LANGUAGE TESTING &ASSESMENT

MAJOR APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TESTING

Lecturer : Yasyir Fahmi Mubaraq M.Pd

Created By :
Nia Andari Cintani : 3062012005

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

STKIP PGRI BANJARMASIN
2023
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, thanks to Allah SWT because of the help of Allah, writer finished writing the paper
entitled "Major Approaches To Language Testing " right in the calculated time.

The purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by Mr Yasyir Fahmi
Mubarak M.pd as lecturer in Language Testing & Assesment course.

In arranging this paper, the writer trully get lots challenges and obstructions but with help of many
indiviuals, those obstructions could passed, writer also realized there are still many mistakes in
process of writing this paper.

Because of that, the writer says thank you to all individuals who helps in the process of writing
this paper. hopefully Allah replies all helps and bless you all.

The writer realized tha this paper still imperfect in arrangment and the content. then the writer
hope the criticism from the readers can help the writer in perfecting the next paper. Last but not
the least Hopefully, this paper can helps the readers to gain more knowledge about Language
Testing & Assesment.

Bamjarmasin ,March 7th 2023

Nia Andari Cintani

 TABEL OF CONTENS

Cover
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................ 2
TABEL OF CONTENS ................................................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER I .................................................................................................................................. 4
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER II ................................................................................................................................. 5
THEORETICAL STUDY ............................................................................................................... 5
2.1 The Discrete-Point Testing........................................................................................................ 5
2.2 The Integrative Approach to Language Testing ........................................................................ 7
CHAPTER III ............................................................................................................................... 9
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 9
2.3 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 9
BIBLIOGRAHPY ......................................................................................................................... 10
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background

As suggested by Baker (1989), modern approaches to language testing in the modern era
can be differentiated into three major schools. These schools are the discrete-point, integrative,
and the communicative. They came up in their own days with not only their promises but also their
inherent weaknesses. They have their different philosophy, their formats, and their specific context
of use.
The knowledge in conjunction with these schools in language testing is important for
prospective EFL teachers to learn at least for several professional practical reasons. Prospective
EFL teachers are expected to be able to develop tests of their own for classroom purposes. It is in
that situation that the prospective EFL teachers are required to not only know what the tests are
like, but also how and why the tests are developed as they are.
This is considered critical to avoid teachers fron 'copying the observable without really
knowing the underlying philosophy. On other occasions, EFL teachers are also expected to be able
to select appropriate language tests probably for similar use. In the previous section, language tests
can be classified into several types according to the purposes of testing. The knowledge of which
language tests for which purpose is also significant in the sense that teachers cannot use language
tests in the absence of the knowledge of why they use the tests. They cannot use a single set of
tests for all purposes. A single set of tests is not a magic panacea. Furthermore, differing purposes
of testing can also imply involvement of varied test types. And in most practical cases this can
only be sufficiently met with the availability of tests that are developed on different theoretical
bases. Therefore, it is not too far fetching to say that to use a set of tests we need also to know
principles of the test development.
In what follows, the discussion will be focused on these three major schools with a
particular reference to the underlying principles of each school with their implication in classroom
testing, the strengths each offers and the drawbacks each potentially has, and the kinds of language
tests originated from each of the approaches.
 CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL STUDY
2.1 The Discrete-Point Testing

