Seminario Pedagogía III

Final Project - Test Making

Writing performance assessment test

Level A2:
At the end of this course, students will be able to communicate about normal, everyday
matters at the level of a somehow low-intermediate user. They will be able to understand
and use frequent expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very
basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Also,
they will be able to describe in simple terms aspects of their background, immediate
environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

Writing objectives:
In terms of writing, the course introduces basic composition components that will provide
participants with enough tools to be able to produce simple descriptive, narrative texts and
some business correspondence.

Content: writing and vocabulary

Vocabulary:
Unit 1: People
Unit 2: work and study
Unit 3: Technology in daily life
Unit 4: Food

Types of texts:
Descriptive texts
Narrative texts
Formal emails with different purposes

Composition skills and strategies:

- Identifying the parts of a sentence
- Using reference words
- Linking sentences logically

Questions:
>What are you intending to know with the test section/performance assessment activity?

This section of writing test intends to know if the student has achieved the aims that were set
up at the beginning of the course; in this case, the intention is to collect information of
student’s capability of describing events when writing a basic and coherent text, which has
been previously taught in class. The information collected will act as an evidence of learning,
which yields to a tangible product of student’s demonstration of their knowledge,
understanding and proficiency. In other words, this writing test is designed for the learner to
actually use their knowledge to perform.
It is more fruitful to establish the basis of the test on the goals of the course despite on
syllabus’, so that it is why this test proposes a personal Email writing activity (not a formal
one) since the test taker has been working during the course on some topics that may be
easier to talk about in a familiar way, such as descriptions of people, work, study, and the
like. Besides, this section pretends to assess whether the student is able to maintain a
correspondence process; as a result, there is a trigger text, so the student should be able to
answer the Email with reciprocity. Moreover, as an authentic assessment, it is intended to
provide the student with the necessary knowledge to apply their learning to relevant, real-
world situations.

>What knowledge, abilities or competences?

The knowledge that will be evaluated is focused on most of the vocabulary taught in class
(people, work, study and food), student’s competence to write and articulate coherent and
simple sentences within a short text (an Email) and test taker’s ability to respond to a
stimulus (a trigger text).

>How did you achieve any Validity?

-Content Validity: Direct testing “The most feasible rule of thumb for achieving content
validity in classroom assessment is to test performance directly”, as it is assessed by carefully
checking the measurement method against the conceptual definition of the construct.

-Criterion Validity: as this measure is used to predict future or current performance, we can
correlate our written test results with another criterion of interest. A criterion that we believe
is correlated with the construct being measured is reading. Throughout reading exercises,
the student will be able to associate new words, thus new vocabulary that can be used in
his/her everyday writing practice. In other words, reading provides students with prior
knowledge that they can use in their own stories, as well as they will be able to learn text
structures and language which they can further transfer to their own writing.

-Construct Validity: this section has construct validity in the first place because it is framed
in the theory of the social constructionist model. This theory states that it is impossible the
creative process comes out of nowhere, but when writing, the student is immersed in a
specific context and he/she belongs to a background. Provided that these aspects are taken
into account, the writing process will be easier as she/he is participating in a dialogue
process. The text will be constructed based on a social process, so that it is why we pretend
to unchain the test taker’s creativity and writing abilities with a known and plausible
communicative situation.
In the second place, it has construct validity as it is assessing the ability of writing by giving
specific items for the test taker to follow, so she/he knows precisely what she/he is expected
to do. Moreover, these items should have been already presented in class, therefore we are
just assessing what it is fair and hopefully known by students. Furthermore, the sub abilities
that the writing process involves are assessed separately, so the underlying writing sub
abilities are not being ignored.

-Face validity: the measure assesses the intended construct under the activity, for it we are
using concepts that were taught during the classes; hence, the construct of our activity is to
make sure that the learning has achieved a certain level of proficiency which allows him/her
to produce and describe a simple narrative text. In addition, we might ask some possible
examinees or other administrative personnel in order to know their opinion about the tests.

>What did you do for the test section to be reliable?

Instructions need to be clearly written.
Specifications must be clear so the students will know exactly what they have to do.

It is reliable because we are inciting the students to write from a specific context and under
certain conditions. Probably the results of the test may change if we apply the test in two
different days, but it does not have to be for the worse; it is just going to be different depending
on what the student thinks he/she wants to write. All in all, the test taker will find the same
instruction, the same trigger text and the variation will come in terms of content, but there are
a number of possibilities to write a text according to what we asked for, without it being
“wrong”.

>What is the expected washback?

The expected washback is that students, after the feedback, know their strengths and
weaknesses in the topic. Therefore, they are going to be able to identify the topics in which
they need to be more focused on. Also, we, as teachers, might give them some tips to help
them to study focusing on their weaknesses.

We need to comment specifically on the test performance of each student so we can assure
that each one of them knows what to work on, so as to what to focus on. In this writing test,
it will be necessary to give personal feedback to each student because not all students have
the same shortcomings. Moreover, in this feedback it is necessary to encourage the students
to continue studying and thus, motivate them to continue with their process. Also, we need
to give praise for strengths and constructive criticism of weaknesses.

>What is the Scoring procedure?

Rubric:

Criteria Score

- The student wrote what was requested

Follow the - The student wrote about every single 0,0 0,25 0,5
instructions item
- The student wrote at least x words
 English - The student wrote an introductory
letter sentence (saludo y despedida) 0,0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1,0
structure - Level of formality or informality

-……

-Lexicon
Content - Description 0,0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1,0
- Social interaction

-Spelling
Grammar -Frequency adverbs 0,0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1,0 1,5
-Countable and uncountable
-Quantifiers
Language use
-Tenses (emphasis on simple past)
-Negative structures

-Linking words
Cohesion - Paragraphs 0,0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1,0
and - Logical organization of ideas
coherence - Clear information
- Linking sentences logically

1. You will read an email from your friend Nelson who tells you about his
experience in Germany. Do the tasks below.

Dear friend,

I hope you are doing well. I’m writing to you because I want to tell you about my exchange
experience in Germany, and of course, I’d like to know how about your exchange experience
in Australia. I decided to travel as I thought I would enrich my knowledge in medicine, and
this was pretty important for me to graduate; I suppose you studied another interesting
program, so what were you studying?

All about my profession is exciting, but I also had time to enjoy some activities in Munich.
There was usually a group of people to meditate with in the university’s gym, and I went often
to meet them up. Did you meet some nice people at your university? If not, how were they?
I liked to read my books in one of the library’s balcony as it was always very peaceful, and
pleasant. By the way, what did you like to do there on your free time?

You know that Germany’s beer is well known around the world, so obviously I tasted it twice
a week and compared with ours, the German one is very strong. Also, I tried some regional
dishes like the Knödel (meat balls). They were delicious, but very salty though, so I hardly
ever ate them. How was the food in Australia?

Not everything was that nice, I have to admit that I never liked the place where I lived; it was
very uncomfortable and dark, so I rarely was there. How was your place?

All in all, I really liked the experience and how much I learned. I learned how to be a better
doctor, a better person and this is what I liked the most; what about you?

I will be waiting for your email telling me everything about your experience.

Best,

-Nelson

2. Nelson asked several questions on the email you got. Write him back a
response and make sure to answer all his questions. The email must not have more
than 120 words. You have one hour and thirty minutes (1:30) to write the email.

Dear Nelson,

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