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A Development of English Grammar Proficiency Test for Teacher Students

Majoring in English

Conference Paper · May 2021

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 A Development of English Grammar Proficiency Test
for Teacher Students Majoring in English

Ekamorn Iamsirirak1

Abstract
English grammar is one of the core lessons for teaching Thai students. There are
many grammar topics that teacher students need to learn and comprehend. The purposes
of this study are 1) to investigate the needs of grammar topics for English teachers at the
secondary education level and 2) to construct an English grammar proficiency test for
teacher students majoring in English. This study was conducted based on 4 sequential
steps with 2 groups of participants. The first step was to collect and select expected
English grammar topics based on documentary research. Then, the participants in the
first group consisting of 226 teacher students and 60 experienced teachers responded to
questionnaires. All the data were triangulated and the findings revealed that from the 16
grammar topics tenses and verbs were the most necessary for English language teachers.
The second step was to verify the significance of 16 grammar topics by 5 experts. Then,
the third step was to validate the first set of English grammar test validity by comments
and suggestions from 3 experts. Having been revised, the finalized set of the English
grammar proficiency test was checked for reliability by the second group of 144
volunteer students. The English grammar proficiency test in this study, called T-EGT, is
composed of 110 items with 21 parts. The validity of the test was checked by 3 experts
and by a vocabulary program to analyze the appropriateness of the word difficulty in the
test based on at least 86% of K1 & K2 to ensure the simplification of the vocabulary on
the test with the result of 86.1%. The reliability of the test was verified by KR-20 with the
result of 0.93. T-EGT is used as an English grammar proficiency test to identify students’
grammar proficiency levels: advanced, intermediate, and beginner.

Keywords: English grammar test, proficiency test, English grammar for teachers, T-EGT

Introduction
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is broadly known as a worldwide
teaching approach. According to Thai Basic Education Core Curriculum B.E. 2551, CLT
has played an important role in the national curriculum which covers all levels of basic
education, from primary to secondary education level. However, it is inevitable to teach

1
Lecturer, Ph.D., English Language Teaching, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of
Education Ramkhamhaeng University, E-mail: drekamorn@rumail.ru.ac.th

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grammar to Thai students of English as a foreign language (EFL Thai students).
Furthermore, teaching grammar exists at all levels of education in Thailand. Larzen-
Freeman and Celce-Murcia (2016) stated that teaching grammar is one of the traditional
teaching methods that focus on teaching grammar rules and doing exercises; on the other
hand, it can be an alternation of less direct teaching, more implicit through grammar
activities blended in communicative teaching. The basic requirement of all teachers is to
plan a course syllabus and prepare lesson plans for students. As a teacher to understand
what students want to learn is not only knowing the topics they need to study, but it is
also important to know students’ language proficiency and learn their background
knowledge and learning experiences. A test is one of the tools that teachers can use to
investigate students’ ability towards a particular language knowledge and content such
as communicative skills, vocabulary size, or grammar knowledge.
In English language teaching programs for undergraduate students who attempt
to achieve their degree in education, English grammar for teachers is generally found as
one of the major subjects in their study plan. The ultimate goal of these teacher students
is to get a job as English teachers in basic education, targeting the secondary education
level both at lower-secondary and upper-secondary levels. They have to include grammar
knowledge into the lessons as a supportive skill to facilitate teaching the four language
skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). If both English language instructors and
students know the learners’ proficiency in grammar knowledge, it is useful for them to
plan and design lessons in a semester. In accordance with the importance of teaching
grammar, the English grammar proficiency test is one of the tools for them to use. The
test will be in the form of a proficiency test investigating the general picture of students’
knowledge and ability and will illustrate the level or stage that students are in as a group.
This will suggest the goal they have to reach and improve their grammar knowledge to
an expected standard or higher levels that they should achieve.
The main purpose of this study is to develop an English grammar proficiency test
that is suitable for undergraduate students who are currently enrolling in an English
Grammar for Teachers course. This test will be used as a tool for investigating students’
proficiency and ability in English grammar. The result from this English grammar
proficiency test will show them a stage or standard they have already reached before the
course begins, and also show their achievement or progress after the course ends.