This school of language testing is also known as the psychometric-structural school. This
approach is based on the principles advocated by, as its name suggests, psychology and structural
linguistics. So established briefly, psychometric theories state that human beings' ability can be
spread out ranging from the ability 0 (zero) suggesting absence of ability to the infinite ability,
meaning completely full ability. Also, the advocates of the theories state that in general human
beings' ability can be projected to follow an imaginary hypothetical pattern, known as a normal
curve pattern. On the average, mostly human beings' characteristics fall within the range of the
middle part of the curve, few on the extreme left side, and other few on the extreme right side.
Furthermore, they believe that an individual human being's ability is different from another
one's ability. It is the role of a test to put an individual in the continuum rangeBased on this thought
as a framework, similarly language abilities can also be spread, beginning from zero (0) language
abilities reaching to unlimited language abilities. And in the same manner the function of language
tests is to put an individual's language ability in a place between the two putative poles. This
principle leads to the idea that a good test is the one that can demonstrate its power to differentiate
individuals. That is, it is the test that can place individuals in their right places in the continuum.
Thus, an individual's (language) ability in the continuum is compared to another one's language
ability. So, it is believed that someone has a relative stand in certain language abilities in
comparison with another one.
The other concepts underlying the first approach to language testing is those of the
American structuralisms'. The advocates of the structural linguistics believe that language is a
unity consisting of separable multi layers of linguistic elements From the top layers, language is
theorized to consist of two layers known as duality characteristics of language. These two layers
are system of form and that of meaning Of these two systems, the advocates of this school favor
the system of form better than that of meaning with the reason, being influenced by views of
physical sciences, that the system of form is more concrete than that of meaning, which is
considered an abstract entity. As such 'form' of language is more observable in that it can be sensed
more audibly than 'meaning' of language. This view results from the idea that only physical matters
can only be learned scientifically. Non-physical things such as meaning are, they claim, prone to
be worthless studying scientifically
What is meant by 'form' is the human speech sounds as a result of articulating speech
organs. Linguistic forms are produced linearly in the form of sound streams. When observed more
carefully, these streams consists of individual sounds strung together to form the very first layer to
the following larger layers, that is from the so-called 'words, phrases, clauses, sentences' etc. Thus,
these language forms are physically fragmentable into these technical units. It is these aspects that,
they believe, can be learned apart from their actual context of social use.
The other aspects of compartmentalized aspects of language are concerned with the views
of putatively divisible language skills and language components. The former include performing
language acts like listening, speaking, reading, and writing, whereas the latter consists of
underlying language knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. These two main
aspects interact like a relation between 'a container' on one side and 'a filler' on the other. Thus, in
order to perform language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) functionally, one needs
to have sufficient applicable knowledge of language (grammar, vocabulary, and
phonology/graphology). In a visual presentation, these relations can be seen like the following
picture:

Listening

Speaking

Reading

Writing

Granimar

Vocabulary

Phonology/graphology
This divisible and atomistic view of language ability implies that language cat be learned
bit by bit, from the lowest level to the largest level; and language can also be learned compartment
by compartment, putting aside the relation between one compartment and the other as well as its
social use of language. Thus, language can be learned in vacuum partially in the absence of its
context of use.
The followers of this view believed that one's language mastery is a result of accumulative
learning of parts by parts. This view is then made parallel to and is transferred to the field of testing.
As a result, one's language learning, they claim, can be tested from different compartments. This
follows that a language test can be designed to test only the learners' knowledge of language, that
is the knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, etc apart from the social context, and separate skills,
that is listening, speaking, reading. and writing. Thus, there is a test of grammar, a test of
vocabulary, a test of speaking, Carroll's ideas on the integrative framework of language processing
are considered an extension of the divisible nature of language ability. Thus, he has not gone far
enough to replace the views of the atomistic concepts of language ability. A more fundamental
hypothesis emerges to challenge the divisibility views of language. The claim is that rather than
divisible language ability is unitary. It is a single capacity and this faculty is responsible for all
language processing and behaviors. This faculty is the so-called expectancy grammar.
While still considering the role of context of social use, the expectancy grammar as is
advocated by Oller (1976, 1979) and others, is not just a rhetoric claim. Several experimental
studies are conducted to empirically find strong grounds on which to stand. Experiments are
performed, involving the use of discrete-point tests and the tests they claim best measure the
construct 'expectancy granimar". These tests later are known as integrative tests
 It takes decades to argue whether language ability is divisible or unitary. However, there
are strengths and weaknesses deep-seated in this approach. In practical terms, the approach
contributes the so-claimed integrative tests: cloze tests, composition, dictation, and others.
Integrative tests such as cloze tests offer several positive points. As claimed by Oller (1979) and
Cohen (1980), cloze tests are sensitive to measure one's reading ability. Further, it is claimed that
the tests are capable of revealing a wider spectrum of ability: language ability, knowledge of the
world, and rhetoric structures of a text. In addition to these, the tests are more practical to be
developed than their predecessors: discrete-point multiple-choice formats: A text is chosen,
which is then mutilated according to certain principles. Another advantage of the tests is that they
offer fair objectivity in scoring. Also, the tests particularly cloze tests are believed to be a test of
general proficiency in so far as they are not used for diagnosing test takers' weaknesses or
strengths, nor are they concerned with content validity.
Apart from the advantages the approach offers, the approach is also considered having
weaknesses conceptually and practically. Conceptual weaknesses relate with the methodological
procedures employed to arrive at the claim that test of reading etc. Further, in a test of grammar,
there can be sub tests designed to elicit one's grammar knowledge on, for example, tenses,
preposition, infinitives, etc
The structural approach to testing as conceptually described above Practically has
advantages and at the same time disadvantages. One advantage of this atomistic testing lies in its
quantifiable potential. Grammar in particular is easily segmented into sub detailed components.
This enables the process of establishing test items based on the detailed components, which can
directly yield individual test items on particular aspects of grammar. Using dichotomous scoring,
meaning every correct answer deserves a score of 1 (one) and every incorrect answer gets that of
0 (zero), the scoring is then simple, reckoning every correct answer to come up to one's believed-
to-be mastery on the aspects under consideration. Another advantage of this kind of testing is that,
since the format commonly used is multiple-choice ones, the scoring can be performed in a mass
by machines all at once. This means that it is an efficient and practical scoring and secures scoring
reliability.
However, this kind of testing has also drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is that developing
atomistic test items is not only time-consuming, but also energy consuming. A set of test of 50
items may take three or more hours to complete. In addition to this, it is not an easy job to develop
a test in which the items are conceptually assigned to measure the comprehensive ability under
consideration and if one can make it; it is hard to see how and how far the relation is. Also, due to
its atomistic nature, it is hard to infer the kind of ability the test taker can demonstrate in terms of
using the language as a means of communication. This kind of test only reveals, if it really does
so, the system of knowledge the test taker has if any.

