Language Learning and Testing - Research Paper Example

Running Header: Language Assessment Project Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name & Code: Date of Submission: TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE NUMBERS Table of Contents 2 1.0 The Language Assessment Project Revisited 3 a) Teaching and Testing 3 b) The Handbook for Teachers, Test takers and Users 3 2.0 The Testing Context 4 3.0 The Test Features 4 4.0 The Rationale of the Test Design 5 5.0 Marking Criteria 6 6.0 Test Results 7 7.0 Discussion of the Design Test 8 8.0 Test Revision 10 9.0 References 12 Appendix A: The Test Design 13 Appendix B: Syllabus of the Second Grade in Public Schools in Iraq 18 Appendix C: Tables of Scores 19 Appendix D: Revised Test 21 1.0 The language Assessment Project Revisited a) Teaching and testing: Most of the language teachers have little trust to both the tests and testers probably because they think that most of the types of language testing are usually of poor quality. They always harbor harmful effects on both learning and teaching respectively and fails short of accurately gauging their intended purpose. Backwash is known as the process of the effects of testing on teaching and learning. This process can either be beneficial or harmful. A good language test is very necessary and equally important judgment tool for the performance of the language learning student. Most often, language learning and testing are administered in the scenarios where is English is practiced, applied or used as second language (Read, 2000, p. 66). Grammar test are advisable to be administered by the writer in areas where English is used as a second language purposely to make it more original and real. In our case of in this paper, we are going to discuss English as second language in Saudi Arabian population learning English. We are going to investigate the English as a second language in the Saudi Arabian Background. b) The Handbook for the Teaching Staff, Test Takers and Users: Handbooks care written with different contents depending on the audience, and they are expected to contain the following contents: The test rationale Complete sample tests as the sample contents The development and validation methods of the tests Explanations of how the tests scores are to be interpreted Test descriptions i.e. specifications version. Materials for training i.e. for raters and interviewers. Test administration training. 2.0 The Testing Context A design test was designed for the Saudi Arabia students in general since Saudi Arabia as a country speaks English as a second language. The assessment was carried out on what they had learnt on the grammar language thought their semester studies. The target groups were the students in their elementary level of educations of the ages between 14 – 16 years old and whose English aptitude level was transitional. The students who were selected for our study ranged on the same age group and had the same proficiency and skills in English. Examples of what the Saudi Arabia students learnt in grammar lessons and that were looked into included nouns, pronouns and verbs. We also based and conducted our achievement test on the Saudi Arabia first year students taking their grammar lessons as part of their syllabus. The details of these tests were broadly broken down on Appendix A. The students who normally take English as a second language always have a burning desire to learn more. The achievement tests in Saudi Arabia secondary schools platform are always of high stakes and the achievement motivation notwithstanding. And therefore this makes the achievement test a priority in the Saudi Arabian schools. The good results achieved from the scores of achievements tests did determined the promotions of the students to another level in their education, and so it was upon them to perform better on the design tests. 3.0 The Test Features To gauge the understanding of the grammar from the targeted students, achievement tests were applied to do so. The below test will contain 5 sections and 26 items. Grammar resources and items were used and applied to achieve the desired outcomes. This was evident after carrying out the experiment on the students’ understanding of the key grammatical teachings and backwash by giving them the tests. They can only accomplish this by accessing the vital grammatical teaching tools, learning and applying them in the necessary framework. The teachers or their instructors also play a significant role by giving them the feedback of their performance and giving the necessary guidelines in regard to their weak and strong points in both the listening, comprehension and writing skills and knowledge. Designed tests uses communicative tests resources in its applications, and the people taking the tests normally needs to exchange information in order to accomplish the tasks under some favorable learning circumstances (Benchman and Palmar, 1996). Purpura (2004, p. 124) further explains that there are circumstances whereby the students taking the tests have the alternative of using multiple choices from the multiple given choices or responses to take their tests. These are purposely meant to determine the test takers ability in choosing the correct answer. Communicative test tools are also applied in this test design. Weigle (2002, p. 80) argues that definite language abilities areas can be known by conducting the test based instructional ideas in grammar syllabus courses. This is always carried out to necessarily assess the students understanding ability in what they were previously taught in the grammar lessons. Marks area warded in accordance with the accuracy outcome of the test taker’s performance. 