concerned primarily (if not totally) with how language is used in communication. Most of the test designed under communicative approach aim to incorporate tasks which approximate as closely as possible to students’ real life. Success is judged in terms of the effectiveness of the communication which takes place rather than formal linguistic accuracy. In order to evaluate tests, some specifications must be established and they must be according to the approach they have taken into account. 7. Test specifications A test’s specifications provide test writers with the official statements about what the test tests and how it tests it. The specifications are essential in the establishment of the test’s co...