Objectives
There are two major objectives of this study as follows.
1. To investigate the needs of English grammar knowledge for English-major
students
2. To develop an English grammar proficiency test for teacher students
majoring in English
The scope of the study is to focus on grammar knowledge and content including
grammar topics, basic terms and definitions, rules, meanings, and uses in a variety of
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syntactic units namely words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. The test was designed to
target undergraduate students with an English major who are enrolled in an English
Grammar for Teachers course within the Faculty of Education in one public university in
Bangkok. This test will be helpful for both instructors and students to reveal students’
grammar knowledge.

Research Methodology
This study was divided into 4 sequential steps: the first and the second steps were
designed to investigate the needs of English grammar knowledge for English-major
students; and the third and the fourth steps were designed to develop an English
grammar proficiency test for teacher students majoring in English.

The participants of the study

The participants of this study appeared in 2 major groups: the first group was 226
teacher students plus 60 experienced English language teachers in elementary education
level from 10 schools in the practicum network. This group contributed a set of data to
the first step which was triangulated with the data obtained from the documentary
research and the 28 grammar books. Then, 5 experts were requested to verify the
necessity of English grammar topics in the second step. The information from Step 1 and
2 was gathered and synthesized to launch a first set of the English grammar proficiency
test, then the third step to validate the test validity by 3 experts. Having been revised and
edited, the finalized set of the English grammar proficiency test was checked for
reliability by using KR-20 based on the test results from 144 volunteer students.

The research instruments

This study was conducted using the following research instruments:
1. Questionnaires
There were 4 different questionnaires in this study. Questionnaires 1-
Needs of English grammar topics of teacher student questionnaire and Questionnaire 2-
Needs of English grammar topics of experienced teacher questionnaire, were
administered in Step 1 to the first group of 226 teacher students majoring in English plus
60 experienced English language teachers in elementary education level from 10 schools
in practicum network to collect the data related to needs of English grammar topics for
teachers. The other two questionnaires were used for data verification. Questionnaire 3-
the verification of needs of English grammar topics for teachers by 5 experts was used for
the confirmation of 16 necessary grammar topics in Step 2. And the final, Questionnaire
4- English grammar proficiency validation questionnaire was used to check the validity
of English grammar proficiency test in Step 3.

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 2. A set of English grammar proficiency test
There were two sets: the first set, as a draft, and the finalized set of
English grammar proficiency tests. The draft was composed after gathering the data from
Step 2, then it was sent to 3 experts to validate whether all questions were qualified. Then,
the first set of the test was revised and edited based on the comments and suggestions
from the 3 experts which were derived from the Questionnaire (3). Then, the finalized
English grammar proficiency test was administered to the volunteer students to check
test reliability in Step 4.
Hence, the research methodology conducted based on 4 sequential steps is
displayed as a research procedure in Figure 1.

Step 1: Searching for the needs of English grammar topics

Documentary research:
28 grammar books

Expected
60 experienced 16 grammar topics 226 teacher students’
teachers’ opinions opinions

Step 2: The verification of qualified items of needs

5 experts verified the needs of English grammar topics for teachers by IOC,
comments, and suggestions.

Step 3: The verification English grammar proficiency test validity

3 experts verified English grammar test by IOC, comments, and suggestions.

Step 4: The verification English grammar proficiency test reliability

144 students volunteered to take English Grammar Test.

Test of English Grammar for Teachers (T-EGT)

Figure 1 The four steps of research procedure

Step 1: Searching for the needs of English grammar topics

The first step was to investigate the students’ needs towards crucial grammar
topics which could facilitate and improve their grammar proficiency. In this step,
documentary research was started to collect grammar topics from 28 books: 21 written
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in Thai, and 7 written in English. The selection of these textbooks was based on a
purposive sampling design. The criteria used to select these textbooks were the
availability of the current books sold on shelves in three well-known bookstores around
the campus: SE-ED Book Center, Naiin, and Chulalongkorn University Book Center by
focusing on grammar books for secondary education level and university admission. 21
Thai grammar books were found at the bookstores and were selected for the study. 7
English textbooks that had been assigned in the course syllabus for 4 semesters were
included in this documentary research.
The population of this study was 524 teacher students majoring in English at the
Faculty of Education in one public university. According to Krejcie and Morgan (1970), a
total of 226 participants took part in this study. That is, 226 teacher students had been
requested to take the 6-point rating scale questionnaire. There were 10 schools in the
second semester in the academic year of 2019 that the teacher students were sent to
practice their teaching practicum. There were about 10 English teachers in each school;
therefore, 5-8 teachers were requested to complete the questionnaire, 6-point rating
scale the same as teacher students on a voluntary basis. Finally, 60 English teachers
returned the questionnaire for this first step.
After receiving all questionnaire responses from the participants, the researcher
collected the data and analyzed it to determine the needs of English grammar topics for
teachers. Data was also derived from documentary research of 28 textbooks. and
triangulated with the needs obtained from the questionnaires.

