· Speaking : areas viewed on speaking are going to be evaluated by class observation, participation and Daily Routine in which every day we are reviewing a specific phonetical sound in word list and review the meaning of those words so the student can acquire that as vocabulary that he can use it in daily life here we assess:
o Pronunciation
o Fluency
o Relevance
o Intonation
o Accuracy
We have also “Home Schooling” in which a word list is giving to the student and the parent can review with the student is on:
o Pronunciation
o Intonation
· Listening: We only assess listening informally, on reading for example we play the reading on a cd player and the student needs to answer comprehension questions.
· Reading: This is a subject and its informal evaluation we do it with students participations and fluency, there are quizzes in which students need to answer comprehension questions and it also includes the silent reading.
· Writing: Most of it is focus on grammar and here we take in consideration every day activities and participations, however there are some sections in reading in which the student is asked to write a “different ending for the story” for example, or “write a personal experience” etc.
Formal Assessment
We have monthly formal assessments for all subjects and for instance all skills. For Grammar and Reading Comprehension there is a written test that includes fill in the blanks and multiple choice questions, for spelling we have monthly spelling bee in which we ask also to the student to say an invented sentence including the word given.
Non linguistic factors:
· Participation
· Effort
· Behavior
· Attendance
Weight:
Informal Assessment 40%
Speaking 10% Reading 10%
Writing 10% Listening 10%
Formal Assessment 60%
Speaking 20% Reading 10%
Writing 15% Listening 15%
ASSESSMENT PLAN
Baxter touches an issue I personally have had problems with, the so called “teacher criteria” this is like the black hole in which we introduce all the things that are hard to measure such us “the ability to make useful contributions to the class”, it often happens when trying to give a numeric value to skills, and in many times I dear say that we unconsciously change the data and give a different value to those type of skills that the reality. For example in one of my classes I have a student who is always participating correctly and making contributions to the class, and on the other hand there is another who doesn’t speak that much but when he does he is assertive and sometimes even if he doesn’t participate I know and realize he understand the class, Does he deserve a lower numeric value just because he doesn’t participate that much? I know the knowledge is there that he can understand and practice what he knows but the girl who participates gives me more info to assess.
Chapter 2: Baxter, A. (1997) Evaluating your Students. London: Richmond Publishing.
Seeking proficiency in a specific area, these tests are designed to measure people’s management on the language, and its objective is based on a specific purpose there was an example about a proficiency test to see if a student was able to study at a university and in this case it was necessary to have as an objective the rubrics, vocabulary and subjects that the student will have, by this the school would notice if the student’s “proficiency” was enough or if the student would struggle because of the language and for instance didn’t have the proficiency required.
3. Diagnostic
TESTING
We’ll see 4 types of tests,
1. Proficiency I think we can divide this kind of test in two
Seeking proficiency in a specific area, these tests are designed to measure people’s management on the language, and its objective is based on a specific purpose there was an example about a proficiency test to see if a student was able to study at a university and in this case it was necessary to have as an objective the rubrics, vocabulary and subjects that the student will have, by this the school would notice if the student’s “proficiency” was enough or if the student would struggle because of the language and for instance didn’t have the proficiency required.
The other kind of proficiency tests are more general and these are the ones that sometimes are required by employers to investigate on what level an employee has domain on the language and, or, compare different candidates abilities, however since these are more general they will say only what a student or applicant of test is able to do, the people, institutions and, or companies must establish a fair profile of what they need and have the ability to interpret correctly the test’s results.
2. Achievement
These kind of test is also divided on two
Final achievement; unlike the “proficiency” test this it’s directly linked to a curse and it has a base the syllabus of the curse however the results may be misleading if something in the language curse, syllabus, etc is badly designed, that is why it’s better to have as reference the objectives pretended to achieve as a basis for the test designed.
Progress achievement; these are the test teachers in times made at a determined time to measure student’s achievement and they are also linked to the objectives, to have better results in the students achievement and for instance on the test results it is useful to set short term objectives that are need to be covered, and it can be done as an option by applying quizzes, for example or informal tests.
This type of test will indicate the weakness or area to work on a student, however is difficult to make this analysis because it exist the possibility that the student answer by chance the correct answer and not for the knowledge this is why several items for each aspect to measure, making the test in most times very large and impractical for short times of class, there are tests made by a computer program this may be more precise in times and instructions, however it is hard to build or use this type of programs.
4. Placement
These have the purpose of place the student is a specific lever (in most cases) when studying a language curse and it is vital to have as basis the key features at the levels of the school or English curse.
Direct tests: Are focus to a specific skill and development.
Indirect tests: are used when we test an underlie skill, grammar thru reading comprehension or reading with speaking etc.
When discrete point testing is used we are talking about testing an specific area of language in contrast with integrative testing when the student needs to use several elements of the language and skills.
Criterion and norm referenced tests: the norm test provides the student’s performance compared with others students or applicants. The criterion referenced test is design to provide information if applicants are able to perform a task or skill in specific and is based on the tasks or knowledge that the student must achieve.
Objective testing: in this there is one possible answer and it doesn’t reflect the student’s thoughts or opinions. Subjective testing: the marks depends on the scorer opinion or judgment and are common on skills like listening, speaking and even reading comprehension in times.
