International House World Organisation

IHCAM
International House Certificate in Advanced Methodology

Module 9: Testing
Pre-reading task:

Consider your answers to the following questions. You may like to make some
notes as your answers will be discussed during the session. Once you have
answered them, read the notes which follow and compare your views.

1. Why and when do language students do tests and exams?

2. What things can they be tested on?
3. How can they be assessed?
4. Who does the testing and assessment?
5. What is the difference between ‘testing’, ‘assessment’ and ‘evaluation’?

1. Why do we give students tests and exams?

There are several reasons:

a) to determine the precise level they should be placed at when starting a

course at a language school. This is called a placement or entry test to
determine their strengths and weaknesses and general language level.
This may involve a straightforward multiple choice test where the language
tested becomes progressively more demanding, or could be more
comprehensive, and include an oral interview, as well as reading, listening
and writing tasks.
b) to help a teacher plan the contents of a course and the type of syllabus
and suggest the range of activities and techniques. This diagnostic test is
used at the beginning of a course once students have enrolled. Its content
reflects what the students should know or will need to know for the level
they have been placed in;
c) to motivate and encourage. Whilst many people would profess not to like
exams, they can be a valid means of showing students the progress they
have been making, and they can be used as a means of goal-setting. This
is especially so when someone is undertaking a longer course of study. At
the beginning, it may be that they are full of enthusiasm and enjoying
learning. However, as time progresses, they may find it more difficult to
perceive their progress. Short, regular progress tests can help point out
the progress they are making and provide more impetus to persevere.
(Incidentally, this is one reason why young learner tests aimed at 6 – 9
year-old language learners are deliberately aimed at showing children
what they can do and understand - nothing succeeds like success.) As
these tests can be given at the end of each unit or the end of each term,
they can also be useful to the teacher and Director of Studies to help
indicate how successful the teaching and learning process has been;
IH CAM Module 9 – Testing – Course Participants’ Notes
(written by Diana England, IH Torres Vedras)
 d) to assess the level of achievement that a learner has managed during a
course of study. This might be given at the end of a course or the end of a
school year;
e) to ascertain whether they are ready or not to sit an exam written and
administered by a state or international examining board. This exam is
likely to test candidates’ general proficiency and general ability in a
language, regardless of a specific type of teaching programme. The
teacher or school may ask students to take a mock exam in order that they
have an idea of their strengths and weaknesses relative to the
requirements and level of the actual exam;
f) to be able select certain candidates for a job or course of study. Certain
companies or organisations or universities need to know that non-native
speaker recruits or students are able to perform their job or studies
effectively in the host language. A proficiency exam such as IELTS or
TEOFL may be used as a means of selecting and rejecting candidates,
based on their exam scores.

2. What things can they be tested on?

They can be tested on their understanding and use of language and their
understanding and interpretation of skills work. We may also need to assess
their ability to carry out certain kinds of real life tasks which may involve different
language knowledge and skills. We may also need to assess their progress,
their behaviour, their participation or their attitude. We may need to assess
their suitability for doing a particular job or course.

Here are some ways that language components are often ‘traditionally’ tested:

• grammar:
- discrimination between tenses (e.g. present perfect and past simple)
and structures (e.g. second and third conditionals)
- ability to manipulate form (e.g. change infinitive to correct persons,
change positive statements to questions)
- selecting the correct form (e.g. 4-option multiple choice)
- ability to identify grammatical errors (e.g. decide if there’s a mistake /
extra word in each line of a short text)
- ability to produce accurate language from prompts (e.g. complete the
gaps in a text)
- transformation of language (e.g. complete a second sentence so it has
a similar meaning to the first, although the grammar used in each
sentence is likely to be different)
- ability to use appropriate and accurate syntax (e.g. re-write the words in
a jumbled sentence in the correct order).