Step 2: The verification of qualified items of needs

Then, the research procedure moved to the second step. The obtained grammar
topics from the first step were listed to be rated by 5 experts who have direct experience
in English language teaching. Expert I, is an assistant professor and Ph.D. in English
language teaching, working for the Faculty of Education at a public university in Bangkok
for 10 years. Experts II and III are instructors, holding master’s degrees, working in a
public university with 5 years experience of teaching English – one is in the English
program and the other is in the Linguistics program aimed at English linguistics. Expert
IV is a 15-year-experienced teacher in a public school at the secondary education level
working as an English teacher for their foreign languages department. This expert holds
a Professional Level Teachers (K 2 Teachers) credential. Expert V is a 20-year-
experienced teacher in a private school at the secondary education level and had worked
for 3 years at a public university holding a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with an
English language teaching concentration. However, this expert retired in the year 2020.
After the experts returned the questionnaires, the researcher gathered all
information to confirm whether those received grammar topics from Step 1 were still
suitable for English teachers. The result was investigated by using Index of Item-Objective
Congruence (IOC) which was no less than 0.8. However, if any item was found to be below

Page | 5
0.8, the comments and suggestions from the experts would be included and discussed
whether the item should be excluded or not.
Step 3: The verification English grammar proficiency test validity
In the third step, English grammar test was designed based on the needs of
students and teachers plus the verification of the 5 experts in the previous step. The test
was written in 2 steps. The first set of the grammar test was designed by the researcher.
Then, it was finalized by the 3 experts who verified the validity of the test. In addition, the
vocabulary in the test was verified based on the percentage of high-frequency words, K1
& K2 word lists, plus Academic Word List (AWL) counted by Lextutor website;
https://www.lextutor.ca.
Step 4: The verification English grammar proficiency test reliability
In the last step, the finalized set of the grammar test was administered in the test
hall. The participants in this study were 144 of 167 students who enrolled in these 2
courses English Grammar for Teachers (with a total number of 112 students) and
Teaching Behavior in English (with a total number of 55 students). The reasons why the
researcher selected these 2 courses are because 1) English Grammar for Teachers is a
compulsory course for the second year of study plan which is the very first course of the
major subjects; 2) Teaching Behavior in English is also a compulsory course for the fourth
year of study which is one of the final courses of the study plan before practicing their
professional teaching experience. The students were asked for their permission to
whether they would be willing to volunteer to take the English grammar test. That is, 144
out of 167 students consented to be research participants and accepted to take the
grammar proficiency test. The statistics which were used in this step were Max, Min,
means, and Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20).
In conclusion, these four sequential steps show the research procedure for
conducting this study. This procedure was designed to investigate the needs of English
grammar topics and to compose an English grammar proficiency test.

Findings and Discussion

The findings in this study are illustrated in alignment with the research objectives
and research procedure as shown in Table 1.

Table 1
The relations between research objectives and research procedure
Research objectives Research procedure
1. To investigate the needs of Step 1: Searching for the needs of English
English grammar knowledge grammar topics
for English-major students Step 2: The verification of qualified items of needs
2. To develop English grammar Step 3: The verification English grammar
proficiency test for teacher proficiency test validity
students majoring in English
Page | 6
 Research objectives Research procedure
Step 4: The verification English grammar
proficiency test reliability

