Language assessment - session 1:

Key concepts, theories, and

principles of language assessment

Instructor: Dr. Nguyen Thi Hong Tham

Email: ntham2015@gmail.com
 Brown, H. Douglas (2004) Chapter 1:
Testing, assessing, and teaching, pp.1-18.
 Testing:

• is a type of assessment, a method/instrument which measures

a person’s ability, knowledge, or performance in a given
domain.

• A test measures performance and competence.

• A test measures a given domain.
Assessment:

 identifies the current condition or current progress of something,

such as the ability or condition of a language learner.
 is an ongoing process that encompasses a wider domain than
testing.
 Is an integral part of the teaching-learning cycle.

 Purposes:
• To certify student achievement
• To support learning
 Teaching:

Teaching sets up the practice games of language learning: the

opportunities for learners to listen, think, take risks, set goals,
and process feedback from the ‘coach’ and then recycle through
the skills that they are trying to master.
 Informal and formal assessment

Informal assessment Formal assessment

• incidental, unplanned comments •systematic, planned sampling

and responses; coaching and other techniques constructed to give
impromptu feedback to the student. teacher and student an appraisal of
student achievement.

Ex: marginal comments on papers, oral Ex: tests, portfolios, essays, etc.
feedback

• All tests are formal assessments, but not all formal assessment is testing.
 Summative and formative assessment

Summative assessment Formative assessment

Goal to measure, or summarize, what a
student has grasped.
Time typically occurs at the end of a
course or unit of instruction.
to monitor student learning
to provide ongoing feedback for
students to improve their learning
and for instructors to improve their
teaching.
typically occurs during the
learning process.

Weight
of high low
grades
Ex Midterm tests, end-of-term tests, journals, learning logs, the minute
proficiency exams, final projects, etc. paper, concept maps, directed
summarization, diagnostic tests, and
quizzes, etc.
 Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests

Norm-referenced tests Criterion-referenced tests

to place test-takers along a to give test-takers feedback, usually in the

mathematical continuum in rank form of grades, on specific course or
order. lesson objectives.
Scores are usually reported back to
the test-taker in the form of a
numerical score and a percentile
rank

Ex: Standardised tests (TOEFL, Ex: classroom-based tests.

TOEIC, IELTS)
 Approaches to language testing: A brief history

• Historically, language-testing trends and practices have

followed the shifting sands of teaching methodology.

• Discrete-Point and Integrative Testing (debated in the 1970s

and early 1980s)
 Discrete-point tests:
• are constructed on the assumption that language can be
broken down into its component parts and that those parts
can be tested successfully.
• These components are the skills of Listening, speaking,
reading, and writing, and various units of language (discrete
points) of phonology/graphology, morphology, lexicon, syntax,
and discourse.
• Testing one element at a time, item by item.
• It was claimed that an overall language proficiency test, then,
should sample all four skills and as many linguistic discrete
points as possible.

• Critiques of discrete-point tests: decontextualisation.

Integrative testing:

• For Oller (1979), language competence is a unified set of

interacting abilities that cannot be tested separately.
• Requires the test takers to combine many language elements
in the completion of a task

• Examples of integrative tests: writing a composition,

completing a cloze test and taking a dictation.
 Communicative Language Testing
• By the mid-1980s, the language-testing field had begun to focus on
designing communicative language-testing tasks.

• Bachman and Palmer (1996) argued for a correspondence between

language-test performance and language use:

‘ln order for a particular language test to be useful for its intended
purposes, test performance must correspond in demonstrable ways to
language use in non-test situations.’ (p.9)

• They emphasise the importance of strategic competence

(the ability to use communicative strategies to compensate for breakdowns as
well as to enhance the rhetorical effect of utterances) in the process of
communication.
 Performance-Based Assessment
• involves oral production, written production, open-ended responses,
integrated performance (across skill areas), group performance, and other
interactive tasks.

• Weaknesses: time-consuming and therefore expensive.

• Strengths: more direct testing because students are assessed as they

perform actual or simulated real-world tasks.
 CURRENT ISSUES IN CLASSROOM TESTING

• New views of intelligence:

• Traditional view: ‘smartness’ (IQ – intelligent
quotient – test).
• New views: multiple intelligences, creative
thinking and manipulative strategies, EQ
(emotional quotient).
 Traditional and "Alternative" Assessment
Table 1. Traditional and alternative assessment
Traditional Assessment
• One-shot, standardized exams
• Timed, multiple-choice format
• Decontextualized test items
• Scores suffice for feedback
• Norm-referenced scores
• focus on the "right" answer
• Summative
• Oriented to product
• Non-interactive performance
• Fosters extrinsic motivation
Alternative Assessment
• Continuous long-term assessment
• Untimed, free-response format
• Contextualized communicative tasks
• Individualized feedback and washback
• Criterion-referenced scores
• Open-ended, creative answers
• Formative
• Oriented to process
• Interactive performance
• Fosters intrinsic motivation
 Computer-based testing
• Computer-based tests (also known as
‘computer- assisted’ or web-based tests)
• Computer-adaptive tests (CATs):
 A specific type of computer-based test
 Each test-taker receives a set of questions that meet the test specifications
and that are generally appropriate for his or her performance level.
 The test-taker sees only one question at a time, and the computer scores each
question before selecting the next one.
 Computer-based testing
Advantages
• Classroom-based testing
• Self-directed testing on various
aspects of a language (vocabulary,
grammar, discourse, one or all of
the four skills, etc.)
• Practice for upcoming high-stakes
standardized tests
• Some individualization, in the case
of CATs
• Large-scale standardized tests that
can be administered easily to
thousands of test-takers at many
different stations, then scored
electronically for rapid reporting of
results
Disadvantages
• Lack of security and the possibility of
cheating are inherent in classroom-
based, unsupervised computerized
tests.
• Occasional ‘homegrown’ quizzes that
appear on unofficial websites may be
mistaken for validated assessments.
• The multiple-choice format preferred for
most computer-based tests contains the
usual potential for flawed item design.
• Open-ended responses are less likely to
appear because of the need for human
scorers, with all the attendant issues of
cost, reliability, and turn-around time.
• The human interactive element
(especially in oral production) is absent.
 Summary
• Assessment is an integral part of the teaching-
learning cycle.
• In an interactive, communicative curriculum,
assessment is almost constant.
• Tests, which are a subset of assessment, can
provide authenticity, motivation, and feedback to
the learner.
• Tests are essential components of a successful
curriculum and one of several partners in the
learning process.
 Basic principles of assessment
1. Periodic assessments, both formal and informal, can
increase motivation by serving as milestones of student
progress.
2. Appropriate assessments aid in the reinforcement and
retention of information.
3. Assessments can confirm areas of strength and pinpoint
areas needing further work.
4. Assessments can provide a sense of periodic closure to
modules within a curriculum.
5. Assessments can promote student autonomy by
encouraging students' self-evaluation of their progress.
6. Assessments can spur learners to set goals for themselves.
7. Assessments can aid in evaluating teaching effectiveness.