Đánh giá tính giá trị trong các bài kiểm tra hết học kỳ môn tiếng anh của học sinh lớp 11 ở một trường công lập tại phía đông bắc việt nam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES *************** NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG AN EVALUATION ON THE VALIDITY OF END

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

***************

NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG

AN EVALUATION ON THE VALIDITY OF

END-TERM ENGLISH TESTS USED FOR YEAR 11

STUDENTS AT A VIETNAMESE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL IN

THE NORTH EAST AREA OF VIETNAM

(Đánh giá tính giá trị trong các bài kiểm tra hết học kỳ môn tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 11 ở một trường công lập tại phía Đông Bắc Việt

HANOI- 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

***************

NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG

AN EVALUATION ON THE VALIDITY OF END-TERM ENGLISH TESTS USED FOR YEAR 11 STUDENTS AT A VIETNAMESE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH

EAST AREA OF VIETNAM

(Đánh giá tính giá trị trong các bài kiểm tra hết học kỳ môn tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 11 ở một trường công lập tại phía Đông Bắc Việt

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Quynh

HANOI- 2019

The thesis entitled “An evaluation on the validity of end-term English tests used for year 11 students at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam” has been submitted for the Master of English

teaching methodology

I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am the sole author of thisthesis I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas and work of others,whether published or unpublished, in my thesis

My thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation orresearch paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this orany other universities

Signed

Date / /

On the completion of this paper, I would like to express my gratitude toall my teachers, my supervisor, the administrators, staffs, teachers, andstudents at a Vietnamese public high school in the North-East area ofVietnam, friends and family

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratefulness to

my supervisor She gives me all the best consultancy, valuable comments andmotivation as well

Secondly, I highly express my gratitude to the teachers at Faculty ofPost-graduate Studies of University of Languages and International Studiesfor their previous lessons in school year 2016-2018 They directly provided

me with the understandings, the knowledge and skills relating to my English language teaching

field-Moreover, I sincerely appreciate the cooperation of the administrators,staffs, teachers and students at a Vietnamese public high school in the North-East area of Vietnam Especially, I am so thankful to Ms A for providing methe data of two school years

Finally, I would like to thank my loved family, who have supported methroughout entire process, both by keeping me harmonious and helping meputting pieces together I will be grateful forever for your love

English is one of the main subjects in Vietnam education nowadays.All fields are using English from business, commercial, transport, technology

to tourism, education, and logistics With the deep concerns about the

importance of English, the researcher carried out study titled: “An evaluation

on the validity of end-term English tests used for year 11 students at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam” The main

purpose of this research was to find out the validity on the end-term Englishtests used for year 11 students The participants were 2,481 test papers taken

in two school years of a public high school The method was quantitativeapproach All scores were analyzed to compare the progress of learning intwo school years to find out the validity on the tests The results showed that

it appears no valid in the tests although the teachers and students alwaysevaluate the progress of teaching and learning through only scores of end-term English tests for English subject Basing on the findings, a number ofsuggestions for better end-term English tests were indicated and it helps bothteachers and students have best look about measurement and evaluation theirteaching and learning Therefore, the paper would be a good reference forresearchers, teachers and students to have a closer look on the issue as well as

to improve the end-term English tests

Key words: validity, evaluation end-term tests, high school students

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for choosing this topic 1

1.2 Scope of the study 2

1.3 Aims of the study 2

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Research questions 3

1.6 Design of the thesis 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Basic concepts of testing 5

2.2 The relationship between teaching, learning and assessment 6

2.2.1 Testing and teaching 6

2.2.2 Testing and Learning 7

2.2.3 Language Testing 9

2.3 Major characteristics of a good language test 10

2.4 Achievement test and its types 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 English learning and teaching at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam 17

3.1.1 Students and their backgrounds 17

3.1.2 The English staffs 17

3.3.3 Syllabus and its objectives 18

3.1.4 The textbook: “Tiếng Anh 11” 21

3.2 English testing at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam 21

3.2.1 Testing situation 21

3.2.2 The current final year-11 achievement tests 22

3.3 Research method 24

3.3.1 Data collection instruments 25

3.3.2 Participants 25

3.4 Data analysis 25

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 32

4.1 Content validity 32

4.2 Construct validity 33

4.3 Face validity 34

4.4 Final evaluations 35

4.5 Conclusion for Section 3.5 35

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 36

5.1 Summary of findings 36

5.2 Limitations 39

5.3 Suggestions for further research 39

REFERENCES 41 APPPENDICES I

Appendix I: Final 1st Semester achievement test in year 2015-2016 I Appendix II: Final 1st Semester achievement test in year 2016-2017 IV Appendix III: Final 2nd Semester achievement test in year 2015-2016 VII Appendix IV: Final 2nd Semester achievement test in year 2016-2017 X