To achieve the first research objective, 51 English grammar topics, derived from
the contents and some main topics or subtopics from textbooks, were collected. Then, all
of them were synthesized and categorized into 36 topics. The frequency of each topic was
counted and categorized to imply the importance of each topic by those received
frequency. Finally, 16 topics were grouped and selected by focusing on the frequency at
least 10 times because the average frequency was about 9.6.
Therefore, the needs of English grammar topics after data triangulation were
categorized into 16 topics: 1) parts of speech 2) verbs 3) voices 4) articles 5) tenses 6)
subject and verb agreement 7) direct and indirect speech 8) conditional sentences 9)
comparison 10) question tag 11) phrases 12) clauses 13) sentences patterns 14) sentence
types 15) word formation (only affixation) and 16) parallelism.
Next, the 16 topics were included in the questionnaires for both current teacher
students and experienced teachers. The questionnaires were sent to 226 teacher students
currently studying in the program and also sent to 60 of at least 3-year-experienced
teachers in the school networks that had been accepted to the internship to pre-service
students from the programs. The questionnaire consists of 2 parts: 1) general
information of the participant: teacher or student; and 2) the opinion towards the needs
of 16 English grammar topics for English language teachers by using 6-point rating scale.
The 6-point rating scale was used in order to avoid the neutral desire which provides
better data to analyze. That is, the scales themselves forced participants to select one of
the options. And, if at any point a neutral is desired, the “slightly necessary” and “slightly
unnecessary” can be averaged together. The result from the questionnaires is
demonstrated in Table 2.

Table 2
The result of the needs of English grammar topics from students’ and teachers’ perspective
Students Teachers
English grammar topics
Mean S.D. Meaning Mean S.D. Meaning
1. Parts of speech 5.15 1.087 high 5.44 .760 highest
2. Verbs 5.32 .854 highest 5.36 .749 highest
3. Voices 4.93 1.056 high 5.02 .958 high
4. Articles 4.32 1.214 quite high 4.88 1.189 high
5. Tenses 5.42 .869 highest 5.42 .731 highest
6. Subject and verb agreement 4.78 1.180 high 5.20 .808 highest
7. Direct and indirect speech 4.53 1.186 high 4.60 .969 high
8. Conditional sentences 4.95 1.048 high 4.84 .912 high
9. Comparison 4.42 .907 high 5.08 .853 high

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 Students Teachers
English grammar topics
Mean S.D. Meaning Mean S.D. Meaning
10. Question tag 4.27 1.260 quite high 4.56 1.163 high
11. Phrases 5.28 1.043 highest 5.02 .915 high
12. Clauses 5.43 .927 highest 5.04 .807 high
13. Sentences patterns 5.00 .902 high 5.10 1.055 high
14. Sentence types 5.07 .899 high 5.06 .978 high
15. Word formation (only affixation) 4.70 1.183 high 5.08 .922 high
16. Parallelism 4.70 .908 high 4.70 1.111 high

The results in Table 2 illustrate the needs of 16 English grammar topics from 2
perspectives of the research participants. The following formula was used for the
calculation:

− 𝑚𝑖𝑛
class width =
𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠
6−1
= ≈ 0.84
6

Hence, the meaning of each interval are as follows:

5.20 – 6.00 highest meaning strongly necessary
4.36 – 5.19 high meaning necessary
3.52 – 4.35 quite high meaning slightly necessary
2.68 – 3.51 quite low meaning slightly unnecessary
1.84 – 2.67 low meaning unnecessary
1.00 – 1.83 lowest meaning strongly unnecessary

English-major students currently studying in the program showed the highest

mean of 5.43, 5.42, 5.28, and 5.32 seeing that clauses, tenses, phrases, and verbs
respectively are strongly necessary grammar topics for them. On the other hand, English
teachers in the elementary education level reflected their needs of knowledge for
teaching English grammar on parts of speech, tenses, verbs, and subject and verb
agreement are strongly necessary for English teachers with the highest mean of 5.44, 5.42,
5.36, and 5.20 consecutively. It can be concluded that both students and teachers agreed
that tenses and verbs are the most necessary grammar topics for English teachers.
According to the obtained findings, most of the grammar topics were in high and
highest levels of needs. There are only 2 topics: question tag, and articles appeared in
quite high levels through students’ perspective whereas they were still high depending
on teachers’ perspective.
Next, 16 topics were included in a questionnaire verified by 5 experts using Index
of Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) to confirm the importance of whether each topic

Page | 8
should exist in the lessons or course syllabus of English grammar for teachers as
illustrated in Table 3.
In Table 3, the result showed that 13 grammar topics were marked as important
and useful lessons which should be taught to English teacher students with the score of
IOC of no less than 0.8. However, 3 topics: question tag, comparison, and word formation
were still included in this test development based on the suggestions of the experts
because they were still above 0.5 and they were still in a high level of needs as can be seen
from the perspectives of students and teachers.

