second langugae assessment

1. Second Language
Assessment
Andrew Cohen

2. Misuses of Tests
• Tests were used as a punishment.
• Tests were administered instead of teachers giving
instructions.
• The tests were the only measure for grading.
• Test did not reflect what was taught.
• The tests were returned with lack of corrections or
explanations.
• The tests reflected only one testing method.
• There was a lack of teacher confidence in their own tests.
• Students were not adequately trained to take the results.
• There was a substantial delay in returning the tests.

3. A more constructive way of language
testing exists when:
• Testing is seen as an opportunity for interaction between
teacher and student.
• Students are judged based on the knowledge they have.
• The tests are intended for students to improve their skills
• The criteria for success on the test are clear to students
• Students receive a grade for their performance on a set of tests
representing different testing methods.
• The test takers are trained on how to take tests especially those
involving unfamiliar formats.
• The tests are returned promptly.
• The results are discussed.

4. Prepared by:
Marie Joy M. Anhaw
THEORETICAL
FOUNDATIONS

5. Primary Functions of Language Assessment
1. Administrative
a. assessment
b. placement
c. exemption
d. certification
e. promotion
2. Instructional
a. diagnosis
b. evidence of Progress
c. Feedback to the
respondent
d. Evaluation of teaching
or curriculum

6. Primary Functions of Language Assessment
3. Research Purposes
a. evaluation
b. Experimentation
c. Knowledge about the language
learning and the language use

7. Proficiency tests are intended for
administrative purposes.
Achievement tests are intended for
assessing instructional outcomes.

8. 1. Norm-referenced
Assessment
Distinctions in Testing
2. Criterion-referenced
Assessment
- A test can be used to
compare a respondent with
other respondents whether
locally, regionally, or
nationally.
- A test can be used to see
whether a respondent has met
a certain instructional
objective or criteria.

9. Components of Communicative Competence
1. Grammatical Competence
- encompasses knowledge of lexical items and of rules of
morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics, and phonology
(Canale and Swain 1980)
2. Discourse Competence
- The ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse
and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances.

10. 4. Strategic Competence
- The verbal and nonverbal communication strategies
that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns
in communication due to performance variables or due to
insufficient competence.
Components of Communicative Competence
3. Sociolinguistics Competence
- involves knowledge of the sociocultural rules of
language

11. Prepared by:
Hilda D. Carreon
ASSESSING
LANGUAGE SKILLS

12. Methods of Testing Reading
•Learners use a certain TYPE(S) of READING
•Comprehend at a certain level or combination of
LEVELS OF MEANING
•Enlist a certain COMPREHENSION SKILL(S)
•And do all of this within the framework of a certain
TESTING OF METHOD(S)

13. I. TYPES OF READING
A. Skimming or Scanning
A distinction has been made between scanning and
search reading
Search reading – the respondent is scanning
without being sure about the form that
information will take (i.e., whether it will be a
WORD, PHRASE, SENTENCE, PASSAGE ,
and so on)

14. B. Read Receptively and
Read Responsibly
Read responsibly
- written materials prompts them to reflect on some
point or other, and then possibly respond in writing
Read Receptively
- discovering accurately what the author seeks
to convey

15. II. Levels of Meaning
o Grammatical meaning
– meaning that words and morphemes have on their
own
o Propositional meaning
– meaning that a clause or sentence can have on its
own (i.e., the information that the clause or sentence
transmits)
- this meaning is also referred to as its
“INFORMATIONAL VALUE”
Four (4 )Levels of Meaning:

16. o Discoursal meaning
– meaning a sentence can have only when in a context
– This meaning is also referred to us its
“FUNCTIONAL VALUE”
o Writer’s Intent
- the meaning that a sentence has only as part of the
interaction between writer and reader
- “author’s tone”

17. III. COMPREHENSION SKILLS
(Alderson 1987)
(i) The ability to recognize words and phrases of
similar and opposing meaning
(ii) Identifying or locating information
(iii)Discriminating elements or features within
context: the analysis of elements within a
structure and of the relationship among them -
--
e.g., causal, sequential, chronological, hierarc
hical

18. (iv) Interpreting of complex
ideas, actions, events, relationships
(v) Inferencing– deriving conclusions and
predicting the continuation
(vi) Synthesis
(vii) Evaluation

19. A. The Cloze and the C- Test
The Cloze Test
 One-or-two-word deletions
 Rational deletion
 Partial deletion from the beginning end of words
C - Test
( Klein-Braley and Raatz
- The second half of every other word is deleted, leaving the first and
last sentence of the passage intact
IV. TESTING METHOD

20. B. Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT)
-The selection and sequenced items depends on
the pattern of success and failure experienced by
the student.

