TESTING GRAMMAR

Submitted to: Ma’m Sabahat Mushtaq

Submitted by: Shazia Ijaz
M.Phil Applied Linguistics
 Grammar
 “English grammar is chiefly a system of syntax,
that decides the order and patterns in which
words are arranged into sentences.” (Close,
1982)
 Crystal (1995) says it is "... that branch of the
description of language which accounts for the
way in which words are combined to form
sentences.”
 Testing
 Language Testing is the practice and study of evaluating the
proficiency of an individual in using a particular language
effectively.
 Language testing is a field of study under the umbrella of 
applied linguistics.
 Its main focus is the assessment of first, second or other language
in the school, college, or university context; assessment of
language use in the workplace; and assessment of language in the
immigration, citizenship, and asylum contexts.
 The assessment may include listening, speaking, reading, writing,
an integration of two or more of these skills, or other constructs of
language ability. Equal weight may be placed on knowledge
(understanding how the language works theoretically) and 
proficiency (ability to use the language practically), or greater
weight may be given to one aspect or the other.
 Importance of Testing
 Well made tests of English can help students in
two ways.
 First of all such tests can help create positive
attitudes towards the class.
 A second way that English tests can benefit
students is by helping them master the language.
 For teachers tests can be used to diagnose their
own efforts as well as of students.
 Tests can provide insights into the ways that
teachers can improve the evaluation process.
 Grammar Tests
 Grammar tests are designed to measure
student proficiency in matters ranging from
inflections (bottle-bottles, bake-baked) to
syntax.
 Syntax involves the relationship of words in a
sentence, including matters such as word
order, use of negative, question forms, and
connectives.
 Importance of Grammar Testing
 There was a time when controlling of grammatical
structures was seen as the very core of language ability
and it was unthinkable not to test it.
 Now whether or not grammar has an important place in
an institution’s teaching, it has to be accepted that
grammatical ability, or rather the lack of it, sets limits to
what can be achieved in the way of skills performance.
 The successful writing of academic assignments, for
example, must depend to some extent on the command
of elementary grammatical structures.
 The diagnostic tests of grammar are very useful for the
individual and the group.
 Writing Specifications
 For achievement tests where teaching objectives
or the syllabus list the grammatical structures to
be taught, specification of content should be quite
straightforward.
 When there is not such listing it becomes
necessary to infer from textbooks and other
teaching materials what structures are being
taught.
 Specifications for a placement test will normally
include all of the structures identified in this way.
 Sampling
 This will reflect an attempt to give the test
content validity by selecting widely from the
structures specified.
 It should take account of what are regarded for
one reason or another as the most important
structures.
 It should not deliberately concentrate on the
structures that happen to be easiest to test.
 Writing Items
 Whatever techniques are chosen for testing
grammar, it is important for the text of the item
to be written in grammatically correct and
natural language.
 TECHNIQUES FOR
TESTING GRAMMAR
 GAP FILLING
 Ideally gap filling items should have just one
correct response.
 For example: What was most disturbing……….
that for the first time in his life Ali was on his
way. (was)
 He arrived late, ……… was a surprise. (which)
 The council must do something to improve
transport in the city. ………. they will lose the
next election. (Otherwise)
 Continue…
 An item with two possible correct responses can be
used. For example:
 He displayed the wide, bright smile …….. had
charmed so many people before. (which, that)
 In this case one item is to be rejected.
 There can be use of more than two items for filling
the sentence. For example:
 Dr:………. let her cry. She’ll stop in the end. (just,
I’d, well, then, etc.)
 This technique can be used to test a variety of
structures.
 Paraphrase
 Paraphrase items require the students to write
a sentence equivalent in meaning to one that is
given.
 It is helpful to give part of the paraphrase in
order to restrict the students to the
grammatical structure being tested.
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 For example: Testing passive, past continuous
form.
 When we arrived, a policeman was questioning
the bank clerk.
 When we arrived, the bank clerk………………..
 Completion
 This technique can be used to test a variety of
structures.
 Simple completion items used for testing grammar
consist of a sentence from which a grammatical
element is removed. As
 He went ……… school.
 There are three steps to follow in preparing simple-
completion grammar tests.
1. Select the grammar points that need to be tested.
2. Provide an appropriate context.
3. Write good instructions.
THREE BASIC KINDS OF SIMPLE
COMPLETION GRAMMAR
TESTS
 The Option Form
 The easiest simple completion items are
like multiple choice questions with two
options. As
 Directions: Complete the following
sentences with “do” and ”make”.
1. He …….. a lot of money.
2. I always ………. my best.
 The Inflection Form
 Testing the mastery of inflections provides for
a productive response. These vary from simple
comparatives to verb tense questions.
 He is the ………. (tall) person in the class.
 Another technique is to use a separate blank for
each word in the verb phrase.
 He ….. ….. …… (sleep) for nearly an hour.
 The Free Response Form
 It illustrates how common terminology can be used
occasionally.
 Example: Add a question tag to these sentences:
 Hamlet was indecisive, ……………..?
 Polonius knew a lot of aphorisms, …………?
 Directions: Write in the missing part of the two word
verb.
 What time did he get …… this morning?
 Example of free response with a minimum amount of
contextual control:
 You would get better sooner if ……….. .
 Multiple Choice
 In this test an incomplete sentence is followed
by four multiple choice options for completing
the sentence. For example:
 While she ……… the house, her children were
playing outside.
 A. has been cleaning *B. cleaned C. has cleaned
D. was cleaning
 He has lived in this town for only a week and
he already has ………. Friends.
 A. few B. a few C. not many D. the few
 Continue…
 It is an efficient way to test grammar but
teachers should follow specific procedure in its
preparation.
 1. Choose the grammar points that they need
to test.
 Choosing grammar points to test is usually
easy. It can be chosen from the structures the
teacher has taught since the last test.
 Continue…
 2. Prepare the right kind of sentence context
for the grammar structure.
 A good context is very important. For example:

