12.

TESTING VOCABULARY

- Why test anything?..The obvious answer is that without testing, there is no reliable means of
knowing how effective a teaching sequence has been;
- testing provides a form of feedback, both for learners and teachers;
- if learners know they are going to be tested on their vocabulary learning, they may take
vocabulary learning more seriously; testing motivates learners to review vocabulary in
preparation for a test;

There are two ways of testing vocabulary:

1.Recognition: synonyms, definitions ( multiple-choice), gap-filling;
2. Production: pictures, definitions, gap-filling;

TYPES OF TEST:
1. Multiple choice tests are a popular way of testing in that they are easy to score ( a
computer can do it), and they are easy to design; they can be used with isolated words, words
in a sentence context, or words in whole texts; on the negative side, multiple choice tests have
been criticised because learners may choose the answer by a process of elimination, which
hardly constitutes “knowing” the right answer; there is one-in three chance of getting the
answer right; they are not easy to design as might appear;
2. Gap-fill tests: they require learners to recall the learners to recall the word from memory in
order to complete a sentence ot text, but they also test the ability to produce a word rather
than simply recognise; another variety of gap-fill test is,the cloze test, the gaps are regularly
spaced- the ability to complete the gaps depends on understanding the context; another
variety of gap-fill tests learners' knowledge of word formation, by asking them to convert
words from one form to another so as to fit a context;C-test is another variety of gap-fill tests:
in C-test, the second half of every word is deleted as shown overleaf; researchers have shown
that success at doing C-tests correlates with success at other kinds of vocabulary tests; Word
formation is another type of gap-fill tests: The students have to convert words from one form
to another so as fit a context;

Testing needs to take account of factors such as:

1. Validity- are you testing what you want to test?
2. Reliability- will the test give consistent results?
3. Practicality- is it easy to administer an mark?
4. Face validity- will the learners take it seriously?