21. Advantages:
Individual testing time may be reduced
Illustration and fatigue are minimized
Boredom is reduced
Test scores and diagnoses feedback may be provided
immediately
Test security may be enhanced (since it is unlikely
that two respondents would receive the same items
in the same sequenced)

22. Record-keeping functions are improved
Information is readily available for research
purposes (Larson and Madsen 1985, Madsen
1986)
Disadvantage:
 CAT presumes that one major language factor
or underlying test is being measured as a time

23. C. Communicative Test of Reading
Comprehension
-Canale (1984) points out that a good test is not just
one that is acceptable -- that is, accepted as fair,
important, and interesting by test takers and test
users
-Also, a good test has feedback potential, rewarding
both test takers as test users with clear, rich,
relevant and generalizable information
Storyline Test – test with a thematic line of
development

24. “Proficiency-oriented achievement test”
Canale (1985)
 such tests put to use what is learned. There is a transfer
from controlled training to real performance.
 there is a focus on the message and the function, not
just on the form
 there is a group collaboration as well as individual
work, not just the latter
 the respondents are called upon to use their
resourcefulness in resolving authentic problems in
language use, as opposed to demonstrating accuracy in
resolving contrived problems at the linguistic level
 the testing itself is more like learning, and the learners
are more involved in the assessment.

25. Prepared by:
Deiniol Audbert L. Garces
TEST CONSTRUCTION
AND ADMINISTRATION

26. Inventory of Objects
• Test constructors first make an inventory of the
objectives they want to test
• Distinguish broad objectives with more specific ones
and important objectives from trivial ones
• Varying the type of items or procedures testing a
particular objective helps distinguish one student’s
comprehension from that of another student.

27. Inventory of Objects
• Testers may need to resist the temptation
to include difficult items of marginal
importance simply because they
distinguish the better and poorer
achievers.

28. Constructing an Item Bank
1. The skill or combination of skills tested
2. The language element(s) involved
3. The item-elicitation and item-response
formats
4. Instructions on how to present the item
5. The section of the book or part of the course
that the item relates to
6. The time it took to write the item

29. Test Format
• An effective way to hold the interest of a
respondent towards a test is to start the test
with relatively easy items and then continue it
by interspersing easy and difficult items.
• Multiple choice items lend respondents to
guessing.

30. Instructions
• The instructions should be brief and yet explicit and
unambiguous
• Examples may help, but on the other hand, may
hinder if they do not give the whole picture and
become a substitute for reading instructions.
• The time allowed for each subtest and/or for the total
test should be announced

31. Scoring
• If an objective is tested by more than one item, then
the focus is on mastery of the objective.
• Items covering one objective may be weighted more
than the items covering another objective.
• Ex. The scoring of a multiple-choice test would be
considered more objective than that of an essay test,
where the scorer’s subjectivity plays more of a role.

32. Reliability
Three Factors:
1. Test Factors
2. Situational Factors
3. Individual Factors

33. Validity
1. Face Validity
2. Content Validity
3. Criterion-Related Validity
4. Construct Validity
5. Convergent Validity

34. Item Analysis
1. Piloting the Test – sound testing on a population
similar to that for which the test is designed
2. Item Difficulty – proportion of correct responses to
a test item
3. Item Discrimination – how well an item performs in
separating the better students from the poorer ones

35. Test Revision
• An item should be revised or eliminated if it
has low difficulty or discrimination
coefficient
• If distractors (multiple item options) draw no
response or too many, then they should be
omitted or altered.
• Results of item analysis should be added to
the information in the item bank.