Computer Adaptive Testing: In this type of test a computer gives the questions to the student and these questions will be according to the student’s performance, the better the student answers the harder the question will be.
VALIDITY-RELIABILITY-PRACTICALITY
AND BACKWASH EFFECTS.
Refers to the connections between the test items and the subject-related tasks. The test should evaluate only the content related to the field of study in a manner sufficiently representative, relevant, and comprehensible.
CONSTRUCT VALIDITY
It implies using the construct correctly (concepts, ideas, notions). Construct validity seeks agreement between a theoretical concept and specific measuring device or procedure. For example, a test of intelligence must include measures of multiple intelligences, rather than just logical mathematical and linguistic ability measures.
CRITERION RELATED VALIDITY
Also referred to as instrumental validity, it states that the criteria should be clearly defined by the teacher in advance. It has to take into account other teachers’ criteria to be standardized and it also needs to demonstrate the accuracy of a measure or procedure compared to another measure or procedure which has already been demonstrated to be valid.
PREDICTIVE VALIDITY
Estimates the relationship of test scores to study future performance as a master or not to dominate it. Predictive validity considers the question, “How well does the test predict future status as masters or not to control it?” For this type of validity, the correlation that is computed is based on the test results and the analyses’ later performance. This type of validity is especially useful for test purposes such as selection or admissions.
FACE VALIDITY
Like content validity, face validity is determined by a review of the items and not through the use of statistical analyses. Unlike content validity, face validity is not investigated through formal procedures. Instead, anyone who looks over the test, including examinees, may develop an informal opinion as to whether or not the test is measuring what it claims to measure.
RELIABILITY
Is the extent to which an experiment, test, or any measuring procedure shows the same result on repeated trials. Without the agreement of independent observers able to replicate research procedures, or the ability to use research tools and procedures that produce consistent measurements, researchers would be unable to satisfactorily draw conclusions, formulate theories. For researchers, four key types of reliability are:
Equivalency related to the co-occurrence of two items
Stability related to time consistency
Internal related to the instruments
Inter-rater related to examiners’ criterion
EQUIVALENCY RELIABILITY
Equivalency reliability is the extent to which two items measure identical concepts at an identical level of difficulty. Equivalency reliability is determined by relating two sets of test scores to one another to highlight the degree of relationship or association.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VALIDITY &
RELIABILITY
Validity and reliability are closely related. A test cannot be considered valid unless the measurements resulting from it are reliable. Likewise, results from a test can be reliable and not necessarily valid.
PRACTICALITY
It refers to the economy of time, effort and money in testing. In other words, a test should be
Easy to design
Easy to administer
Easy to mark
Easy to interpret the results.
BACKWASH EFFECT
Backwash effect is the influence of testing on teaching and learning. It is also the potential impact that the form and content of a test may have on learners ‘conception of what is being assessed (language proficiency) and what it involves. Therefore, test designers, delivers and raters have a particular responsibility, considering that the testing process may have a substantial impact, either positive or negative.
LEVELS OF BACKWASH
It is a subset of a test’s impact on society, educational systems and individuals. Thus, test impact operates at two levels:
The micro level (the effect of the test on individual students and teachers).
The macro level (the impact of the test on society and the educational system) Content related to objectives and their sampling.
Brief Summary
Construct: Refers to the theory underlying the target
Criterion: Related to concrete criteria in the real world. It can be concurrent or predictive.
Concurrent: Correlating high with another measure already validated
Predictive: Capable of anticipating some later measure.
Face: Related to the test overall appearance
QUESTIONS MEASUREMENT DEVICES
Validity: Does it measure what it is supposed to measure?
Reliability: How representative is the measurement?
Practicality: Is it easy to construct, administer, score and interpret?
Backwash: What is the impact of the test on the teaching/ learning process?
Hughes, A. (2003) Testing for Language Teachers. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
TESTING
This unit have helped me to focus more on my students and here I understand that I must focus on what I need and want to assess, specifications are vital for this purpose and it is necessary to see the test as a tool and that a test is not just a group of questions taken from the textbook changed a bit and place it on separated sheets, but implies much more than that and to really make it work we as teachers must really plan the test carefully and give the appropriate value for each aspect of the test create our own bands according to the needs from our students’ circumstances.
Depending on the test I like for example for oral tests monologues, pre-recorded conversations live dialogue, reading aloud, as for written I like sentence order, word, set of words among others like fill in the blank, short answers, multiple choice to mention a few examples that I have take into practice.
TEST SPECS
TEST SPECS
The following is an achievement test I made. Here are the specs.
Grammar: students answer questions from prepositions and simple present tense
Oral Production: being able to explain feeling and/or thought using small short sentences at least.
Additive comprehension: Identify different words using long and short vowels viewed within unit.
Reading: Understand Reading by context and demonstrate the comprehension they have from the reading
Speaking (_5_ minutes)
Format: individual oral interview – 5 minutes
Task: Students explain story drawing about a pet they ever had or will invent a pet
Listening (_10_ minutes)
Format: Oral
Task: the teacher will dictate sentences and students will write words in the sentences and a separate dictation of individual words
Reading (_15_ minutes)
Format: 5 comprehension questions from reading.
Task: open questions
Writing (_25_ minutes)
Format: students answer open questions from different aspects of grammar seen on unit
Task: students answer open questions.
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