Table 3
IOC from 5 experts to verify the needs of English grammar topics for teachers
Experts
Topics Results
I II III IV V
1. Parts of speech 1 1 1 1 1 1
2. Verbs 1 1 1 1 1 1
3. Voices 1 1 1 1 1 1
4. Articles 1 1 1 1 1 1
5. Tenses 1 1 1 1 1 1
6. Subject and verb agreement 1 1 1 1 1 1
7. Direct and indirect speech 1 1 0 1 1 0.8
8. Conditional sentences 1 0 1 1 1 0.8
9. Comparison 1 1 0 0 1 0.6
10. Question tag 1 1 -1 1 1 0.6
11. Phrases 1 1 0 1 1 0.8
12. Clauses 1 1 0 1 1 0.8
13. Sentences patterns 1 1 1 1 1 1
14. Sentence types 1 1 0 1 1 0.8
15. Word formation (only affixation) 1 1 0 0 1 0.6
16. Parallelism 1 1 1 1 1 1

Next, the second research objective was treated. The test was designed in line with
the obtained grammar 16 topics. The test was adapted from English Pretest (Lacie, 2008:
1-14). Consequently, the first set of the English grammar proficiency test was composed
of 110 items with 21 parts as illustrated in Table 4.

Table 4
Parts in the English grammar test and number of items
Parts in the English No. Parts in the English grammar test No.
grammar test
1. Nouns 5 12. Sentence structure and classification 5
2. Pronouns 5 13. Sentence patterns 5
3. Verbs 5 14. Tenses 5

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 Parts in the English No. Parts in the English grammar test No.
grammar test
4. Adjectives 5 15. Passive voice 5
5. Adverbs 5 16. Conditional sentences 5
6. Propositions 5 17. Subject-verb agreement 5
7. Conjunctions 5 18. Direct and indirect speech 5
8. Interjections 5 19. Question tags 5
9. Articles 5 20. Parallel structure 5
10. Auxiliary Verbs 10 21. Word formation 5
11. Phrases and clauses 5
Total of items 110
In Table 4, these 110 items were firstly composed by the researcher, an English
instructor with 12-year teaching experience and 4-year teaching experience in the course
English Grammar for Teachers. It can be noticed that each topic consists of 5 items except
auxiliary verbs because subtopics of verb content are a variety including the differences
between finite verbs and non-finite verbs, verb phrase primary auxiliary verbs,
secondary auxiliary verbs, and past modal verbs. For the purpose of constructing
questions covering various types of verbs, 10 items were included based on the
comments and suggestions from the experts.
The vocabulary size in the test was checked for its existence based on each
frequency found in K1, K2 in order to ensure that the vocabulary was simplified enough
for test takers whose English proficiency could possibly be in a wide range from beginner
to advanced learners. The vocabulary size matters in this test because the purpose of the
test is to investigate grammar knowledge, not vocabulary and meaning, that is,
vocabulary should be easy to understand for all levels of test takers. The vocabulary size
was analyzed by using VocabProfile on the website Lextutor via
https://www.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/. The result is showed in Figure 2.

Figure 2 The word list result of the first set of the English grammar proficiency test
Page | 10
 In Figure 2, the first set of the English grammar proficiency test consists of 2606
words. 86.11% belongs to K1 & K2 word lists: 78.09% in K1, and 8.02% in K2. However,
4.41% of AWL is inevitable to appear in the test because the test must refer to some
academic terms such as complement, definite, function, indefinite, demonstrative, modify,
consist in order to write grammar questions. Moreover, 9.48% of off-list words are
needed to appear in the test for the same reason like mentioned in AWL such as a group
of proper nouns: Bangkok, Blackpink, Fahsai; a group of grammar terms: adjective, adverb,
interrogative, proposition, pronoun.
Then, 3 experts, different from the Step 2 IOC’s experts, had validated the test. The
first expert is an assistant professor and Ph.D. in English language education with 17
years teaching experience, and has been working in both English major and English
language teaching fields. The second expert is a 25-year experienced teacher
concentrating on English language teaching for Thai ELF students at the secondary
education level. This expert has received her academic position in Senior Professional
Level Teachers (K 3 Teachers) which is relevant to assistant professor at the higher
education level. The last expert is a native English teacher in an international school. This
expert holds the master's degree in second language acquisition and English education
from the USA and has been working in the education field for 20 years including the USA,
and some Asian countries namely Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. Comments,
suggestions, and interviews from these experts were applied to the test revision resulting
in the finalized set of the English grammar proficiency test containing the same total of
110 items. Comments and suggestions from the experts had focused on the simplification
of the words in the test. For example, using and repeating the same basic words or
structures such as use the word choose instead of select for the whole test; using a
noticeable word like the word not in bold font; avoiding negative word that was not clear
enough to notice such as in a sentence “Which is not a finite verb?” instead of “Which word
is the odd one out?” Or “Which does not belong in the same word class?” These simplified
and noticeable words and structures help test takers understand the question easier and
support the test validity in terms of asking what the test is willing to investigate, and
making the questions friendly and easy to understand since the main purpose is to check
test takers’ grammar proficiency, not their vocabulary size.
After revising the test, the researcher launched the finalized set of the English
grammar proficiency test and checked on VocabProfile again to ensure the percentage of
K1 & K2 word lists were still acceptable as found in Figure 3. After this, the finalized set
of the English grammar proficiency test was called: Test of English Grammar for Teachers
(T-EGT).