Table 2.1 A checklist for test evaluation

Table 3.1 Detail subjects for each grade

Table 3.2 Number of English periods in two semesters

Table 3.3 Syllabus goal and objectives

Table 3.4 Topics of English 11

Table 3.5 Specification of the first end-term test for year 11

Table 3.6 Specification of the second end-term test for year 11

Table 3.7 Average score of four achievement tests

Table 3.8 Frequency distribution of 1

st final achievement test in year2015-2016

Table 3.9 Frequency distribution of 2

nd final achievement test in year2015-2016

Table 3.10 Frequency distribution of 1

st final achievement test in year2016-2017

Table 3.11 Frequency distribution of 2

nd final achievement test in year2016-2017

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Test usefulness

Figure 3.1 Histogram of Score distribution

Figure 3.2 Histogram of Score distribution

Figure 3.3 Histogram of Score distribution

Figure 3.4 Histogram of Score distribution

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for choosing this topic

English is currently being used in at least sixty countries as the mainlanguage and nearly one hundred countries as the second language all over theworld In affiliation and globalization period, all fields are using English frombusiness, commercial, transport, technology to tourism, education, logistic.English is a useful tool for people in the world to understand together.Leading to the needs for learning and teaching English language in any part ofthe world is growing With national education in many countries, English hasbecome a compulsory subject Their target is help learners access the bestthings and have good jobs in the world To meet these needs, the governmentand the education department need to find the best ways to help teachers andlearners using proficiently English language

Fully recognizing the importance of English language, thegovernment and the Ministry of education and training in Vietnam haverequired all students from grade 3 to grade 12 to learn English as acompulsory subject Therefore, English has been taught at any primary,secondary and high schools in Vietnam aiming at equipping the students with

a best tool to work in any field in their life Strongly knowing the importance

of English language, a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area

of Vietnam has taught English subject in all classes from grade 10 to grade

12 With oriented classes, there are at least four periods per week and othershave three periods per week Besides that, each year always has two semesterswith overall for 111 English periods However, after finishing a semester and

a year, a test has not evaluated what students acquire English, how well they

use English with taught lessons and at which level of English they arestanding In a public high school in the North East area of Vietnam, withEnglish subject, teachers and students have followed the textbook named

“Tiếng Anh 11” which has five main parts including these orders: reading,speaking, listening, writing and language focus Nevertheless, in the end-termtests, only grammar knowledge is displayed on the test papers So, do the testsmeet the validity? Can students use English well to communicate outside? Seeing these points, I decide to undertake this study entitled “Anevaluation on the validity of end-term English tests used for year 11 students

at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam” withthe intention to find out how validity the tests are More importantly, Istrongly hope that the results of the study can then be applied to improve thecurrent and to create a new really validity item bank It is also intended toencourage both teachers and learners in their teaching and learning

1.2 Scope of the study

The scope of this thesis is limited to a research on examining theexisting achievement test in terms of its validity for year-11 students at aVietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam The studygives analyzed statistic data of the currently used tests and proposes practicalsuggestions to improve the tests Due to the limitations of time and researchconditions, it is impossible for the author to cover all used achievement testsfor all high school students at a Vietnamese public high school Instead, onlyfour tests are studied

1.3 Aims of the study

The major aim of the study is to evaluate the currently usedachievement tests for year 11 students at a Vietnamese public high school in

the North East area of Vietnam with a special focus on the test validity Thespecific aims of the research are:

 To evaluate the test validity through initial score statistics obtainedfrom the four achievement tests result of year 11 students at aVietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam

 To pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the test, and

 To provide practical suggestions for the test improvement

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study has beencarried out with the following methodologies

First, the author based herself both on the theory and on the principle

of Language Testing, major characteristics of a good test, especially testvalidity, achievement test and statistical methods used in interpreting testresults From critical reading, the writer has gathered, analyzed andsynthesized many reference materials to draw out a theoretical basis toevaluate the used achievement test for the 11th year students in terms of itsvalidity

2 To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamesepublic school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the constructvalidity?

