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pp 33 I t* 333
Pergdmon Press Lfd 1979 Printed m Great Bntam

A DIAGNOSTIC TEST FOR STUDENTS ENTERING

A COMPUTER-ASSISTED LEARNING
CURRICULUM IN FRENCH

ROBERT ARIEW
Department of French, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park PAI6802, U.S.A.

Abstract-Axiomatic in computer-aided instructional strategies is the goal of individualized

instruction. In foreign language instruction, however, the kinds of individuation needed are
particularly complex. Most college-level students of a foreign language have had some prior
training. Yet their proficiency in the so-called four skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening-
comprehension) is rarely uniform.
Traditionally, placement tests have been used to determine the appropriate course in a multi-
course sequence. The student with some prior language training takes the test and, on the basis of
a composite score, is told to register for foreign language 1, 2, 3 or 4. Some placement tests
provide subscores for one or more of the four skills. Unfortunately, no existing placement tests
give the precise diagnosis needed to interface with a CAL curriculum. In a CAL context, an
overall score is not sufficient. To make most effective use of instructional time, scores relating to
the student’s ability to handle particular features of the language are crucial. One needs to know
which language features the student is able to manipulate adequately and those which he cannot.
With a complete profile of the student’s language skills, CAL units can be used to ‘fill in the gaps’
and to assure a smooth transition into the course. sequence.
Such a diagnostic test has been implemented for French on the PLATO system at the Univer-
sity of Illinois, Urbana campus. A 2-h test provides a profile for each student’s performance using
a matrix of 300 lexical, morphological and syntactic cells. Furthermore, the test indicates the
student’s proficiency in reading, writing and listening skills (an audio device is used for the latter).
Instructors and students report their satisfaction with the program. Students especially like the
ease with which the answers are entered and reviewed before they are submitted for evaluation.
Instructors appreciate the detailed profiles and the sensitive partial answer scoring algorithm.
Although presently used for diagnostic testing for French, the testing strategies employed in
EXAM can be adapted to other foreign languages.

Individualized teaching as a goal for computer-assisted instruction (CAI) should be axiomatic. In

foreign language instruction, however, the kinds of individuation needed are particularly complex.
Most college level foreign language students have had some prior training, but their proficiency in the
so-called four skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening comprehension) is very uneven.
Traditionally, placement tests have been used to determine the appropriate course for students
required to take a multi-course sequence. The student with some prior language training takes the test
and, on the basis of a composite score, is told to register for foreign language 1, 2, 3 or 4. Some
placement tests provide subscores for one or more of the four skills. Unfortunately, no existing
placement tests give the precise diagnoses needed to interface with a CA1 curriculum. In a CA1
context, an overall score is not sufficient. To make the most effective use of instructional time, scores
on the student’s ability to handle the language’s particular features are crucial. One needs to know
which language features the student can manipulate adequately and those which he cannot. With a
complete profile of the student’s language skills, CAI units can be used to shore up language weak-
nesses and to assure a smooth transition into the course sequence.
Such a diagnostic test has been implemented for French on the PLATO system at the University of
Illinois, Urbana campus. Before describing the test in detail, it would be wise to describe some of the
characteristics of the PLATO system. Everyone will agree, I am sure, that the hardware components
of a CA1 system are a crucial part of any learning program, since hardware limitations can sometimes
seriously affect teaching materials (software). The following is a description of the ‘tools’ at our
disposal to implement CA1 software in general and the diagnostic test in particular.
The complete PLATO IV terminal consists of a graphic display device called the plasma panel, a
keyboard which the student uses to enter answers, an image selector that displays photographic
information, an audio device that plays back recorded audio messages and a touch input device
(touch panel) with which the student indicates a response. The terminal’s various components are
integrated in one single unit, except for the audio device which is a separate piece of equipment.
The plasma panel is a lo-in. square glass device in which small gas-filled cells can be made to light
or extinguish under computer control. Typically, a group of cells are lit, forming characters (the term
332 ROBERTARIES