4.0 The Rational of the Test Design According to Purpura’s (2004, p. 130) point of view, numerous assignments should be designed with the intention of extracting the outcome of grammar performance in a more reliable, resourceful and productive way. This will be used to gauge the test taker’s understanding of grammar lessons. Various grammar tools like pictures, visual and audio visuals are used to take the tests depending on the ages of test takers. The advantages of these types of test applications is that they are more easily understandable to the target group of learners In the ages between 14 – 16 years of age and thus makes learning more easy for them (Brown, p. 390). Communication assignments are dispensed to the test takers in order to help them figure out where the exactly the grammatical skills are applicable. There are also some instances where the test takers are required to come up with their own set of judgments to aid them in forming structural sentences in grammar. 5.0 Marking Criteria In conducting achievement tests, the sections can be divided into various parts. In this case we are going to divide our tests into 4 parts and sub divisions. A mark will be accorded to any question that is correctly and satisfactorily answered (Harmer, 2008, p. 380). Part 5 extended-production task criteria mostly depended on grammatical form as the writing skill instruction of test takers was not sufficient like earlier stated. Descriptions Marks Awarded Correct grammar form 60% Coherence of writing 30% Vocabulary and text organization 10% Total Marks 100% 6.0 Test results The below histogram reflects different in abilities and performance of the test takers. Some test takers performed poorly while others did their best by scoring high grades. There was an 80% facility value increase in part three than in part one with a difference of 0.75 while recording a median and a mean score of 52 and 52.13 in that order. As we can see in Appendix C, there appears to be a balance between the strong and weak test takers as the discrimination index records a (+ or -) zero. As we discussed before, It is advisable to structure the tests by beginning with the not so difficult questions and proceed with the ones which are a bit complex thought the paper; by putting this into practice, it drives out the fear of exam phobia and gives the students the confidence to sit for the whole paper and answer all the provided questions. Both the facility value and the Discrimination index are well balanced and acceptable in both Part 2 and 3 as seen in (Appendix C). Facility value appears to be high in part 2and and 0.75 numbers appears to go well with the numbers’ 8, 9 and 10. And in part three, the facility value and the discrimination index settles between 0 and 0.5 in that order. The discrimination index does not reflect both the strong and weak test takers in part four and thus calls for a necessity to change its facility value. Item analysis has been differently conducted in section five because it differs with section one to section four in terms of their criteria. As we can view from the table above, we can deduce that most o f the tests takers did well in terms of grammar and scored very low in the part of writing tests. Most of them lacked the consistency and did not use their vocabulary as required and expected of them. 7.0 Discussion of the Designed Test For any given test to become consistent and trustworthy there is a need for clear and precise instructions provisions (Hughes, 2003, p. 48). And this applies to both oral and written instructions. There is a possibility that some weak students will misinterpret what they are required to do and be misled by ambiguous instructions. Hughes, (2003, p. 50) further argues that test writers should not rely on the students powers of telepathy to elicit the desired behaviours. Spoken instructions should always be read from a separated text in order to avoid introducing confusion. However, the penalty misunderstanding of one question is one item incorrect. However, according to Buck, (2001, p. 119). The misunderstanding penalty of one question could be several items incorrect with a penalty usually being far out of proportion to the mistake made. The achievement test should have well laid guidelines such as marks allocation and time allowance. The instructions of each of the sections should highlight the importance of the information in the task completion as enlightened in the appendices below. Test takers did not have difficulties in understanding the instructions as reflected in the feedback. This brings as to the conclusion that this achievement test is very reliable for the tests takers. According to brown (2001, p. 388), the validity of the test depends on the test type and its intended purpose. And a matter of fact, the main reason why language tests are normally conducted is to measure the ability of the students’ grammatical language understanding. The element of communications prevents the tests from wharfing the grammatical knowledge biasness in totality. The candidate should also not be accorded too much freedom in the language tests in the way they answer the ones they have chosen. If this is left to happen, it will most likely to have