3 To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamesepublic school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the facevalidity?

1.6 Design of the thesis

The thesis is clearly organized into four main chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction of the thesis presents such basic information as the

rationales, the scopes, the aims, the methods, the research questions and thedesign of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review reviews theoretical backgrounds on evaluating a

test which includes these main points: the importance of testing in education,language testing, major characteristics of a good test and achievement test

Chapter 3: Methodology is the main part of the thesis showing the context of

the study and the detail results obtained from collected tests and findings inresponse to the research questions

Chapter 4: Conclusion offers conclusions of the thesis and practical

implications for the test improvement In this part, the author also proposes some suggestions for further research on the topic

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theories and literature relevant to the topic It

includes five main parts Section 2.1 starts with different basic concepts of

testing and its importance, then the relationship between teaching, learning

and assessment are reviewed in Section 2.2 It is then followed by language testing in Section 2.3 Next, in Section 2.4 Major characteristics of a good

language test is presented with a major focus on test validity, especiallyconstruct, content and face validity Finally, the achievement test and its types

are explored in Section 2.5.

2.1 Basic concepts of testing

An important part of each teaching and learning experience is testingwhich is a tool to measure learners’ ability As Oller (1974) emphasizedtesting as an instrument to ensure that students have a sense of competitionrather than to know how good their performance is and in which condition atest can take place It may create positive or negative attitudes towardteaching and learning process However, Heaton (1975) looks in differentway Tests are considered as a mean of assessing the students’ performanceand to motivate the students Harrison (1983) notices that a test is a usefultool to measure learners’ ability in a certain situation especially in classroom.Through testing, the teachers can make important decisions on the courses,the syllabus, the course book, teachers and learners Bachman (1990) assertsthat language tests can provide the means for more focus on the specificassure of interest With Brown (1994) insists that “a test, is a method ofmeasuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given area” Therefore, inshort, testing is an effective mean of measuring and assessing students’

language knowledge and skills This is to evaluate learners’ ability, suitableteaching methods, teaching and learning materials Through testing, theadministrators can make important decisions on the course, the syllabus, thecourse book, teachers, learners and administration Testing contributes a veryimportant part in teaching/learning process It is the last stage in educationtechnology Therefore, to take advantages of testing to measure the quality ofeducation, the administrators must build an essential and eligible testingtechnology This is to evaluate learners’ ability, suitability of teachingmethods, teaching/learning materials and teaching/learning conditions andsuitability of set-up training objectives.

2.2 The relationship between teaching, learning and assessment.

In every teaching and learning experience, testing is a significant part

To measure learners’ ability, the best way we use is testing It may createpositive or negative attitudes toward teaching and learning process Testingreflects teaching process and overall training objectives and aims Throughtesting, the administrator can make important decisions on the course, thesyllabus, the course book, teachers and learners

Testing contributes a very significant part in teaching and learningprocess It can be the first, middle or the last stage in education technology.Therefore, to take advantages of testing to measure the quality of education,the administrators must build an essential and eligible testing technology.This is to evaluate learners’ ability, suitability of set-up training objectivesand aims

2.2.1 Testing and teaching

Testing and learning are closely related because it is impossible to work

in either field without being constantly concerned with the others (Heaton,

1998:5) In other words, Heaton implied that teaching and learning provide agreat source of language materials for testing to make use of In turn, testingreinforces, encourages and perfect the teaching/learning process Hughes(1989: 2) summarizes the relationship as: “The proper relationship betweenteaching and testing is surely that of partnership” To explain this, Hughesmentioned the effect of the vice versa relationship as backwash If the testingleaves good effect on teaching, the backwash is said beneficial However,there may be occasions when the teaching is good and appropriate and thetesting is not, we are then likely to suffer from harmful backwash Testingresult will give information for both teachers and learners for their futureaction, such as improving knowledge and skills, revising knowledge, orapplying a new teaching method As Brown (2000) shared the idea thattesting is “what teacher measures or judge learners’ competence all the timeand, ideally, learners measure and judge themselves”

Shortly speaking, it is undeniable that testing is an integrative part ofteaching and it can be separate from the program or from the course goal.Testing has both positive and negative impact on teaching Testing providesthe teacher with information on how effective his teaching has been, or theteacher can use tests to diagnose his own efforts as well as those of hisstudents

