Name : Fildzah Arifah

Class : A/ MPBEN 19
Reg. Num : 1906202020007
Course : Advanced Assessment in English Language Teaching
Lecturer : Dr. Saiful, S,Pd., M.Pd., M. TESOL.

A SUMMARY
LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT : Principle And Classroom Practice
H. Douglas Brown (2003)

 Chapter III: Designing Classroom Language Test

Test Types

A test is a method of measuring a person ability, or performance in a given domain. A

word method means ‘test’ is an instrument to measure an individual ability, knowledge, and
performance by using some technique, procedure, or items that requires ability as the part of
the test participant. As a test designer need to understand who test-taker are, by asking ‘what
is their previous experience and background?, is the test appropraitely matched to their
abilities?, how should test-takers intrepret their score?. By making needs analysis questions
above, the teacher can determine the appropriate tests and focus on the specific objectives of
the test itself. The types of tests will be summarized as follows;

1. Language Aptitude Test

This test focuses on predict a person's future success in learning a (any) foreign
language. So, because this test serves to predict, it is taken before an actual learning. There
are two standardized aptitude tests that have been used in the united states, namely the
modern language aptitude test (MLAT) and the primsleur language aptitude battery (PLAB).
Both of these are english tests and require students to perform such tasks as learning
numbers, listening, detecting spelling clues and grammatical patterns and memorizing.
Moreover, these two tests have a visible correlation with the student's final performance in
the language course. The correlation shows where the success of language acquisition is
measured by the process of imitating, memorizing, and solving similar problems. As a result
of there was no research development on this test, make this test is rarely used, instead of
being able to predict the success of communicative language, this test only provides
information about their preferred learning style, their strengths and weaknesses. For this
reason, tests that claim to predict success are rejected, because everyone can succeed if they
have active knowledge and encouragement in learning.

2. Proficiency Test
A proficiency test is devised to measure how much someone has learned a language.
This test is not limited to only one course, curriculum or skill in language but covers all
abilities. Usually elder profiency tests consist of multiple choice tests on various components,
such as grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and aural comprehension. In the 1950s
this profiency test had low validity, but now many experts have developed good validation so
that it is communicative based, namely the communicative profiency test. Most english
language proficiency tests are summative and norm referenced that provide a single score to
measure whether a student is successful or not. Usually the base of their testing items on high
frequency-count vocabulary and general basic grammar, like proficiency tests that have been
standardized for worldwide use or well-known as american tests, toefl. However, there is a
problem that often arises about language skills that are only determined by a single task to
cover all valid language-use skills in a specified context. Therefore, testing will be
impractical as it takes a long time and is also costly. So the teacher should only choose one of
the core proficiency tests that match the language skills you want to test.

3. Placement Test
As the name implies, the placement test was originally designed to classify students at
a level appropriate to their language proficiency level. A placement test usually contains
material that covers several courses, therefore it can be called an integrative or discrete point
test. Different types of procedures can be implemented such as dictation, interviews or
grammar tests used for placement purposes. There is a placement test at san francisco state
university (SFSU) called the english as a second language placement test (ESLPT) which is
divided into 3 activity parts. In the first activity, students need to read an article then write a
summary essay. Second, students are asked to write the response text of an article, the last is
a multi-choice test where students analyze the word error of an essay. At SFSU, many
teachers and administrators were satisfied with the results of that placement test because they
felt more authentic than just giving multiple choice, discrete-point, and grammar-vocabulary
tests. There are several varieties in the placement test, namely assessing comprehension and
production, responding through oral and performance, open-ended and limited responses,
selection and gap filling formats tailored to the program or needs. Therefore, there is another
benefit from implementing a placement test to review validity, diagnostic information, and
authenticity on students' performance.

4. Diagnostic Test
Diagnostic tests are designed to diagnose certain linguistic aspects. This test can be
done at the beginning of learning to diagnose the difficulties that students face and the
weaknesses they have based on the results of the test analysis/diagnose. At the time of the
learning process, such as teaching speaking skills, the teacher can do a diagnostic test about
what deficiencies the students have, for example their pronunciation and intonation. In the
writing skill test, the last diagnosis was made when the teacher assessed the results of their
writing. Assessment of writing skills usually focuses on rhetorical structure and language
features, so that after making a diagnosis the teacher can find out how many students have
rhetorical structure deficiencies and students who have weaknesses in language features.
Therefore, some opinions state that the placement and diagnostic tests are indistinguishable
because both of the tests classify students based on their level of weakness or strength. So
this diagnostic test will really help teachers and learners to identify problems that they have
with language.
 5. Achievement Test
Achievement test is also called a summative test because it is generally carried out at
the final stage of learning to analyze or test students' abilities in obtaining the language
features that have been taught. An example of this test is the final exam which consists of
several questions that test language acquisition, for example a listening comprehension test
based on a collection of situational dialogues. This test has two purposes: 1) to help teachers
assess the success of their teaching. 2) to identify the weaknesses of students. In general,
these tests are designed primarily to measure individual student progress rather than as a
means of motivating or even strengthening the target language.

