Chapter 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 highorder 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 ... 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... 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. .. 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