2.2.2 Testing and Learning

Testing is a tool to “pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the learnedabilities of the student” (Henning, 1987:1) That is, through testing, learnerscan find out at which level they are standing and what difficulties they havefaced up with As a result, they can adjust their learning; explore moreeffective ways of learning At the same time, the teacher can rely on theresults of tests to understand better learners’ ability and then can improve his

methods of teaching or revise knowledge Thus, Read (1982:2) said that “atest can help both teachers and learners to clarify what the learners really need

to know” It is clear that not only the teacher but also learners may achieve thebenefits through testing

To sum up, tests can benefits students, teachers and even administrators

by confirming progress that has been made and showing how they can bestredirect their future efforts In addition, good tests can sustain or enhanceclass morale and aid learning

Assessment as “a systematic approach to collecting information andmaking references about the ability of a student or the quality or success of ateaching course on the basis of a various sources of evidence” [ CITATION Ric \l

1033 ] Assessment is also a critical link for teaching and learning, which plays

an important role in the process of curriculum design and teachingimplementation Hughes (1989) summarizes the relationship as “the properrelationship between teaching and testing is surely that of partnership” If thetesting leaves good effects on teaching, the effect of the vice versarelationship is said beneficial Richards, J.C and Nunan,D., (1990) refer towhat should be focus on assessment:

o Insure reliability and validity

o Provide for pre-test, while-test and post-test

o Be criterion or standards references

o Inform instruction

o Serve as an accountability measure

o Be adaptable to a variety of instructional environments

o Accommodate learners with special needs

Shortly speaking, the relationship between teaching, learning andassessment is always essential and it needs having the link between them It is

undeniable that testing is an integrative part of teaching and it can beseparated from the program or from the course goals Testing has bothpositive and negative impact on teaching Testing provides teachers howeffective their teaching has been.

2.2.3 Language Testing

Language testing is one of the forms of testing and it is also one form

of measurements Its importance in English learning is reviewed as: “properlymade English tests can help create positive attitudes toward instruction bygiving students a sense of accomplishment and a feeling that the teacher’sevaluation of them matches what he has taught them Good English tests alsohelp students learn the language by requiring them to study hard, emphasizingcourse objectives, and showing them where they need to improve” (Davies,1996:5)

Mc Namara (2000) presented three main roles of language testing,which is applied not only in education but in other fields as well Firstly,language testing is considered as a key to succeed as language testing is adecisive way in recruitment Secondly, it serves educational goals According

to Mc Namara, tests are used to place learners in a suitable course The thirdrole of language testing is for the grant of research Every researcher whowishes to do a research on a language need to evaluate standard tests or todesign tests in that language

From Henning’s view, he suggested six purposes of language testing asfollow:

 Diagnosis and feedback: to explore strengths and weaknesses of thelearners

 Screening and selection: to assist in the decision of who should beallowed to participate in a particular program of instruction

 Placement: to identify a particular performance level of the student and

to place him at an appropriate level of instruction

 Program evaluation: to provide information about the effectiveness ofprograms of instruction

 Providing research criteria: to provide a standard of judgment in avariety of other research context based on language test scores

 Assessment of attitudes and socio-psychological differences: todetermine the nature, direction, and intensity of attitudes related tolanguage acquisition

(Henning, 1987: 1)

2.3 Major characteristics of a good language test

In order to make a well-designed test, teachers have to take intoaccount a variety of factors such as the purpose of the test, the content of thesyllabus, the pupils’ background, the goal of administrators Moreover, testcharacteristics play a very important role in constructing a good test

The most important consideration in determining whether a test is good

or not is the use for which it is intended That is to say, the most importantquality of a test is its usefulness It is believed that test usefulness provides akind of metric by which test developers can evaluate not only the tests thatthey develop and use, but also all aspects of test development and use.Generally speaking, usefulness quality includes six components: reliability,construct validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact and practicality

Bachman and Palmer (1996)[ CITATION Har833 \l 1033 ] consider the criteria

as qualities of test usefulness rather than individual factors Their idea ofusefulness can be visually presented as in Figure 2.1 below:

Usefulness = reliability + construct validity + authenticity+ interactiveness +impact + practicality

Test Usefulness

(Bachman & Palmer,1996)

Henning (1987) added more test characteristics and he summarized inthe form of table call “A checklist for Test Evaluation” The checklist is forrating of the adequacy of a test for any given purpose

