assessing reading- assessment of reading skills- test -kiran nazir
- 1. Assessment of language skills Assessing reading ALLPPT.com _ Free PowerPoint Templates, Diagrams and Charts
- 3. Statement of the problem This test is designed for a commercial English language teaching organization. Its purpose is to assign new students to classes at five levels: false beginners, lower intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced. This tested is designed to check the reading skill of students. It only tests the reading ability and does not deal with any other language skill.
- 4. Conti…. This study envisioned to answer the following specific questions: 1. At what level the new students should be placed? 2. What is the proficiency level in English of students in reading?
- 5. Conti….. The test must be not more than 90 minutes in length, quick and easy to administer, score and interpret. Scoring by teachers should be possible. Sufficient accuracy and validity is required for the just placement of students. Backwash is not a serious consideration for it is a placement test. Age: no specification (as for there is no age limitation for language courses) Medium: English (for non-native speakers)
- 6. Specifications Content Operations: based on the reading skills: Expeditious reading: skim for main ideas, scan to find specific items etc. Slower, careful reading: construe the meaning of complex closely argued passages. Academic and personal reading i.e. newspapers, articles etc. Guessing the meanings of unfamiliar words from context. Information transfer: Graphic-cued, pictures, shapes, labeling etc.
- 7. Specifications Content Type of text: authentic, from daily life, general and extensive reading. Topics: ‘everyday’ those found in the textbooks used by organization. Dialect and style: both British and American. Mostly informal style, sometimes formal style. Speed of processing: expeditious: 300 words per minute (not reading all words) Careful: 100 words per minute.
- 8. Structure, timing, medium and techniques Test structure: three sections: expeditious reading, careful reading, graphic and contextual reading. Number of items: 20 expeditious, 20 careful, 10 information transfer Number of tasks: 2 expeditious: 1 article, 1 poem 2 careful: 1 passage, 1 sentence ordering 2 information transfer: 2 pictures
- 9. Structure, timing, medium and techniques Timing: expeditious: 20 minutes per task (each task collected after 20 minutes) Information transfer: 10 minutes (handed out after 40 minutes, when expeditious reading has been completed) Careful: 40 minutes (only handed out after 50 minutes, when expeditious reading and information transfer have been completed) TOTAL: 90 minutes Medium: paper and pencil. Each task in a separate booklet. Techniques: short answers, MCQ’s and gap fillings.
- 10. Criterial level of performance: Satisfactory performance is represented by 80 percent accuracy in all sections for placement in advanced learners, 60 for upper intermediate and 40 for lower intermediate.
- 11. Validation If one is honest, one may say that at this stage content validity will be only a matter of academic interest. Despite of it, this test has the greater possible content validity. What will matter at this level is whether the test does the job it is intended for. Thus the most important form of validation will be criterion-related, the criterion being placement of students in appropriate classes, as judged by their teachers (and possibly by the students themselves). The smaller the proportion of misplacements, the more valid the test is.
- 12. Test Section 1 Expeditious Reading Task No.1. Read out the following text quickly in order to have general ideas of the contents and choose the right answer.
- 13. Task1
- 14. Task No.2. . Read out the following poem quickly in or der to have general ideas of the contents and answer t he questions.
- 15. Task 2
- 16. Task 2 Suggest an appropriate title for the poem. _____________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ Write down the main idea of the poem. _____________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ On which lines, poetess has used the metaphor of moon and sun? _____________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ On line 24, the poetess is talking of being shot with what? ________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Write down a brief explanation of the lines 32-33. ________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
- 17. Section 2: Information transfer Task No. 3. Mark the parts of newspaper with the help of the options in the box below.
- 18. Task No.4. Label the picture with the number of the corresponding item described below. A. Wire supports extending from the hub of a wheel to its perimeter B. A long, narrow support pole between the seat and the handlebars C. A small, geared wheel concentric with the rear wheel D. A long, linked, flexible metal device that propel the vehicle E. A tough but somewhat flexible rubber item that circles each wheel
- 19. Task 4
- 20. Section 3 Careful Reading Task No.5. Read out the passage carefully and answer the questions below. The Hollywood sign in the hills that line the northern border of Los Angeles is a famous landmark recognized over the world. The white painted 50 foot high sheet metal letters can be seen from great distance across the Los Angeles basin. (Line 5) The sign was not constructed as one might suppose, by the movie business as a means of celebrating the importance of Hollywood to this industry, instead, it was first constructed in 1923 as a mean of advertising homes for sale 500-acre housing subdivision in a part of Los Angeles called “Hollywood Land”. The sign that was constructed at the time, of course said “Hollywood Land” over the years, people begin referring to the area by the shortened version “Hollywood” and after the sign and its sight were donated to the city in 1945, the last four letters were removed.
- 21. Task 5 (Line 10) The sign suffered from years of disrepair, and in 1973 it needed to be completely replaced, at a cost of $27,700 per letter. Various celebrities instrumental in helping to rise needed funds. Rock star Ellis Coper, for example, bought an O in memory of Groucho Marx, and Hugh Hefner of Play boy fame held a benefit party to rise the money for the wife. The construction of the new sign was finally completed in 1978.
- 24. A. It was called “the last waltz” B. It was a whistle tune C. Peter was sitting in the room D. The street was in total darkness E. The sound was quite loud and clear F. Because it was one he and Richard had learnt at school G. he looked outside H. he recognized the tune I. and it seemed deserted J. he thought he heard something Answer: ______________________ Task No.6. Put the following sentences in the correct order.
- 25. Discussion As required for a reading test, we have devised this test into three sections: expeditious reading, careful reading and information transfer. Each section has 2 tasks. The first section, expeditious reading section, is designed to check the ability of skimming of the test takers. Both the tasks of this section require the students to read the text quickly and get the general ideas. The second section, information transfer, includes the testing of general reading abilities of daily routine objects and tasks. The third section, careful reading, tests the student’s ability to understand the texts deeply and in contextual settings.
- 26. Discussion As the test is designed to assess reading skills, it does not involve any other skill. Rather it only tests reading skill through the methods that do not challenge other tasks, as it is a requirement of the test. The test is as much valid and reliable to place the students at different levels. The test’s statements are very clear and easy to understand. Scoring criteria is also very clear and easy of this test.
- 27. Conclusion To conclude, we can say that this test maximizes the validity of placement of students for a language course by assessing their reading skill. The test assesses the reading ability of the students quite justly and the methods used are also very reliable.