• lexis:
- ability to spell words correctly (e.g. a dictation)

IH CAM Module 9 – Testing – Course Participants’ Notes 2

(written by Diana England, IH Torres Vedras)
 - selecting the most appropriate word in a given context (e.g. 4-option
multiple choice)
- knowledge of word formation (e.g. transform a base word and use it in
its appropriate form to complete a sentence)
- ability to use appropriate vocabulary in a given context (e.g. cloze test –
complete gaps with no options to choose from)

• punctuation:
- ability to correctly punctuate a text (e.g. insert punctuation marks in the
correct places in a text)
- knowledge of capital letters (e.g. insert capital letters where appropriate
in a short text)

And here are some ways in which the four skills may be assessed:

• reading:
- ability to understand the gist of a text (e.g. choose the best summary)
- ability to pick out key information from a text (e.g. comprehension
questions)
- ability to determine meaning from context (e.g. 4-option multiple choice)
- ability to appreciate text cohesion (e.g. gapped text where certain
sentences are removed and placed in jumbled order after the text; the
learner decides from where in the text the sentences have been
removed)
- ability to assess writer’s attitude or opinion (e.g. 4-option multiple
choice)

• listening:
- ability to extract key information from a text (e.g. sentences which the
learner has to decide are true or false according to the text)
- ability to understand detailed information (e.g. complete sentences with
information heard on the recording)
- ability to ascertain attitudes and relationships between people (e.g.
matching speakers’ comments to the correct speaker)

• speaking:
- ability to use a range of grammatical forms and vocabulary appropriate
to the context (e.g. roleplay between two students, one applying for a
job, the other being the interviewer)
- ability to link utterances together to form coherent speech, without
undue hesitation (comparing and contrasting two photographs)
- ability to produce intelligible utterances (word and sentence stress,
individual sounds, linking between words, intonation and pitch)
appropriate to a specific context (e.g. discussion between two or more
students of a controversial issue)

IH CAM Module 9 – Testing – Course Participants’ Notes 3

(written by Diana England, IH Torres Vedras)
 - ability to take an active part in the development of a conversation
(interactive communication). This refers to such things as turn-taking,
being spontaneous, asking for clarification (e.g. conversation between
two students comparing their views of a film they have both recently
seen).

3. How can they be assessed?

Students can be assessed under strict test conditions ie in a formal exam

setting, where the individual student cannot communicate with another, where
they are have to complete exam tasks in a specific time and are allowed no other
resources such as dictionary, spell-checker (if the exam is computer-based) or
grammar books. The opposite of this is an informal test carried out during a
lesson where students may unaware that they are being assessed by their
teacher. As they work together to complete a task, the teacher may observe how
they go about it, and how they arrive at their answers. She may then collect in
the answers at the end of the activity to join other recorded marks, which, when
viewed together, will help form a picture of continuous assessment of the
student’s progress in a particular skill or language point, management of a task or
behaviour. We may wish to provide a discrete point or discrete item test to
see how well our students have understood and can apply their knowledge of
specific items of language, for example the present perfect or ways of making
suggestions. End of unit tests in coursebooks commonly assess progress in this
way. Alternatively, we may give our students an integrative test which involves
the combination of various language elements in the completion of a task.
Examples of this are writing a composition, or carrying out a collaborative oral
task with other learners. Testing can also be done in direct and indirect ways.
For example, we could ask our students to write a discursive composition and we
might use this as a means to assess their control and use of linkers of contrast
and addition. In this way, we would be testing their knowledge and use of linkers
indirectly. On the other hand, we may prefer to set a gap-fill or multiple choice
exercise focussing on linkers only. This would be a direct means of testing their
abilities with linkers.

