Writing English Language Tests by J B Heaton
2006-07-25 13:45阅读：
Writing English Language Tests by J B Heaton
1. Introduction to language testing
1.1 Testing and teaching
to reinforce learning and to
motivate the student or primarily as a means of assessing the
student’s performance in the language.
1.2 Why test?
The evaluation of student
performance for purposes of comparison or selection is only one of
the functions of a test.
The aim of the classroom test is
different from that of the external examination.
1.3 What should be tested And to what standard?
Modern descriptive grammars,
Latin-based prescriptive grammars
1.4 Testing language skills
four skills: listening, listening
and speaking, reading and writing.
In many situations where English is
taught for general purposes, these skills should be carefully
integrated and u
sed to perform as many genuinely communicative tasks as
possible.
Questions which test the ability to
understand and respond appropriately to polite requests, advice,
instructions, etc. would be preferred to tests of reading aloud or
telling stories.
In the written section of a test,
questions requiring students to write letters, memos, reports and
messages would be used in place of many of the more traditional
compositions used in the past.
In listening and reading tests,
questions in which students show their ability to extract specific
information of a practical nature would be preferred to questions
testing the comprehension of unimportant and irrelevant
details.
Above all, there would be no rigid
distinction drawn between the four different skills as in most
traditional tests in the past, a test of reading no being used to
provide the basis for a related test of writing or speaking.
The traditional test may tell us
relatively little about the student’s general fluency and ability
to handle the target language, although it may give some indication
of the student’s scholastic ability in some of the skills he or she
needs as a student.
Ways of assessing performance in
the four major skills may take the form of tests of:
-listening (auditory)
comprehension, in which short utterances, dialogues, talks and
lectures are given to the testees;
-speaking ability, usually in the
form of an interview, a picture description, role play, and a
problem-solving task involving pair work or group work;
-reading comprehension, in which
questions are set to test the students’ ability to understand the
gist of a text and to extract key information on specific points in
the text; and
-writing ability, usually in the form of letters reports, memos,
messages, instructions, and accounts of past events, etc.
1.5 Testing language areas
grammar and usage;
vocabulary (concerned with word
meanings, word formation and collocations);
phonology (concerned with phonemes,
stress and intonation).
1.6 Language skills and language elements
to what extent should we
concentrate on testing students’ ability to handle these elements
of the language and to what extent should we concentrate on testing
the integrated skills? ----level and purpose of the test
at all levels but the most
elementary, it is generally advisable to include test items which
measure the ability to communicate in the target language.
Successful communication in
situations which simulate real life is the best test of mastery of
a language.
A person’s ability to express
facts, ides, feelings and attitudes clearly and with ease, in
speech or in writing, and the ability to understand what he or she
hears and reads – can best be measured by tests which evaluate
performance in the language skills. Listening and reading
comprehension test, oral interviews and letter-writing assess
performance in those language skills used in real life.
To great a concentration on the
testing of the language elements may indeed have a harmful effect
on the communicative teaching of the language.
1.7 Recognition and production
transition between recognition and
production
production items do not always
guarantee that students will deal with the specific matter the
examiner had in mind ( as most recognition items do).
A good language test may contain
either recognition-type items or production-type items, or a
combination of both.
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