 Chapter I : Testing, Assessing, And Teaching

Approaches To Language Testing: A Brief History

In the last century, language testing serves to provide a background for understanding
class-based testing. In line with the times, the history of testing begins in the 1950s, namely
the era of behaviorism that focused on constructive analysis. Constractive analysis is a test
that is focused on certain language elements such as phonological, grammatical, and lexical
contrasts. However, test experts argue that a language ability cannot be measured by mastery
of linguistics, but proficiency in using that language. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, Clark
assumed that language communication theory carried a more integrative view of testing
because the whole of communicative activities had a greater influence than just mastering the
linguistic elements. Therefore, until now experts have been challenged to design a test that
more authentic and have validity that resembles real-world interactions. The history of
language test development will be summarized in the next paragraph.

1. Discrete Point
The history of test development begins with the application of the discrete-point test.
This discrete-point test emphasizes that language can be reduced to several discrete
component parts where each of them can be tested. Examples of discrete-point test items in
language testing include multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, and spelling. In addition,
other language skills that can be tested include listening, speaking, writing, and reading and
also several components of language such as phonology, morphology, lexicons, syntax, and
discourse. In using this test, the overall language proficiency test must sample as many four
skills and discrete linguistic points as possible on one test. For example, when students do an
language activity (speaking), teacher/examiner can measure their listening, reading, writing
skills and also other language elements that can be tested separately. So, this test assumes that
a language test can consist of a large number of separate test items but covers all aspects of
language proficiency. On the other hand, oller argues that it will confuse some test-takers.
Faced with evidence that in a study each student scored differently in a variety of skills
depending on his background, country and main area. So he (Oller) states that "the unitary
trait hypothesis" was wrong.
 2. Integrative Test
Language competence is a set of interacting abilities that cannot be tested separately.
So that this integrative language test is based on unitary trait hypothesis that language testing
cannot be divided. This test is very different from the discrete point test which supports the
division of language into separate components. In integrative language assessment, there are
two forms of test that are commonly used, namely the cloze test and dictation. In general, the
cloze test is shaped like a reading passage consisting of 150-300 words where 6-10 words
from the test have been deleted, then test-taker are asked to complete matching words in the
blank column. Oller claims that the cloze test score is a good value for covering language
skills. Because according to the theoretical construction, when a test participant has the
ability to translate the meaning of a text, he or she has competence in a language which
includes vocabulary knowledge, language structure, reading skills, and grammar. Next, the
dictation test is a testing technique where test-taker ask listen to a passage containing 100-150
words read out by a administrator or an audio cassette then they write what they hear by
using the correct spelling. Some proponents of this test argue that someone who is successful
in dictation is someone who has good grammar and discourse competence. Because in
dictation itself requires good listening, written representation of what is heard, and also short-
term memory. This dictation test is usually used on a small class scale because it will be
inefficient and impractical in terms of assessment if it is use in a large class. Moreover, the
assessment criteria for this test can be improved by designing a multiple choice test or an
exact-word cloze test.

3. Communicative Language Testing

The fact that the discrete-point test and integrative test only measures linguistic
competence rather than measuring language use itself, in the mid-1980s language testing
shifted to communicative language testing. Communicative language testing is a test that
focuses on how language is used in real communication. It is also used to measure the ability
of language learners to use language in appropriate situation. Serve to test the authentic use of
language, in this test, test designers focus on commnucative performance which consists of
organizational and pragmatic competence into grammatical and textual components,
illocutionary, and sociolinguistics components. In addition, in this test a student is considered
successful in learning the target language if he can communicate or use language knowledge
and has 4 language skills (listening, speaking, writing, and reading) that can be used
authentically. In the communicative language test, test-taker must have good language
pragmatic and strategic abilities. In connection with that, this test also emphasizes the
language use testing appropriately in various situations. So, in general the nature of this
communicative language test emphasizes the authenticity of test material and authenticity of
the answers that will produce real result of communicative competence nor the results of
linguistic figures.

4. Performance-Based Assessment
Performance based assessment is a test that is designed to be more student-centered.
This test excludes the use of pencil and paper based tests which refer to grammatical tests and
linguistic components only. However, performance-based assessments involve oral and
written production skills, live response, performance and other more interactive tasks. The
constraints or weaknesses in this test are uses a long time and requires more costs. But the
test results have high validity because students are assessed through the process of how they
show their ability in master the target language directly and authentically based on the real-
word task given. In applying performance-based assessment on english language teaching, it
is difficult to distinguish between formal and informal assessments—when doing this test,
this form of evaluation is mostly done when students perform various tasks rather than
relying solely on structured tests to meet the objectives of this test. The highlighted
characteristic of this test is the presence of an interactive task where test participants will be
measured in the act of speaking, asking, and responding or in combining listening and
speaking and in integrating reading and writing. Certainly, this assessment cannot be
measured only through pencil and paper based tests which will not show communicative
performance.