Testing Grammar and Vocabulary(jeremy)

 Control of grammatical structures was seen as the very core of language ability..  Most proficiency test that are administered on a large scale still retain a grammar section..  It c

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 Control of grammatical structures was seen as the very core

of language ability

 Now, there has been a shift towards the view that since it is language skills that are usually of interest, then they should

be tested directly, not the abilities that seem to underlie them

 Most proficiency test that are administered on a large scale still retain a grammar section

 It cannot ensure that a grammar test includes a good sample of all possible grammatical elements

Is testing grammar required?

 For achievement test where teaching objectives or the

syllabus list the grammatical structures to be taught,

specification of content should be quite straightforward

 For proficiency and diagnostic tests, the van Ek and Trim publication referred to a notional-functional approach and Cobuild English Usage

Writing Specification

 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

Writing Items

 Gap Filling

 Paraphrase

 Completion

 Multiple choice

The first three requires production on the part of the candidates, while multiple choice calls only for recognition

4 Techniques for testing grammar

What was most disturbing _ that for the first time in his life Henry was on his own

1.What was most disturbing : Noun Clause as the subject

2.That for the first time in… : Noun Clause as the object

(preceded by the conjunction “that” )

3.Subject (noun clause) + _ + Object (noun clause)

4.“ _ “ should be filled by verb

Answer: “was”

Gap Filling

 Paraphrase items require the student 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 student to the grammatical structure being tested

Paraphrase

 Testing passive, past continuous form

When we arrived, a policeman was questioning the bank clerk

When we arrived, the bank clerk _

Steps to explain:

1 Past continuous form

2 Passive form

Answer : was being questioned

1 Writing Specifications

If vocabulary is being consciously taught, then presumably all the item thereby presented to the students should be

included in the specifications

We can add all the new items that the students have met in other activities (reading, listening, etc)

The usual way to specify the lexical items that may be

tested is to make reference to one of the published word lists that indicate the frequency with which the words have been found to be used

Testing Vocabulary

Sampling

 Words can be grouped according to their frequency and usefulness

 From each of the groups, items can be taken at

random, with more being selected from the group containing the more frequent and useful words

Writing Items

 Testing Recognition Ability

Recognize synonyms:

Choose the alternative (a,b,c,d) which is the closest in meaning to the word on the left of the page

Gleam a gather b shine c welcome d clean

 Recognise definitions

Loathe means

a Dislike intensely

b Become seriously ill

c Search carefully

d Look very angry

Testing production ability

 The testing of vocabulary productivity is so difficult that it is practically never attempted in proficiency tests as information on receptive ability is regarded

as sufficient

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