CHAPTER 28

ASSESING STUDENT’S GRAMMATICAL ABILITY

What aspects of grammar should we assess?
An important distinction needs to be made between knowledge and ability. A person’s
grammatical knowledge is represented by the structures that he/she has accumulated over a
period of time and are stored in the person’s long-term memory. Grammatical ability refers to
“an individual's capacity to utilize mental representations of language knowledge built up
through practice in order to convey meaning.
How should we assess grammatical ability?
The design of appropriate test task or test methods to elicit samples of performance that
represent student’s grammatical knowledge cannot be over-emphasized. In term of test
method effect, Weir (2005) also points out that “the choice you make about format will
critically affect the cognitive processing that the task will illicit”.
Practical Application
A number of grammar-related issues: construct definition, grammatical form, grammatical
meaning, test method effect.
Modern commercial books usually adopt a multi-layered approach to syllabus design focusing
on grammatical and lexical components.
Construct definition is tantamount to the course syllabus or outcome. It enable teachers to
directly assess student’s mastery of a clearly defined set of grammatical structures.
The choice of appropriate test methods or test task is paramount due to the potential negative
effects they might have on test performance.
A helpful way to categorize test tasks is according to the types of responses they require from
students:
Selected-response task types
Students are presented with an item and are required to select one appropriate response. These
task types only assess student’ ability to recognize correct or incorrect grammatical structures
in their written form.
Types of task:
- Test the knowledge of grammatical form and meaning
- Match each question with the appropriate response
- Select the underlined word or phrase that is incorrect or inappropriate
Limited-production tasks
This kind of task requires test takers to produce grammatical forms in different ways within a
highly controlled manner
Types of task:
- Make a sentence out of these words
- Fill in the gaps in the following sentences
- Complete the sentences
- Rewrite these sentences
Extended-production tasks
These tasks measure an examinee’s ability to use grammatical forms and structures to convey
meaning at discourse level through writing and speaking