character as used here includes letters, symbols and numbers). The keyboard, which is patterned after
a typewriter keyboard, allows the student to write on the plasma panel, using a standard set of 127
characters. Another set of characters is also available (merely by pressing an access key), allowing
students to enter answers in Russian, Hebrew or Arabic or in any other special alphabet, and to mix
characters, for a total of 254 different accessible characters.
The slide selector is contained within the terminal and projects photographed material onto the
back of the translucent plasma panel. It may be thought of as a device which almost instantly
retrieves any page of a 256-page book. On computer command (initiated either by program or from
the keyboard), one of the 256 images contained on a microfiche card is displayed. Any still photo-
graphs may be displayed the same way. Color photographs, diagrams, charts, grammatical rules, etc.,
may be photo-reduced and used as teaching materials. The access time, that is, the time it takes for
any one of the photographs to be shown, is we11 under a second.
The audio device presents recorded material to the student. It can record for approximately 23 min
and can play back any recorded message within a very short time (typically under one second). It is
especially valuable for teaching foreign languages where audio discrimination and audio comprehen-
sion are important skills for the student to master. Since the device is equipped with record and erase
features, most of the functions of a typical language laboratory may be duplicated and then integrated
into the CA1 materials.
The touch panel is an unassuming component of the PLATO terminal-it is a frame bordering the
plasma panel. The frame has 16 holes on each side which house light-emitting and -receiving ele-
ments. The elements form a grid pattern of invisible light just above the plasma panel’s surface.
Whenever the light is interrupted by a fingertip (or by any object), the device emits a ‘beep’ tone and
transmits the coordinates of the location touched to the computer. In foreign language instruction,
the touch panel is a useful, time-saving device, especially when r~ognition skills are taught or tested.
For example, to enter a response in a multiple choice item, the student merely touches a location on
the panel.
The aforementioned PLATO components must, of course, all work together harmoniously. And
this was the most difficult task-how to design the diagnostic test so that the components worked
interdependently. In addition, several other factors had to be taken into account. For instance, the
test had to be easy to use, even by students with no prior experience with CAI. All directions had to
be clear since it is not normally possible to ask questions during the exam. The test had to include
sequences of information to aid the student in manipulating the program. The student had to feel in
control of the situation, and be able to modify his responses as necessary before submitting them for
evaluation. In essence, the test design had to at least approximate a normal test situation. However,
the PLATO terminal would provide several dimensions of flexibility and accuracy of evaluation that
are not normally available in a traditional testing situation.
The diagnostic test uses most of the PLATO terminal facilities at one time or another. This permits
very flexible item formats-any item may be cued orafly (using the audio device) or graphically (using
characters plotted on the display panel or by rear projection, using the slide selector). Moreover, the
student can respond by entering answers with the keyboard, or by pointing to a location on the
display panel (using the touch panel).
It became apparent that the PLATO terminal could have a negative effect on the students’ perfor-
mance if they should be apprehensive about using the equipment. This was especially a problem for
those students with no prior CA1 experience. For this reason, the test is designed to reduce hardware
manipulations as much as possible. Furthermore, the material presented is meticulously designed to
be self-explanatory. Examples are clearly presented. The formats of the items are also carefully chosen
to be familiar to language students. They represent the gamut of item types, such as transformations.
fill-ins, translations, etc.
The diagnostic test usually lasts about two hours. No time limit, however, is set; each student may
work at his own pace, taking as much time as necessary to insure accurate responses. The student
may also choose where to take the test. Since there are several hundred terminals located on the
Urbana campus at the University of Illinois, the student may choose from among a number of
locations. Their choice of test site is limited only by the availability of supervisory staff.
The testing conditions simulate a normal testing situation. To help reduce any feelings of anxiety
brought about by the unfamiliar setting, the student is given complete control over the test. Timing
devices are not used, and the student is free to review and alter the responses before they are
submitted to the computer for evaluation and grading. Mechanically, the student’s answers are stored
as he completes each of the several parts of the test in sequence. He may make modifications on
previous entries any time during the test, or review the answers as many times as necessary, and, when
he is satisfied with them, he presses a button on the keyboard to have them evaluated.
 Computer-assisted learning curriculum in French 333