a depressing effects in the reliability of the test. The more the freedom is given to the candidates, the bigger is likely to be the difference between the performance actually elicited and the performance that would have been elicited had the test been taken in a day or later. The items which do not discriminate well between the weaker and stronger students were done away with to improve the test reliability and also to give the stress free atmosphere. These include both the too easy and the too difficult items for the students (Bachman & Palmer, 1996, p. 47). Therefore some parts of this achievement test were thought not to harbor a clear discrimination. This can be seen in section 4, which was resolved that it should be changed to a more difficult items because nearly all the students got high scores. The writer’s opinion in this could have been that Iraqi students must have been well conversant with the verbs and irregular verbs forms and even quite conversant with the past tense verb forms. Alternatively, it could support the opinion of Krashen’s (1977, cite in Lightown & Spada, 2006, p. 85) findings of second language grammatical morpheme acquisition progression, in the Iraqi students sequence development, which they may have borrowed from the past tense verb forms beside the grammatical factors which are highlighted in both section one and two. If the stakes are high and the tests regarded as important, then its preparations can surpass all the learning and teaching preparations. But if the test contents and testing techniques are at variance with objectives of the course as argued by Hughes, (2003, p. 47), then there is likely to be a harmful backwash. An instance of this would be experienced where the students are taking an English course meant to mentor their English skills. Moreover, backwash can be equally helpful. And in our case, more emphasis should be put on the English learning in the Saudi Arabia context owing to the fact that it is a country where English is considered as a second language and there is a need to consider the likely impact on the aims and values on the education system of using tests of language for the learning of English grammar (Harmer, 2008, p. 67). 8.0 Test Revision This achievement test revised in part 3 and 5. In part 3, it has changed because almost every candidate got correct answers. They have been told to use their own words rather than being provided with words to use. Part 5, it has changed in a more appropriate way to the students with varying writing styles. This has changed from just writing what one did to writing a letter of what one did. 9.0 References 1. Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for Language Teachers. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2. Bachman, L. and A. Palmer. (1996). Language Testing in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3. Berry, V. and J. Lewkowicz (eds.). 2000. Assessment in Chinese Contexts. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, The English Centre. 4. Brindley, G. 2001. “Assessment”. In Carter, R. and D. Nunan. (eds.). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 5. Brown, H.D. 2004. Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. White Plains NY: Longman/Pearson Education. 6. Brown, J. D. and T. Hudson. 1998. “The alternatives in language assessment”. TESOL Quarterly 32, 653-73. 7. Brown, J.D. and T. Hudson. 2002. Criterion-Referenced Language Testing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8. Buck, G. (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 9. Jones, J. 2002. “Classroom language testing and assessment at Osaka University”. Journal of Language and Culture (OU). 10. Arnold, J. (ed), Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 11. Purpura, J. (2004). Assessing Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 12. Urquart, S. and C. Weir. 1998. Reading in a Second Language: Process, Product and Practice. London and New York: Longman. 13. Weigle, S. (2002). Assessing Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 14. Brown, H. D. (2001). Assessing language skills: Basic concepts in test development. In H.D. Brown, Teaching by principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy (pp. 386-387). New York: Addison Wesley Longman. 15. Harmer, J. (2008). Testing and evaluation. In J. Harmer, The practice of English language teaching (pp. 379-389). Essex: Pearson. 16. Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Appendix A: The Test Design ATTAINMENT TEST This test consists of 5 sections and 26 items. Time allotted: 50 minutes. You not spend more than 10 minutes on each of the proided sections. Distribution of points is given at the beginning of each section. Part 1: Look at Yasser's room. It's untidy. Match words in column (★ A) to words in column (★ B) to make full sentences. (2points) A B Answer 0 His radio is a in front of the desk 0 C (0) 1 His books are b behind the chair (1) 2 His box is c on the desk (2) 3 His bag is d on the bed (3) 4 His jacket is e next to the desk (4) 5 His lamp is f under the bed (5) 6 His socks are g Part 2: Write correct sentences with the words in the brackets to complete the dialogue between teacher Batool and the student Wafa’a (3 points). Batool : You look so worried today , Wafa’a. Wafa’a : I’m afraid I’m not doing as well as I should in school. Batool : I’m sure (6)……………………………….. (can / be / student). Wafa’a : How ? Batool : Well , first (7)…………………………… ( have to/ come /class /early) Wafa’a : Uhuh Batool : (8)………………………………..