Approaches to language Assessment
- 1. APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT PRESENTED BY ALI AL-ZURFI
- 2. INTRODUCTION Linguistic theory Language learning Teaching Testing theory methods methods
- 3. The main purpose of classifying the theories and approaches here is to clarify the degree of emphasis given to certain skills or linguistic components by various theories and more importantly the testing techniques preferred by each.
- 4. The major approaches to language testing are roughly classified into four main ones: Approaches = theoretical Method = a set of procedures, developed based on the theories. 1- The essay Translation approach 2- The structuralist approach 3- The integrative approach 4- The communicative approach
- 5. ESSAY TRANSLATION APPROACH • * Is commonly referred to as the pre-scientific stage of language testing. * No special skills or expertise in testing required. * Test usually consist of essay writing, translation and grammatical analysis. * Language is a thing learned through reading and writing.
- 6. STRENGTHS OF ESSAY TRANSLATION APPROACH 1- This approach is easy to follow because teachers will simply use their subjective judgment. 2- It may be used for testing any level of examinees. 3- The model of the tester can easily be modified based on the essentials of the test.
- 7. WEAKNESSES OF ESSAY TRANSLATION APPROACH 1- Subjective judgment of teachers tends to be biased. 2- The test have a heavy literary and cultural bias.
- 8. STRUCTURALIST APPROACH * Views that language learning is chiefly concerned with a systematic acquisition of a set of habits. * Involves structural linguistics. * Testing the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing is separate from one another as much as possible. * Language is speech not writing. * Testing is characterized by the view that ‘testing can be objective, precise, reliable and scientific’ (Spolsky, 1975).
- 9. STRENGTHS OF STRUCTURALIST APPROACH 1- In testing students capability, this approach may objectively and surely be used by testers. 2- Many forms of tests can be covered in the test in a short time. 3- Using this approach in testing will help students to find their strengths and weaknesses in every skill they study.
- 10. WEAKNESSES OF STRUCTURALIST APPROACH 1- It tends to be complicated job for teachers to prepare questionnaires using this approach. 2- Considers measuring non-integrated skills than integrated skills.
- 11. INTEGRATIVE APPROACH * This approach involves the testing of language in context and is thus concerned primarily with meaning and total communicative effect of discourse. * Integrative approach is concerned with the global view of proficiency. * Integrative testing involves functional language. * The use of cloze test, oral interview and dictation which involves testing listening comprehension, spelling, and require knowledge of grammar and vocabulary.
- 13. STRENGTHS OF INTEGRATIVE APPROACH 1- The approach to meaning and the total communicative effect of the discourse will be very useful for students in testing. 2- Can view student’s proficiency with a global view. 3- A model cloze test used in this approach measures the readers ability to decode interrupted or mutilated messages by making the most acceptable substitutions from all the contextual clues available.
- 14. WEAKNESSES OF INTEGRATIVE APPROACH 1- Even if many think that measuring integrated skills is better, sometimes there is a need to consider the importance of measuring skills based students need such as writing only, speaking only, etc. 2- Neither cloze nor dictation offers the opportunity for spontaneous production by the testees.
- 15. COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH * This approach is sometimes linked to the Integrative Approach as they both emphasize the importance of the meaning of utterance. * Concerned primarily on how language is used in communication. * Authenticity of texts and situations. * Language use is often emphasized to the exclusion of language usage. * Communicative testing introduces the concept of qualitative modes of assessment in preference to quantitative modes of assessment.
- 16. STRENGTHS OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH • Integrated Skills focuses on the four main English skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening - through a “Communicative Language Teaching” 1- Communicative tests are able to measure all integrated skills of students. 2- The tests using this approach face students in real life so it will be very useful for them. 3- Detailed statement of each performance level serve to increase the reliability of the scoring by enabling the examiner to make decisions according to carefully drawn-up and well-establish criteria.
- 17. WEAKNESSES OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH 1- Unlike the structuralist Approach, this approach does not emphasize learning structural grammar, yet it may be difficult to achieve communicative competence without considerable mastery of the grammar of a language. 2- It is possible for cultural bias to affect the reliability of the test being administered.
- 18. LANGUAGE USE AND USAGE Language use is often emphasized to the exclusion of language usage. Use is concerned with how people use the language for a multitude of different purposes while Usage concerns with the formal patterns of language.
- 19. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE 1- CLOZE TEST 2- T-TEST 3- C-TEST ?