2. The best-known test-techniques and their analysis.

No technique is good or bad by itself: there are concrete cases in which a certain technique is more appropriate and effective than others. Or there are items or tasks where some technique is not used correctly. Each test format is useful in its own context and is less useful in other contexts. Much will depend on what you want the test to do for you in your teaching situation.

Let us have a brief look at some test-techniques and find out their advantages and disadvantages and formulate some recommendations on their writing, selecting and using.

True/false tests

Advantages and disadvantages of true/false tests

Advantages

Disadvantages

May be successfully used for testing reading and listening comprehension Scoring is reliable, economical and rapid Rather easy to prepare Cost-effective at the lessons Easy to administer Does not need a professional tester Even a short text can provide a basis for numerous items Can be used as a valuable teaching device to attract Ss’ attention to the most important details in the text Can be used for graded learning All the items can be pre-tested

May be rather subjective on the part of the test writer The wording of the item may be ambiguous It may not be clear if a candidate failed due to lack of comprehension of the text or lack of comprehension of the item (question) Can encourage guessing as chances are 50:50 They are not reliable unless there are enough items They test only receptive skills Not a communicative type of test They do not test creative writing and speaking Cheating may be easy

Recommendations for writing True/False statements (questions)

Read the recommendations for writing True/False statements and do the T/F activity which follows.

1. In a scanning or skimming test, present items in the order in which the answers can be found in the text.

2. Use simple language and write your sentences at a lower level of difficulty than the reading or listening text.

3. It is advisable to include into the instructions the number of true and false statements.

4. To reduce the element of guessing at the intermediate levels and above, add one more option “Not Stated” or “Doesn’t Say”.

5. Do not write items for which the correct response can be found without understanding the text, simply by looking at the exact words.

6. Correct T/F responses should be adequately randomized so as not to set a response pattern.

Multiple choice tests

Advantages and disadvantages of multiple-choice tests

Advantages

Disadvantages

good for testing grammar and vocabulary can successfully be used for testing reading and listening helps Ss and T identify areas of difficulty cost-effective at the lesson scoring is objective, economical, reliable and objective does not need a professional tester can be used for graded learning the chance factor may be reduced by offering 5-6 options may include enough items for making it reliable all the items can be pretested

they test only receptive skills there may be a gap between knowledge and use item construction is difficult and time-consuming may be difficult to find enough distractors the wording of the item may be ambiguous it may not be clear if a candidate failed due to lack of comprehension of the text or lack of comprehension of the item they do not test creative writing and speaking may be rather subjective on the part of the test writer they may include more guesswork than knowledge and may have harmful effect on learning because of guesswork may be psychologically far from real-life situation cheating may be easy

Recommendations for writing multiple-choice tests

Read the recommendations and use them as guidelines to explain mistakes in the examples of ill-correct multiple-choice items.

1. Avoid writing absurd distractors which everyone can see are wrong.

2. Remember that your distractors should appear correct to any Ss who are not sure of the answer.

3. Use distractors which will make Ss infer the information from the text.

4. All the distractors should be written within the Ss’ range of proficiency and at the same level as the correct option.

5. Always make sure that each multiple-choice item has only one correct answer.

6. There should be enough context to understand the meaning of the sentence.

7. Avoid questions which can be based only on the Ss’ background knowledge.

8. Avoid items which only require Ss to match words in the text.

9. Avoid distractors which do not relate to anything in the paragraph.

10. Make all the options grammatically correct if you use incomplete sentences in a multiple-choice item.

11. Avoid grammatical cues in any item.

12. Make your options approximately equal in length in the same multiple-choice item. Avoid making your right answer longer even if you want to make absolutely sure that it is correct.

13. Minimize the number of negatively stated items.

14. Avoid generalizing the correct option so that it has wider application than the distractors.

15. Avoid correct options that contain familiar or stereotyped phraseology.

16. Vary the position of the key for each item.

17. Avoid the options all of the above and none of the above.

18. Ensure each option independent of each other.

19. Avoid incorrect options which contain language or technical terms with which candidate may be unfamiliar.

20. If the stem is testing the definition of a word, put the word to be defined in the stem and make the options alternative definitions or meanings.

Advantages and disadvantages of cloze tests

Advantages

Disadvantages

Rather easy to prepare Cost-effective at the lesson Measures overall abilities and general language proficiency Scoring is reliable, economical and rapid. Easy to administer. Does not need a professional tester. Can successfully be used to measure the reading difficulty of the text. Very good for testing grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Can be used for graded learning. Have many forms and modifications for different purposes and levels (e.g. modified cloze test, open cloze, multiple-choice cloze, C-cloze, etc.) All the items can be pre-tested.

There may be an element of subjectivity because of more than one acceptable answer. It may be difficult to foresee and include in the key all possible answers. Poor knowledge of the topic may affect Ss’ performance. They test only receptive skills. They are better for teaching prediction than for testing it. Not a communicative type of test. They do not test creative writing and speaking.

Other techniques and definite tasks with them as well as those with the above-mentioned techniques will be analysed at your seminars.

LECTURE 3

Warmer: Associations with ELT.

E: spoken-written, literary – slang, AE, BrE, Austr, etc

L: skills-knowledge, competence-performance, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation –language areas; R, WR, L, S – skills, productive – receptive

T: teacher-student, approach, method, technique, teaching-testing

Testing knowledge (language areas – use of English) – testing skills (today just receptive)