4. Who does the testing and assessment?

In the case of a placement test, it is likely to be someone in charge of

placement, such as a Director of Studies or Senior Teacher i.e. someone with
experience of the various levels within the school, and who will be able to look at
the potential student’s test results which can be objectively marked (e.g. reading,
listening, discrete point exercises, in combination with more subjective test
results (e.g. speaking and extended written work) as well as their apparent
personality and manner during interview and decide whether they will be better
off in a lower or higher level (e.g. low intermediate or mid-intermediate). A
teacher or group of teacher who have the same level may well create a
diagnostic test at the beginning of the course, although this may be overseen by
a Senior Teacher or Director of Studies. Progress tests can be written by the
IH CAM Module 9 – Testing – Course Participants’ Notes 4
(written by Diana England, IH Torres Vedras)
teacher of a class or their Director of Studies or they may come as part of a
coursebook package. Achievement and proficiency tests may be written
internally in a school or other language institution or externally written by an
examination board.

5. “Evaluation – this normally refers to curriculum evaluation or materials

evaluation, or both. …The main purpose of curriculum evaluation is to determine
whether the goals and objectives of a course have been achieved, or whether the
course meets externally imposed standards, such as those set by an educational
authority. It is usually thought of as involving two types:

• ongoing (or formative) evaluation – that is, a process of getting feedback

on the curriculum in action
• final (or summative) evaluation – that is, when the outcomes of the
programme are evaluated according to the goals that were established at
the outset” (Thornbury 2006:77)

“Assessment refers to the different ways of collecting information about a

learner’s progress and achievement. … Assessment may include informal
procedures such as those carried out by the teacher in the course of a lesson. …
[It] may take place at certain key points in a course, such as half-way through or
at the end, or it may be ongoing, in which case it is known as continuous
assessment.” (Thornbury 2006: 18)

Testing is a form of assessment, where the aim is to determine what the

learner knows, compared with teaching, which refers to the imparting of or
sharing of (in our context) linguistic knowledge.

Pre-session task

A) Think about how your school evaluates a student at the end of a course of end
of a year.

1. Which of the following aspects are included as part of the assessment

system? Which are not included? Is there a reason why some are not included?

• language components: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation

• language skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking
• language learning skills (e.g. ability to: use a dictionary, work out
meanings of unfamiliar language, use metalanguage e.g. ‘How do you say
… in English?’)
• general learning skills (e.g. following instructions in tests, being self-aware
and knowing what you need to improve on etc)
• behaviour or social skills (e.g. cooperating and participating positively,
listening to the teacher and other students)

IH CAM Module 9 – Testing – Course Participants’ Notes 5

(written by Diana England, IH Torres Vedras)
2. How important are tests and exams where you work?

3. Is one of the above given greater priority than the others? For example, it
gets higher marks, or can override other aspects of assessment.

4. How are these marks recorded?

5. Which of the above are formally assessed (i.e. you record the information on
the student’s records)?

6. Which of these do you bear in mind when assessing the student, but do not
record officially?

7. What are the good points about the system you are presently using? What
are some of the drawbacks? Is it effective i.e. do only those students who are
satisfactory or above pass and those who are below standard fail?

B) Writing a good test is one of the more challenging aspects of teaching a

language. Write a list of factors that make test-writing difficult. You’ll need this
list during the session.

Reading List

Reference Books:

Evaluating your Students, Andy Baxter, Richmond, 1997, Chapters 1 - 5.

Classroom Testing, J.B. Heaton, Longman, 1990.

Testing for Language Teachers, Arthur Hughes, CUP, 1990.

The Learner-Centred Curriculum, David Nunan, CUP, 1996, Chapter 8.

Learning Teaching, Jim Scrivener, Macmillan, 1994, Chapter 11 Section 8.

How to Teach Vocabulary, Scott Thornbury, Longman, 2002, Chapter 8.

How to Teach Speaking, Scott Thornbury, Pearson, 2005, Chapter 6.

An A – Z of ELT, Scott Thornbury, Macmillan, 2006.

Article:

Continuous Assessment, Bill Bowler & Sue Parminter, ETP Issue 3, April 1997

IH CAM Module 9 – Testing – Course Participants’ Notes 6

(written by Diana England, IH Torres Vedras)