ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ASSESSMENT
INTRODUCTION

Prof. Dr. Baso Jabu, M.Hum.

 Faculty Member of English Department, FBS UNM
 Deputy Director II of the Graduate Program UNM
 Cell: 08124133488, e-mail: basojabu@gmail.com

Asriati, S.Pd., M.Pd.

 Faculty Member of English Department, FBS UNM
 Cell: 085342924999, e-mail: asriati@unm.ac.id
 LANGUAGE MEASUREMENT
Measurement → We deal with measurement in almost all of our daily
activities: working in certain length of time, wearing cloth with certain size,
cooking with certain proportion, shopping with certain number or amount,
weighing potatoes, measuring cloth, measure the electric power, checking the
volume of a container

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 LANGUAGE MEASUREMENT
What activity in our life does not involve measurement?
Quantitative - Objective
Qualitative - Subjective

Consider:
Activities: Working, Learning, Cooking, Sleeping, Walking,
Driving, Eating, etc.
Objects: Books, Metal, Rooms, Buildings, Shoes, Time, Feelings,
Ideas, Love, etc.

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 LANGUAGE MEASUREMENT
Potential errors causing inaccurate measurement:
1) Measurement tools: Scale not work properly and not highly sensitive
2) Things measured: Potatoes wet or dirty, yam mixed in
3) Measurer: not thoroughly reading, inattentive
What activity in our life does not involve measurement?

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 LANGUAGE MEASUREMENT
Language testing → test the students’ competence and performance in
speaking, writing, listening, and reading

Potential errors causing inaccurate measurement:

1) The tests: not valid, unreliable, not discriminate, etc
2) The students: cheating, sick, not concentrate
3) The teacher: inattentive, bribery, relationship, cannot separate between
academic and non-academic matters

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 LANGUAGE MEASUREMENT
Language test determines to what degree of language
abilities are present in the learner.
Language Test is used to check what students can perform with
the language learned
When  before, during, or after the language course
Who  who and how many students, who develops it?
What  what to include, narrow or broad, usage or use, type,
purpose and technique
Where  in the classroom or examination room
How  how to score it, objective or subjective, formal or informal
Why  to assist or assess learning, back-looking or forward-
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looking
 TEACHING AND TESTING
 Concurrently or consecutively accomplished
Testing and teaching are closely interrelated conducted one after the other
or at the same time.

Language Tests are used:

- To reinforce learning and to motivate learners (relates to teaching)
- To assess learner’s performance in the language being learned

 Measuring language competence and performance

Language tests measure students’ language competence and performance, not
mechanical test of structure
A language test should have positive backwash effect on teaching and learning

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 TEACHING AND TESTING
 Different in the amount of help given to the students
The techniques used in teaching and testing may be the same (MC or matching,
writing paragraph based on picture, fill in blanks based on what is listened, and
interviewed or asked to deliver oral report.
What is different is the help given to the students.
- In teaching, the teachers are supposed to help the students in acquiring the
language by explaining, answering the students’ questions, assisting the
students to learn the language.
- In testing, the teachers should supervise and control the students in doing
their tests, not helping them with answer keys or let them cheat.

 Counterpart or partnership
Teaching and Testing are counterpart or partnership. Teaching should be
accomplished with tests.
Tests should exert beneficial influence on syllabuses and teaching
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 WHAT SHOULD BE TESTED?
Language involves total contexts of non linguistic features, tests
should reflect real life communication

 Testing the language skills

Listening: completion, matching, retelling, true-false, multiple-choice, picture
description, description from short utterances, dialogues, talks, songs, movies,
and lectures

Speaking: interview, picture description, role play, problem solving,

conversation, speech, report, and discussion

Reading: essays, true-false, multiple choice, summarizing, understand gist of a

text and extract key information or ideas from texts, graphs, leaflets, and
schedules

Writing: writing letters, reports, memos, messages, instructions, descriptions of

past events, composition, picture descriptions, and scientific writing
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 WHAT SHOULD BE TESTED?
Language involves total contexts of non linguistic features, tests
should reflect real life communication

 Testing the language areas

Grammar : Recognize grammatical forms and manipulate structure, writing,

composition, construction and objective tests (multiple-choice, error
recognition, true-false, completion, etc)

Vocabulary: meanings, forms, functions and positions of words, patterns and

collocation, derivation, synonym, antonym, etc.

Phonology: Recognize and produce sounds and stress patterns

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APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TESTING
The four approaches are not mutually exclusive

 The Essay Translation Approach

The pre-scientific stage, Subjective judgment: Essay writing, translation, and
grammatical analysis
 The Structuralist Approach
The systematic acquisition of a set of habit, measure separate elements:
vocabulary, grammar, phonology
 The Integrative Approach
Test in context (two or more skills tested simultaneously: cloze, dictation,
interview, essay writing, and translation
 The Communicative Approach
Test of language as used in real life communication

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 Sample Tests
(Multiple choice test)

1. Fadli ought not to ……… me your secret, but he did.

A. tell B. having told C. be telling D. have told
2. Did you ……… that book from the school library?
A. beg B. borrow C. lend D. ask
3. I stayed there until Taufik ……… .
A. had come B. would come C. came D. has come
4. I never knew where ……… .
A. had the boys gone B. the boys have gone
C. have the boys gone D. the boys had gone
5. Someone who designs houses is a ……… .
A. designer B. builder C. architect D. plumber
6. Which planet is the fifth from the earth?
A. Neptune B. Venus C. Pluto D. Mercury
7. Who ……… you cycle here to see us?
A. ordered B. caused C. made D. let
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 Sample Tests
(Multiple choice test)

1. Fadli ought not to ……… me your secret, but he did.

A. tell B. having told C. be telling D. have told
2. Did you ……… that book from the school library?
A. borrowed B. borrow C. lend D. lent
3. I stayed there until Taufik ……… .
A. coming B. will come C. came D. has come
4. I never knew where ……… .
A. had the boys gone B. the boys have gone
C. have the boys gone D. the boys had gone
5. Someone who designs houses is a/an ……… .
A. designer B. builder C. architect D. plumber
6. Which planet is the fifth from the earth?
A. Neptune B. Venus C. Pluto D. Mercury
7. Who ……… you to cycle here to see us?
A. ordered B. caused C. made D. let
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