Table 2.1 A checklist for test evaluation

Name of test………

Purpose Intended………

Test characteristic 1 Validity 2 Difficulty 3 Reliability 4 Applicability 5 Relevance 6 Replicability 7 Interpretability 8 Economy 9 Availability 10.Acceptability Rating (0 = highly inadequate, 10 = highly adequate ………

………

………

………

………

………

………

………

………

………

Total ………

Adapted from Henning, 1987: 14

To make a good test, teachers have to take considerations the various factors such as the purposes of test, the content of the syllabus, the students’ background and so on Following a number of leading scholars in testing by Harrison (1983) and Brown (1994), all the good tests have four typical

characteristics First and foremost, testing need having reliability Any good

test needs to have reliability There are three aspects of reliability are used taken into account The first concern the consistency of scoring among different makers The second is the concern of the tester how to enhance the agreement between makers The third aspect of reliability is parallel-forms

reliability Reliability is the first essential for any test (Davies, 1968).

Another feature of a test is discrimination that means its capacity to

discriminate among the different candidates and to reflect the differences inthe performances of the individuals in the group Next, a test must be

practical The most obvious practical considerations concerning the tests

overlook Another practical concerns the answer sheets and the stationaryused A final point concerns the presentation of the test paper itself Finally,

validity of a test always plays an important role The test must aim to provide

a true measure of the particular skill which it is supposed to measure.(Hughes, 1989)

In term of content in any test, validity has five typical types The firstone is content validity A test is said to have content validity if its contentconstitutes a representative sample of the language skills, structures withwhich is meant to be concerned (Hughes, 1989) “Content validity seems analmost and completely overlapping concept”[ CITATION Kel782 \l 1033 ] Thesecond one is construct validity With construct validity, a test can measure atheoretical construct of trait Each construct is developed to explain andorganize observed response consistencies[ CITATION Ana031 \l 1033 ] Constructvalidity is seen as a matter of the posterior statistical validation of whether atest has measured a construct that has a reality independence of otherconstructs (Bachman,L.F and Palmer, A.S, 1996) The third one is criterion-related validity Information about criterion relatedness- concurrent orpredictive by itself so it is insufficient evidence for validation[ CITATION Bac902 \l

1033 ] The fifth one is face validity A test has face validity if it looks as if itmeasures what is supposed to measure (Anastasi A , 1984) And the last one

is backwash validity which refers to how tests affect the learning on astudents and the teaching of the subject, for example, we can trust exams as a

learning tool, the test preparation, the good or bad comments to the student,the advice to the student during and after the test, etc.

To summarize, in this chapter, I have presented a brief literature reviewthat sets the ground for the topic Due to the limited time, I wish to focus only

on evaluating the validity of some chosen achievement test

Test validity

It should be noticed that different scholars have thought of validity indifferent ways Heaton J., (1998:159) provided a simple but completedefinition of validity as “the validity of a test is the extent to which itmeasures what it is supposed to measure” Also Hughes claimed that “A test

is said to be valid if measures accurately what it is intended to measure” According to the Standards for Educational and PsychologicalTesting[ CITATION Ame85 \l 1033 ] that “Validity is the most importantconsideration in test evaluation The concept refers to the appropriateness,meaningfulness, and usefulness of the specific inferences from the test scores.Test validation is the process of accumulating evidence to support suchinferences” Thus, to be valid, a test needs to assess learners’ ability of aspecific area that is proposed on the basis of the aim of the test For instance,

a listening test with written multiple- choice options may lack validity if theprinted choices are so difficult to read that the exam actually measuresreading comprehension as much as it does listening comprehension

Validity is classified into these such subtypes as below:

 Content validity

This is a non-statistical type of validity that involvers “the systematicexamination of the test content to determine whether it covers a representativesample of the behavior domain to be measured” (Anastasi A., & Urbina,1997: 114) A test has content validity built into it by careful selection of

which items to include Items are chosen so that they comply with the testspecification which is drawn up through a thorough examination of thesubject domain Content validity is very important in evaluating the validity

of the test in terms of that “the greater a test’s content validity, the more likely

it is to be an accurate measure of what is supposed to measure” (Hughes,1989: 22)

