Chapter 2 :Approaches to language testing pdf

Chapter 2
Approaches to language testing
Language tests are chronologically classified
according to four main approaches:
(1) the essay translation approach;
(2) the structuralist approach;
(3) the integrative approach; and
(4) the communicative approach

(1) the essay translation approach
Characteristics:

No special skill or expertise in testing

Subjective judgment of teacher

Essay writing, translation &
grammatical analysis (comments
about the language)

Disadvantages:

tests

a heavy literary and cultural
bias

an aural/ oral component at the upper
intermediate & advantage levels


as
something additional & not an integral
part of the syllabus or examination

(2) the structuralist approach

Language learning  chiefly concerned
with the systematic acquisition of set of
habits.

Focusing the importance of contrastive
analysis & the need to identify & measure
learners’ mastery of separated elements of
L2:phonology, vocabulary & grammar



Listening, speaking, reading & writing are
separated from one another & it’s essential
to test one skill at a time.

The need for statistical measures of
reliability & validity - important in testing
multiple choice item

(3) the integrative approach

involving the testing of language in
context & concerned with the meaning
and the total communicative effect of

discourse.

assessing the learners’ ability to use two
or more skills simultaneously, or a global
view of proficiency.

involving functional language but not the
use of functional language.

Forms: cloze test & dictation

Cloze testing

Principle: the Gestalt theory of
“closure”

Purpose: measuring the reader’s
ability to decode ‘interrupted’ or
‘mutilated’ messages by making the
most acceptable substitutions from
all the contextual clues available


Requirements: to fill in each blank in the
text itself

Methods of scoring:

one mark  acceptable answer; another
 each exact answer.


misspelling not be penalized

measuring familiarity with the grammar of
the language rather than reading

Evidence from
research studies

performance on cloze tests
correlates highly with listening,
writing & speaking

close testing: a good indicator of
general linguistic ability


linguistic knowledge, textual
knowledge & knowledge of the
world

cloze tests: achievement,
proficiency tests, classroom
placement tests & diagnostic tests

Dictation

Purpose: previously regarded solely
as a means of measuring students’
skills of listening comprehension.


Auditory discrimination, the auditory
memory span, spelling, the
recognition of sound segments, a
familiarity with grammatical and
lexical patterning of the language,
and overall textual comprehension


good predicators of global
language ability, but recent
research has found that dictation
tends to measure lower-order
language skills- straightforward
comprehension rather that high-
order skills- inference.

(4) the communicative approach

concerned primarily with how
language is used in communication

Communicative competence
achieved without a considerable
mastery of grammar

resulting in an attempt to obtain
different profiles of a learner’s
performance in the language


The score obtained on a
communicative test

several
measures of proficiency rather
than simply one overall measure.

Reflecting the culture of a
particular country because of its
emphasis on context and the use
of authentic materials.

Introducing the concept of
qualitative modes of assessment
in preference to quantitative ones