Language Testing (Defined and Explained)

Introduction

Language testing is an integral part of any curriculum design. It is crucial in the teaching-learning process. It assists language teachers in placing students to the proper levels, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and assessing their performance throughout the course.

Although tests are the dreaded learning part for our students,  they are considered important teaching tools. They create competition within the classroom,  provide feedback and give a sense of success to the learners.

What is language testing?

Language Testing is the practice and study of evaluating the proficiency of an individual in using a particular language effectively.

What is a test?

A test is a method of measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given area. It is obviously a set of techniques or procedures that samples performance but infers competence and which takes into consideration the testee’s previous experience. Some fundamental characteristics of a test are the following:

• It is a measuring of ability or knowledge
• The measuring can be broad and inexact as in informal tests (a good tennis player)
• But it can also be mathematically quantified ( exact) as in formal tests
• It is the performance that is tested but the underlying knowledge that is targeted or inferred
• The target can be a given area (proficiency, grammar, pronunciation …)
• Tests take into consideration the testee’s previous experience.

Requirement of tests

Several requirements have to be met when designing tests.

Practicality:

It must be practical in terms of financial limitation, time constraints, ease of administration, scoring, and interpretation

Reliability:

There are two types of test reliability:

• Test reliability means that assigning the same test to the same subjects or matched subjects on two different occasions would yield the same result.
• Scorer or rater reliability on the other hand refers to the consistency of scoring by two or more scorers

Validity

Does the test measure what it is intended to measure?  This refers to content and construct validity

If a test samples the class situations or the universe of the subject matter about which conclusions are to be drawn, it is said to have content validity.

Constructs are things like ” proficiency”, ” communicative competence”, and “self-esteem” … Any theoretical category can be thought of as a construct. Tests reflect these constructs. When preparing tests one needs to be satisfied that these tests are adequate definitions of a construct.

Types of tests

1. Proficiency test: it determines how well someone has learned a language.
2. Diagnostic test: it refers to a test that aims at providing information about learners’ strengths and weaknesses. It is administered at the beginning of a course.
3. Achievement test: it s administered to determine how much a student has learned in relation to a specific course, textbook, or program of teaching.
4. Aptitude test/ It measures a student’s potential or ability to learn.

Discrete vs Integrative tests

Discrete tests derive from the audiolingual structural approach to language learning. Language is seen in this approach as a sum of discrete blocks to be learned separately. It focuses on isolated language points that students must master before proceeding to a higher level.

Integrative tests appeared as the communicative approach started to gain fields in foreign and second language teaching. If discrete items take language skills apart integrative tests put it back together. Examples of such tests include cloze tests and dictation.

Assessing communicative competence

Testing has to be pragmatically relevant. It should revolve around three main areas, namely

• grammar,
• discourse
• sociolinguistics and illocutionary competence

Merill swain (1984) listed four primary criteria for the construction of communicative tests:

1. Start from somewhere.
   Building on existing knowledge and principles. This refers to a theoretical framework that is a foundation for devising any communicative tests.
2. Concentrate on content
   Instead of requiring the testee to jump from one topic to another,  a communicative test needs to have motivating, interesting, and substantive content.  This includes, for example, problem-solving and situations that use context and are integrative and interactive.
3. Bias for best.
   Tests need to do everything possible to elicit the very best performance. this is possible only if the testee feels that s/he can indeed succeed and is provided with a stress-free environment. The testee should also be given enough time to complete the task.
4. Work for washback.
   Tests provide feedback. This means that we should not teach to test. Tests are rather teaching tools for better achievements.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, while our students fear being tested, many teachers contend that we cannot do without tests.  Tests provide feedback and create competition. Nevertheless, there are some legitimate questions that need to be answered:

• ” Is everything we teach testable?”
• “Do we actually test performance or competence?”
• “Aren’t there any external factors that might affect tests?”
• “Is high scoring on a test really evidence of language mastery?”

References

H.Douglas Brown (1987) “Principles of Language Learning and Teaching “