( must /also /work /harder ). Wafa’a : Anything else ? Batool : Yes (9). ………………………………….. (must/ stay up /late. (10)……………………………………….(should /have a good breakfast /going to school) . Part 3: look at the pictures carefully, and then fill in the blanks. Use your own words (★ 11). Uses the correct forms of the given words in box. (11= 5 points, 12-15= 3 points). Get up start doing have lunch reach school have breakfast Huda's daily routine Huda gets up at half past five every morning. ( an example) (11) ...…………………………………….…………………… She usually (12)………………………………at quarter past six. At seven o'clock, she (13) ……………………………………..... She (14)…………… …..……………………..…. at half past two in the afternoon Huda (15)…………………………………... her homework at 4 o'clock. Part 4: Complete the sentences with appropriate words with your own words. (3 points) ……( example)…….. younger sister Rania has got a weight problem because …(16)…….. eats lots of sweets. …(17)….. father took ……(18)…… to the doctor. ……(19)…… asked her, “ How much sugar do …(20)…. put in a glass of milk? ” She said, “ Two spoons. ” He told her, “ Rania,you shouldn’t take so much sugar. Sugar is an ‘empty’ food. … (21)…….. gives you energy quickly, but it doesn’t help you stay healthy…(22)…….. know ……(23)…. not easy to stop taking sugar, but ……(24)…….. can try it. Eat fruit instead of biscuits, cakes and chocolates ……(25)…….will soon become healthy. ” Part 5: Write about what you did at school yesterday with your own words, no less than 50 words. (10 points) …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Appendix B: Syllabus of the second grade in public school in Iraq. Lesson Topic Function Grammar 1 Greeting Introducing someone Exchanging personal information. Why-questions and statements with Be Yes/No questions and short answers with Be Subject pronouns Possessive adjectives 2 Day by Day -Asking about and describing daily routines. -Asking for & telling the time. -Prepositions of time. -Time expressions. -In the morning, afternoon, evening. 3 My House -Asking about & describing a house. -Talking about what you do every day. -Asking for & giving locations & directions . -There + Be -Simple present tense. -Preposition of place. 4 Hobbies Talking about abilities. Have to 5 My Clothes Talking about clothes. Buying and selling things. Asking about lost items. Affirmative statements in the present continuous tense. Negative statements in the present continuous tense. 6 Tips and Rules Giving tips and talking about rules Talking about how people do things Modals( must, can, should, have to) 7 Stories Asking about past events Past continuous and the simple past. Appendix C: Tables of Scores Candidates' score Appendix D: Revised Test ATTAINMENT TEST This test consists of 5 sections and 26 items. Time allotted: 50 minutes. You shouldn’t spend more than 10 minutes for each section. Distribution of points is given at the beginning of each section. Part 1: Look at Yasser's room. It's untidy. Match words in column (★ A) to words in column (★ B) to make full sentences. (2points) A B Answer 0 His radio is a in front of the desk 0 C (0) 1 His books are b behind the chair (1) 2 His box is c on the desk (2) 3 His bag is d on the bed (3) 4 His jacket is e next to the desk (4) 5 His lamp is f under the bed (5) 6 His socks are g Part 2: Write correct sentences with the words in the brackets to complete the dialogue between teacher Batool and the student Wafa’a (3 points). Example A: I can’t sleep at night. What should I do? B: You shouldn’t drink coffee before going to bed. (should/drink coffee/go to bed) Batool : You look so worried today , Wafa’a. Wafa’a : I’m afraid I’m not doing as well as I should in school. Batool : I’m sure (6)……………………………….. (can / be / student). Wafa’a : How ? Batool : Well , first (7)…………………………… (have to/ come /class /early) Wafa’a : Uhuh Batool : (8)………………………………..( must /also /work /harder ). Wafa’a : Anything else ? Batool : Yes (9). ………………………………….. (must/ stay up /late. (10)……………………………………….(should /have a good breakfast /going to school) . Part 3: look at the pictures carefully, and then fill in the blanks. Use your own words (★ 11). Complete the sentences with appropriate words with your own words. (11= 5 points, 12-15= 3 points). Huda's daily routine Huda gets up at half past five every morning. ( an example) (11) ...…………………………………….…………………… She usually (12)………………………………at quarter past six. At seven o'clock, she (13) ……………………………………..... She (14)…………… …..……………………..…. at half past two in the afternoon Huda (15)…………………………………... her homework at 4 o'clock. Part 4: Complete the sentences with your own appropriate words. (3 points) ……( example)…….. sister Rania has got a weight problem because …(16)…….. eats lots of sweets. …(17)….. …… took ……(18)…… to the doctor. ……(19)…… asked her, “ How much sugar do …(20)…. ….. in a glass of milk? ” She said, “ Two spoons. ” He told her, “ Rania,you shouldn’t take so much sugar. Sugar is an ‘empty’ food. …(21)…….. ….. you energy quickly, but it doesn’t help you stay healthy…(22)…….. know ……(23)…. not easy to stop taking sugar, but ……(24)…….. ….. try it. Eat fruit instead of biscuits, cakes and chocolates ……(25)………… soon become healthy. ” Part 5: Write a letter to your parents about what you did at school yesterday with your own words, no less than 50 words. (10 points) …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… The end of the test ……… Good luck Read More