 Construct validity

A test has construct validity if it demonstrates an association betweenthe test scores and the prediction of a theoretical trait Intelligence tests areone example of measurement instruments that should have construct validity.Construct validity is viewed from a purely statistical perspective in much ofthe recent American literature Bachman and Palmer (1981a) It is seenprinciple as a matter of the posterior statistical validation of whether a test hasmeasured a construct that has a reality independence of other constructs

To understand whether a piece of research has construct validity, threesteps should be followed First, the theoretical relationships must be specified.Second, the empirical relationships between the measures of the conceptsmust be examined Third, the empirical evidence must be interpreted in terms

of how it clarifies the construct validity of the particular measure being tested[ CITATION Car23 \l 1033 ]

 Face validity

A test is said to have face validity if it looks as if it measures what it issupposed to measure Anastasi(1982: 136) pointed out that face validity is notvalidity in technical sense, it refers, not to what the test actually measures, but

to what it appears superficially measure

Face validity is very closely related to content validity While contentvalidity depends on a theoretical basis for assuming if a test is assessing all

domains of a certain criterion, face validity relates to whether a test appears to

be good measure or not

2.4 Achievement test and its types

All 45-minute English tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamese publicschool are achievement tests, therefore, in this part, definitions as well askinds of achievement tests are presented

According to Hughes (1990: 10), achievement tests are related to thecourse, and are carried out after a course Brown (1994:259) suggests thatachievement tests are related to classroom lessons, units Moreover, Harrison(1983:5) demonstrates that “an achievement test can look back a period oflearning” In short, achievement tests are directly related to language coursesand they play a crucial role in the school programs

There are exactly two main kinds of achievement tests The first one isfinal achievement tests which are administered at the end of a course It isused for measuring the achievement of the course as a whole The second one

is progress achievement tests which are intended to measure the progressstudents are making in order to plan future work They are administered at theend of a specific unit or lesson

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is the main part of the study It provides practical background forthe study and it is an overview of English teaching, learning and testing at aVietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam Moreimportantly, it presents data analysis of the chosen test and findings drawnfrom the analysis

3.1 English learning and teaching at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam.

3.1.1 Students and their backgrounds

Students who have been learning at a Vietnamese public high school inthe North East area of Vietnam are of different levels of English because oftheir own background It is common that those who are from gifted secondaryschools or from cities have greater ability of English than those from othersecondary schools or from villages where foreign language learning is notpaid much attention to In addition, there are some students who have hadsome years of learning English at centers before entering high school, somehave just learnt in text book at school, and others have never taken care ofEnglish before Moreover, their entry into high school is rather low becauseEnglish is not a main subject in the exam As a result, their attitude towardslearning English is not very highly appreciated

3.1.2 The English staffs

The English section of a Vietnamese public high school in the NorthEast area of Vietnam is a compulsory section with thirteen teachers Theytake over teaching both gifted classes and normal classes All the Englishteachers here have been well trained in Vietnam with six teachers have

graduated from universities of English and others from colleges, and none ofthem has studied abroad One of them obtained Master Degree of English;four are doing an MA course They prefer using Vietnamese in class, as theyfound it is easy to explain lessons in Vietnamese due to the limitation ofstudents’ English ability Furthermore, they are always fully aware ofadapting suitable methods of teaching homogenous classes and they havebeen applying technology in their class

3.3.3 Syllabus and its objectives

The English syllabus for a Vietnamese public high school in the NorthEast area of Vietnam is designed by teachers of English section, and thisschool has been applied for over ten years At this school, students have beenfollowing four typical types of class according to educational classes inVietnam With different classes, students will learn different subjects and takeonly three results of three different subjects in the high school graduatedexamination to resister and submit the results to universities

Below is a table about detail names of class and its subjects whichstudents have been paying best attention to when they learn at high school

Table 3.1 Detail subjects for each class

Despite the classes A, A1, B, C, and D The syllabus at a Vietnamesepublic high school in the North East area of Vietnam is divided into twophases: English for Class D (1) and English for other classes (2) Both phaseslast two semesters with 111 forty-five-minute periods and students in bothphases have learnt textbook named “Tiếng anh 11” ; however, there are some

differences in two phases Phase 1, students have been learning five periodsper week with three textbook periods which means three periods withknowledge in textbook and two selective periods with knowledge outsidetextbook Also, all students in phase 1 have had at least one afternoon lessonwith two hours for learning English knowledge outside textbook Phase 2,students who have been learning four periods per week with three textbookperiods and only one selective period with knowledge outside textbook havenever had any afternoon lesson because they always pay more attention toother subjects