1.They left at seven. They ….. be home by now.

2.They left at seven. They ….. be home by now.
Yes, but we can’t count on it, can we?
 A. can B. could C. will D. must
 Continue..
 3. Select three logical distractors.
 A. These are the incorrect options which we put with the correct
word or phrase to complete the sentence.
 ……. the ones who know the answers.
 A. They are B. There C. They’re D. Their
 It is a poor test as it is just a spelling item.
 Teachers should avoid such distractions that sound alike.
 B. Another source of distractors is errors on composition. This is
done by students mostly on exercises or cloze passages.
 Test should be like this:
 Several years ago I ……. English.
 A. studied B. study C. have studied D. will study
 Continue…
 C. Unnecessary material confuse the students so
it should not be added in the tests.
 For example:
 If I had a new fur coat, ……… .
 Its options should be
 A. I showed B. I’d show C. I’ve shown D.
I’ll show
 4. Prepare clear, simple instructions.
 All the instructions for solving the questions
should be clear.
 Cloze Procedure
 Cloze tests are prose passages, usually a paragraph or
more in length, from which words have been deleted.
 The students rely on the context in order to supply the
missing words.
 It is easy to prepare and easy to score.
 The cloze is simply a story or essay from which a number
of words have been deleted.
 In this test, the overall meaning and surrounding grammar
help to replace the missing parts.
 Sentence-completion vocabulary and grammar items are
similar in a way to cloze tests.
 Cloze passages simply have much larger contexts.
Continue…
Continue…
 Scoring productive grammar tests
 Gap filling and multiple choice items are easy to score.
 The important thing when scoring other types of item
is to be clear about what each item is testing, and to
reward points for that only.
 There should be one element, such as subject-
pronoun-verb inversion, and all available points
should be awarded for that.
 If two elements are being tested in an item, then points
should be assigned to each of them.
 In this case both elements have to be correct for any
points to be rewarded.
 References
 Hughes A. (2003). Testing for language
teachers(2nd ed). Cambridge :Cambridge
University Press
 Harold S. Madsen (1983). Techniques in testing.
New York: Oxford University Press.