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 Figure 3 The word list result of the finalized set of the English grammar test

In line with Figure 2 and 3, the result showed that the percentage of K1 & K2 of
the first and the finalized set of the test were somewhat the same 86.11% and 86.10%
respectively. Consequently, AWL and off-list words of both versions were somewhat the
same with 4.41% and 4.43% of AWL, and 9.48% and 9.47% of off-list words.
Nation (2013) stated that high-frequency words (K1 & K2) play an important role
about 86% in general text. That is, the final version of English grammar test provided
86.10% which reached the percentage of simplified text even though this test is used for
academic purposes. Therefore, the validity of the test had been verified by first, the
obtained data from the target users (students in the program, and experienced teachers);
second, the confirmation from 5 experts about the needs of grammar topics before
composing them in the test; third, the verification from 3 experts on questions and
answers in the test; and lastly, the test vocabulary size checked by word calculating
system via Lextutor. According to these mentioned reasons, T-EGT could be claimed that
it was valid enough to move to the next step for proving test reliability in the last step of
the research procedure.
In the fourth research procedure, 144 students volunteered themselves for taking
the test, T-EGT. The test consists of 110 items with 20 parts as already mentioned in Table
4. The results of T-EGT reliability are shown in Table 5.

Table 5
The result of T-EGT reliability
KR-20 0.93
Maximum score 106
Minimum score 24
Mean score 74.02
S.D. 18.63

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 The results proved that T-EGT was qualified enough in accord with 0.93 of KR-20.
The maximum and minimum scores were 106 and 24 respectively, while the average
score was found at 74.02 with S.D. of 18.42.
The questions of T-EGT focus on grammar terms and definitions, types of
words/phrases/sentences, functions of words/phrases/sentences, the use in a sentence,
word forms as shown in the following examples.
Parallel questions about grammar terms and definitions:
1) A verb names ............................ .
a. an action b. a detail of things
c. a human, an object, or an idea d. a conjunction
2) What are the core components of a phrase?
a. a subject and a verb b. a verb and a predicate
c. a preposition and a conjunction d. a group of words
Parallel questions about types of words/phrases/sentences:
3) Choose the conjunction.
a. in b. of c. still d. they
4) Which sentence has an auxiliary verb?
a. I lived in the USA last year. b. We really enjoy swimming.
c. She goes jogging every morning. d. They are sleeping now.
Parallel questions about functions of words/phrases/sentences:
5) “I missed the last train.” The word ‘last’ is …………… of a noun.
a. a subject b. an object
c. an adjective d. a complement
6) Which can be a subject in a sentence?
a. a noun b. a finite verb
c. a verb d. an object of preposition
Parallel questions about the use in a structure:
7) Choose the most appropriate conjunction for this sentence below:
“Lina played well, ........... she didn't qualify for the finals.”
a. and b. so c. yet d. because
8) An object complement comes after …………… .
a. an object b. a transitive verb
c. a modal verb d. an action verb
Parallel questions about word forms:
9) Which is the common ending of a noun?
a. -ness b. -ent c. -ed d. -ly
10) The meaning of the root ‘mort’ in the word ‘immortal’ is …………… .
a. pain b. infinity c. alive d. death
These examples above are some parallel questions of T-EGT. However, one
question can focus on more than one type of questions such as one question can