Table 3.2 Number of English periods in two semesters

Semeste

r

minute periods

1 57 Reading, speaking, listening,

writing and language focus Tiếng anh 11

2 54 Reading, speaking, listening,

writing and language focus Tiếng anh 11

Table 3.3 Syllabus goal and Objectives Common goals

 To equip students a communicative tool with basic level underlistening, speaking, reading and writing

 To equip students with basic knowledge

 To equip students with an overview about some countries, people andculture of places where using English

Specific goals

Listening Understanding specific content of monologue/dialogue with

the lengths from 150-180 words

Speaking Question- answer, present about topic in the textbook

Present the satisfactory or unsatisfactory, approval ordisapproval, the subjective opinions or the objective opinions.

Writing Writing follow samples with the lengths from 120-130 words

about topic in the textbook

Table 3.4 Topics of English 11

Unit 14 RecreationUnit 15 Space ConquestUnit 16 The Wonders of the World

Applying teaching methods encounter a variety of difficulties such asstudents’ habits of passive learning, low motivation, big size classes, etc Aclear goal is set up by the teaching staff for the whole syllabus The goal isrealized by the specific objectives for each semester

3.1.4 The textbook: “Tiếng Anh 11”

The book was written by Hoang Van Van and published by VietnamEducation Publishing House with eight key features:

 The textbook “ Tiếng Anh 11” is compiled basing on communicativelanguage teaching

 The textbook is compiled according to the topic with principle of

“digging deeply”

 All skills are separated but interacting together

 Book uses tasks as mainstream teaching method

 Pronunciation is one of the main parts in textbook

 New teaching process

 Using new teaching methods- Communicative Language Teaching(CLT)

 Testing regularly and in terms

The book was designed to cover all four skills and followed bylanguage focus However, teaching and learning work only focus on readingand grammar The detail content of the book can be found at Appendix Thebook appears good with authentic and meaningful texts The finalachievement tests are often based closely on the content of the textbook

3.2 English testing at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam

3.2.1 Testing situation

English tests for students at a Vietnamese public high school in theNorth East area of Vietnam are designed by the Department of Education andTraining in the North East area of Vietnam Each staff of English department

is responsible for test items for each semester and then, all materials will befed into a common item bank that is controlled by a kind of software in aserver Before examinations, the person who is in charge of preparing the testswill use the software to mix the test items bank and print out the test All the

tests are designed under the light of syllabus-content approach All in all, thestudents are required to take two final-term tests throughout their year oflearning Within the limited scope of the study and the testing specification isthe same as the tests in at least five nearest years, the writer would like tofocus on only four final-term tests in school year: 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 Current English testing situation at a Vietnamese public high school in theNorth East area of Vietnam has several worth-nothing points as follows:

 Students are often instructed with the test format long before the actualtest, which leads to the test-oriented learning

 Students do not have test papers returned with feedbacks andcorrections, so they hardly know which their strong and weak pointsare

 Students can copy answers from one another during the tests in spite ofexaminer supervision because there are two big size candidates in atesting room (28-29 candidates), thus their true abilities are not alwaysreflected

 Sometimes, the tests still contain basic errors such as spelling errors,extremely easy or difficult items, badly-designed appearance, etc

 Testing items are not pre-tested before live tests

3.2.2 The current final year-11 achievement tests

General information:

 Final achievement test, semester 1 and 2, English 11

 Time allowance: 45 minutes

 Testees: all students in year 11 in two school year: 2015-2016 and2016-2017 at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area ofVietnam

 Supervisors: Teachers from a Vietnamese public high school in theNorth East area of Vietnam.

The four final achievement tests cover a wide range of knowledge in

phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing Table 3.5 describes

one sample of the final achievement tests for year 11 in semester 1 with theparts and marking and Table 3.6 shows one sample of the final achievementtests for year 11 in semester 2 as below:

Table 3.5 Specification of the first end-term test for year 11

X4, answer thequestions insentences

(For the specific test, see Appendix 1 and 2)

Table 3.6 Specification of the second end-term test for year 11

Part Language items/

I Phonetics Sentences X5, 4-option

About 200 words

X4, answer the questions in sentences

2 To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamesepublic school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the constructvalidity?

3 To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamesepublic school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the facevalidity?