2.2 The Integrative Approach to Language Testing

There are other different commonly mentioned labels that are attributed to by this approach to
language testing. These are pragmatic, psycholinguistic- sociolinguistic, and unitary-competence
approachesThe term 'pragmatic' implies 'realistic things' and the term 'psycholinguisti sociolin
guistic' suggests branches of linguistics as a science dealing with the relation between mental
processes and Integrative testing: - writing a composition -oral interview-close test originally from
the ideas of which approach seems to be useful for language teachers to develop or to choose
language tests in several practical ways. And this is expected to have pedagogically fruitful impacts
on the students' learning a language which is later associated wit the linguistic knowledge, or
commonly known as grammatical knowledge. Performance, on the other hand, is the manifestation
of the knowledge in the actual use of language as a means of interaction realized in the forms of
listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Chomsky's concept of competence, however, later is extended by Hyme (1972) to include
not just linguistic competence but also communicative competence Hymes recognizes the
importance of linguistic competence as a component of one's language ability. But, to him, this is
not sufficient for somebody to be considered competent in using language. The ability to use
accurate grammatical forms should be accompanied by the ability to use the forms according to
the appropriate social contexts. Thus, accuracy of forms is important, but this should be attended
by the presence of appropriateness of use. According to Hymes, put simply, rules of grammar
would be useless without rules of language use in society.
Hymes' ideas are also later developed further by the works of Canale and Swain (1980) and
Canale (1983). The works, which they claim as the components of communicative competence,
elaborate Hymes' work to embrace other critical components of competencies. These competencies
are four: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and
strategic competence! Grammatical competence is concerned with mastery of rules of language
including those of vocabulary, word formation, sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling, and
linguistic semantics (Canale, 1983:7). Sociolinguistic competence deals with the appropriateness
in language forms and meanings generated according to the sociolinguistic contexts. An example
of appropriateness of forms would be the expression 'Hi guys!' addressed to a group of audience
in a very formal meeting; an example of appropriateness of meaning would be a secretary asking
her manager to type a report for her. Discourse competence relates to the ability to use grammatical
forms and meanings in combination to achieve cohesion and coherence of utterance in different
language use and contexts. Finally, strategic competence is concerned with the ability to employ
strategies in communication There are two purposes: to compensate for breakdowns in
communication and to.
 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

2.3 CONCLUSION

A Language test is a tool or procedure used in conducting assessments and general evaluations of
language skills by measuring language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.
There are five kinds of language tests, including:
1. The traditional approach
Language tests tend to adopt the principle that language tests focus on grammar and translation
tests.
2. The discrete approach
Discrete approach test, the test is intended to measure only one element of the language
component.
3. An integrative approach
Integrative tests measure the level of mastery of a combination of two or more language elements.
4. Pragmatic approach
The paragmatic approach is usually marked by the task of understanding discourse, through
linguistic elements that are used fairly, including the presence of various obstacles in it.
5. Communicative approach
Communication skills are related to the mastery of three main components, namely language skills,
strategic abilities and psycho-physiological mechanisms.
 BIBLIOGRAHPY

LANGUAGE TESTING. (2002). GUNADI HARRY SULISTYO. UNIVERSITAS NEGERI MALANG.

Sulistyo, G. H. (October 2002). Major approaches to language testing .