What is Linguistics Linguistics is usually defined as ‘the scientific study of language. Such a statement, however, raises two further questions: what do we mean by ‘scientific’? and what do we mean by ‘language’? the first question can be answered relatively easily but the second needs to be examined more fully. When we say that…
13.1 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION Marks awarded by counting the number of correct answers on a test script are known as raw marks. ’15 marks out of a total of 20’ may appear a high mark to some, but in fact the statement is virtually meaningless of its own. For example, the tasks set in the test…
Testing the Writing Skills 12.1 THE WRITING SKILLS The writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgemental elements. The following analysis attempts to group the many and varied skills necessary for writing good prose into five general components or…
11.1 THE NATURE OF THE READING COMPREHENSION Until recently the many and diverse reading skills and strategies for use in everyday situations have been largely subordinate to a narrower range of skills required for dealing with simplified readers, especially at the elementary levels. Furthermore, on a few language courses, efficient reading skills have been pushed…
10.1 SOME DIFFICULTIES IN TESTING THE SPEAKING SKILLS Testing the ability to speak is a most important aspect of language testing. However, at all stages beyond the elementary levels of mimicry and repetition it is an extremely difficult skill to test, as it is far too complex a skill to permit any reliable analysis to…
9.1 GENERAL An effective way of developing the listening skill is through the provision or carefully selected practice material. Such material is in many ways similar to that used for testing listening comprehension. Although the auditory skills are closely linked to the oral skills in normal speech situations, it may sometimes be useful to separate…
9.1 GENERAL An effective way of developing the listening skill is through the provision or carefully selected practice material. Such material is in many ways similar to that used for testing listening comprehension. Although the auditory skills are closely linked to the oral skills in normal speech situations, it may sometimes be useful to separate…
8.1 SELECTION OF ITEMS A careful selection, or sampling, of lexical items for inclusion in a test is generally a most exciting task. Many of the more traditional types of vocabulary tests are designed in such a way that they test a knowledge of words which, though frequently found in many English textbooks, are rarely…
7.1 INTRODUCTION The following are some of the most common types of objective items used to test awareness of the grammatical features of the language. Each type of item will be treated in greater detail in this chapter. – multiple-choice items – error-recognition items – rearrangement items – completion items – transformation items – items…
What are test techniques? Quite simply they are means of eliciting behavior from candidates which will tell us about their language abilities. What we need are techniques which: 1. will elicit behavior which is a reliable and valid indicator of the ability in which we are interested; 2. will elicit behavior which can be reliably…