Page | 13
investigate the understanding of terms and definitions plus the use in a sentence. For
example;
A parallel question about terms and definitions and the use in a sentence:
11) Which sentence is parallel?
a. My mother taught me to speaking English and cook Thai food.
b. Gina went for a movie, swimming, and a dancing show.
c. My cat not only likes to play fetch, but she also likes chasing birds.
d. I would rather pay for my exercises than receiving financial aid.
In Example 11, students who can answer this question have to understand the
definition of parallelism, the use in a sentence by selecting the parallel structure together
with a reasonable meaning.
Therefore, T-EGT is the test that aims at an investigation of the teacher students’
grammar proficiency through their understandings about terms and definitions, word
form, functions, structures, and the uses of grammar in all levels of linguistic unit, from
morpheme to sentence level including the meaning of grammar towards the structures
that are used.
The preliminary findings reflecting on the scores showed the score contribution
concerning the obtained levels: low, middle, and high. The formula: X̅ ± 0.5 S.D. is used
to categorized the levels of grammar proficiency as illustrated in Table 6.

Table 6
The score distribution and levels of T-EGT
Mean scores by formula Levels No. of test takers
> X̅ ± 0.5 S.D. = above 83.34 high 48
X̅ ± 0.5 S.D. = between 64.7 and 83.34 middle 49
< X̅ ± 0.5 S.D. = below 64.7 low 47

As can be seen in Table 6 and, the obtained data illustrated that 144 test takers
were classified into three levels: high, middle, and low. 48 students who achieved above
83 of 110 referred to the high score level among the test takers. 49 students who achieved
scores between 65 of 110 were in middle score level. Then, 47 students who obtained
below 63 of 110 conveyed their scores in low level among the test takers.
Then, the scores based on the statistical result could signify the test takers’ English
grammar proficiency by T-EGT as shown in Table 7 below.

Table 7
The relation between received scores and grammar proficiency levels of T-EGT
Score ranges Proficiency levels
84 – 110 Advanced learner
65 - 83 Intermediate learner
0 – 64 Beginner learner
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 In Table 7, the proficiency levels are classified into three levels: advanced,
intermediate, and beginner learners by mean scores derived from the participants who
took the test, T-EGT as mentioned in Table 6. That is, it can be generalized to the new test
takers, meaning that those who reach 84-110, 65-83, and 0-64 are defined as advanced,
intermediate, and beginner learners respectively.

Conclusions
T-EGT can be applied in English grammar courses especially for students majoring
in English. It is inevitable that teacher students should also understand the grammar
terms and definitions in order to identify student’s needs and plan the lesson to teach
their students. Toprak (2019) stated that grammar instruction can facilitate teachers to
teach other language skills easier. That is, teaching is still needed in a language classroom.
The benefit of T-EGT is to provide information about the proficiency of the students in
order to decide teaching and learning activities for students. The success of this study is
the product in the form of T-EGT which can be used as a pretest for English grammar class.
The test will help classify the students’ proficiency into three groups: beginner,
intermediate, and advanced. The test result will facilitate the teachers to group the
students in the same class based on their proficiency levels and activities given, to
organize sections by proficiency groups, and to decide the syllabus or lessons based on
students’ needs. This finding seems to accord with Rethinasamy and Chuah's (2011)
study, demonstrating that test scores from some tests can place students in the suitable
English language proficiency groups and thereby enhance students' learning ultimately.

References
Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities.
Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30(3), 607–610.

Lacie, C. (2008). English for foreign language speakers: The easy way. Barron’s Educational
Series.

Larsen-Freeman, D, & Celce-Murcia, M. (2016). The grammar book: Form, meaning, and
use for English language teachers ( 3rd ed.). National Geographic Learning.

Ministry of Education. (2008). Thai basic education core curriculum B.E. 2551. Ministry of
Education.

Nation, I. S. P. (2013). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge University

Press.

Rethinasamy, S. and Chuah, K. M. (2011). The Malaysian University English Test (MUET)
and its use for placement purposes: A predictive validity study. Electronic Journal
of Foreign Language Teaching, 8(2), 234–245. https://doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2146007

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 Toprak, T. E., (2019). Teaching grammar is not my main responsibility: Exploring EFL
teachers’ beliefs about grammar teaching. International Online Journal of
Education and Teaching, 6(1). http://www.iojet.org/index.php/IOJET/
article/view/398

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