How a good language test can support

efective learning
By Luis Armando Villalobos Njera
ELT ro!essor at t"e Autonomous #niversity o! Aguascalientes
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A language test in the communicative classroom must serve diferent purposes
in order to become a good language test. Although the main purpose of
language tests is to measure students learning outcomes, language tests must
also support learning and motivate students to learn a foreign or a second
language.
As a language teacher, I have designed and administered a great number of
tests, especially achievement tests for general English courses at all levels
including tests for diferent subjects in the BA in EL at my university.
hroughout all the years of e!perience as a teacher, I have observed that most
of the times students e!perience test an!iety mainly because they do not feel
prepared to ta"e the test or they do "no# the length and contents of the test.
But ho# can teachers help students overcome test an!iety and use language
tests as an aid to improve learning in their students$ %erhaps, one of the major
issues to re&ect on is in relation to the #ay #e test our students and #hether
our tests are #ell designed in favor of obtaining positive bac"#ash efect.
'ost of the times language teachers become test designers unless the
institution they #or" for has an appointed team of test designers. In my o#n
e!perience as a language teacher and a test designer, I have become a#are of
various important aspects to be ta"en into account #hen designing a #ritten
test #ith the purpose of supporting not only efective learning, but also
efective teaching(
Test lengt"
ests must be short. It is advisable to construct not very long tests since tests
#ith many long e!ercises #ill over#helm students and may bloc" their minds.
(iversity and !ormat o! test items
Language tests must include diferent types of items, such as 'ultiple choice,
)ill in the blan"s, 'atching, *pen+ended ,uestions, and so on. -arying the
types of test items #ill maintain students mental agility #hile ta"ing the test.
It is important to mention that the test items should follo# a similar format to
the e!ercises in the courseboo". .hen students are faced #ith a diferent
format in the test items, they usually get confused or distracted and #ill
probably #aste precious time in ans#ering correctly.
)larity o! instructions
Each section of the e!am must contain clear and concise instructions. /tudents
often ans#er incorrectly #hen instructions are unclear and confusing and as a
result they may fail an entire section of the e!am.
)onte*tuali+ed test e*ercises
.hen designing test items, it is important to provide some conte!t #ith the
purpose of ma"ing such items understandable and communicative. .hen
students are confronted #ith conte!tuali0ed items they usually recall
information related to the situation being presented in such items and #ill have
more chances to supply correct ans#ers.
Test preparation activities
*nce I 1nish designing the test my students #ill be ta"ing, I also design an
e!am study guide #here I list all the topics included in the test and give them
out to my students a couple of days before the test administration.
he 1rst day the students are as"ed to organi0e themselves in groups of three
or four students. hen, each study group goes over the study guide, discusses
the topics and e!changes ideas. )inally, they commit themselves to gather the
materials given through the course and bring them to class the ne!t day. he
second day is the most productive as the study groups, guided by the teacher,
ma"e a more complete revie# of the e!am topics, solve doubts, and e!change
information #ith other study groups in the class.
2uring the course of these preparation activities, efective learning ta"es place
as previous "no#ledge is recycled and stored in the students3 long+term
memory and this #ill be re&ected in the e!am results.
hese test preparation activities, that can also be considered part of
collaborative #or" in the classroom, support efective learning and moreover
help to maintain a positive classroom environment.
,ral tests
*ral e!aminations are usually intimidating for most students mainly because
they fear public spea"ing. /tudents feel their vocabulary "no#ledge is not
enough and are afraid of committing grammar mista"es. I usually avoid face to
face intervie#s to evaluate oral performance of my students as I feel this type
of assessment is some#hat intimidating. I rather as" them in advance to
organi0e themselves in small groups to role play communicative situations. I
also give them sets of role cards of diferent topics. hey are also free to
choose the topics and characters of their preference and they may even #ear
special costumes in their presentations. I have al#ays noticed that using role
plays as a means to evaluate oral performance helps to increase students
motivation as #ell as to improve their oral communication s"ills.
-e must test w"at we "ave taug"t
A language test #ould be unfair if #e include topics #e did not cover in the
classes previous to the day #hen the test ta"es place. Li"e#ise, including
un"no#n vocabulary items in the test e!ercises may also seriously afect
students3 performance and conse,uently #ill obtain an inaccurate grade.
o sum up, it is important to point out #hat 4lencoe, 5667, states regarding
efective tests, A well-written test allows you to accurately and consistently
measure students mastery of specifc content taught in class. Results of well-
written tests also allow teachers to measure, to some degree, how efective
their instruction has been.8 In other #ords, it is the teacher3s responsibility to
construct #ell+#ritten tests in order to measure accurately students
"no#ledge and to ma"e decisions #hether the syllabus and the methodology
must be modi1ed.
)urthermore, if #e are able to help our students to overcome learning an!iety
through creating a nice classroom atmosphere and if #e are #illing to assist
them #ith strategies to deal #ith test an!iety, #e #ill achieve the goal of
ma"ing our students successful language learners.