The diagnostic test evaluates students’ ability in French morphology, syntax, audio discrimination,
audio comprehension and reading comprehension to an intermediate French level; that is, it assesses
student competence to a level equivalent to 2 years of college French. It stores results based on
approximately 300 different features of the language normally encountered during the beginning years
of study. However, it does not deal with audio production skills nor conversational fluency. These
skills must be evaluated separately, for there is no software or hardware that can adequately test
them, and it should perhaps be pointed out that audio production skills are not normally evaluated in
a typical proficiency test.
The computer evaluates student responses: The student indicates that he is ready to submit his
responses to a particular exam section, and the program evaluates the entries sequentially, in the same
order as entered. Since the evaluation is done very fast (typically taking only a few seconds), the
student is not impaired in his progress. The next part of the test may be begun almost immediately.
To be time-efficient, many questions require short answers, often one word. However, some items
demand more complex responses. These necessitate a rather complex evaluating program, since it is
possible for the student to earn partial credit, and the evaluating program must check several features.
For example, in the following test item, the student is asked to answer a question in the affirmative,
replacing nouns with pronouns.
Aaez-uous promis ces ,fleurs?
The desired answer,
Oui, je les ai promises.
contains two tested features. The first is the pronominalization of cesfleurs and the placement of the
pronoun les before the auxiliary verb. The second feature is the agreement of the past participle with
the preceding direct object; that is, the transformation of promis to promises. If the student misses any
one of the tested features, credit must be given for the second feature. The program must therefore
check for the pronoun les between the words je and ai and for the final es on the word pron~ises, and
tabulate points for the appropriate items (other features are not scored in this question). If the student
answers the question correctly, he is awarded two points, one for pronominalization and one for past
participle agreement.
As student responses are evaluated, a matrix of approximately 300 cells is filled with awarded
points for each student taking the test. The cells represent the various features of French. For
example, there is a cell to tabulate the correct use of the direct object pronoun, one for adjective
formation, one for adverb formation, one for correct French sound discrimination, etc. A running
count is kept of the number of times the student performs accurately on each of the features. A
complete performance profile is available by the end of the test and may be printed.
A cursory inspection of the profile reveals the student’s weak areas and his strong areas. Placement
may be recommended on the basis of the results, but more importantly, the profile may be used to
automatically prescribe CA1 materials. For example, if a particular student does not perform adequa-
tely on participte agreement; that is, if he does not answer correctly the diagnostic test’s several items
dealing with agreement, the cell holding the score for participle agreement would reflect the inade-
quacy. At a later time, the student could be provided with a lesson on participle agreement. Similarly,
other materials appropriate to the student’s need may be presented.
Since the profile is keyed to Fernand Marty’s Elements for Self-Expression in French, remedial work
specifying pages and even paragraphs, may be recommended. Remedial work may also be done
outside of the context of CAT. For example, in the case of a student who is weak in a particular verb
tense, the profile could be used to prescribe an entire lesson, a lesson segment, or a set of exercises.
This would in effect shore up the student’s knowledge of French. The student could then be placed in
the appropriate class with some assurance that the major deficiencies have been removed.
Instructors and students report their satisfaction with the program. As evidenced by responses to
questionnaires given at the University of Illinois over a two-year period, instructors appreciate the
detailed profile since it allows them to make accurate and useful recommendations to the student.
Students especially like the ease with which the answers are entered and reviewed before they are
submitted for evaluation. The partial answer credit algorithm is well received primarily because it
gives credit according to each student’s ability, without penalizing him for insignificant errors.
Although currently used for diagnostic testing for French, the strategies employed in the test can be
adapted to other foreign languages.