Republic of the Philippines

TAGUIG CITY UNIVERSITY

Gen. Santos Ave., Central Bicutan, Taguig City

Formal report in Language and Literacy

Assessment

Language Testing

In plain words, testing or administering a test is a method of measuring a

person’s ability or knowledge in a given domain. It is a set of techniques, procedures or
and items that constitute an instrument of some sort that requires performance or
activity on the part of the test-taker and sometimes on the part of the tester as well. A
test is an instrument or procedure designed to elicit performance from learners with the
purpose of measuring their attainment of specified criteria. The method may be intuitive
and informal or may be structured and explicit.

Language testing is the administration of test in order to assess and measure a

person’s language competence and performance or testing language ability. It is an
evaluation of an individual’s language proficiency. It is the practice and study of
evaluating the proficiency of an individual in using a particular language effectively.

Characteristics of a good language test

According to Coughlin a good test should have the following

1. Should have a positive effect on the learning and teaching.

2. Should result in improved learning habits.
3. Should aim to locate the specific areas of difficulties experienced by the class.

For the teachers:

1. A good test should be the one which enable them to find out which part of the
language program cause difficulty for the class.

The four major skills areas found in the good test consist of the following:

1. Oral – forms of speaking assessment can be varied, in group, dyads, as a whole

class activity with the teacher.
2. Written – question requiring students to write letters, memos, messages and
reports are more appropriately useful than the traditional composition.
3. Listening and Reading – the ability to extract specific information from authentic
materials is preferable testing criterion to that of simply understanding
information in text.