PREPARING EXAMS

Teacher’s Training
Course
SO MANY TESTS, SO LITTLE TIME!
INTRODUCTION
In the classroom, there is only one
word that makes the student go
crazy:
“TEST”
 However, they cannot be avoided completely, for they
are inevitable elements of learning process.
 HOW SO?
 They are included into curriculum.
 They check the students’ level of knowledge.
 Students should face them in order to enter

any foreign university or reveal the level of

their English language skills for themselves.
 There are specially designed tests that serve for
different purposes and are unrelated. Although, they
are sometimes common in their design and structure.
 PET.
 KET.
 TOEIC.
 TOEFL.
 CFC.
WHY IS TESTING IMPORTANT?
 Hicks considers that testing is a means to show both the students
and the teacher how much the learners have learnt during a course.
 Heaton states that tests could be used to display the strengths and
weaknesses of the teaching process and help the teacher improve it.
 Thompson believes that students learn more when they have tests.
Moreover, he argues that tests decrease practice and instruction
time, for students are sometimes exposed to new material that
enhances both their creativity and critical thinking.
 Eggan emphasizes the idea that learners study hard for the classes
they are tested thoroughly.
 Hilles considers that students want and expect to be tested.
IS THERE A DOWNSIDE IN TESTING?
 Too much of testing can entirely
change the students’ attitude
towards learning the language,
especially if the results are usually
dissatisfying, for their motivation is
decreased towards learning and the
subject in general.
 Alderson then mentions that we
should not forget that students,
while doing a test, should receive
less support from the teacher than
they’d normally do during the
exercises in a language classroom.
WHAT SHOULD TEACHERS DO?
 When the teacher is always near and
ready to assist, no one is afraid to make a
mistake and try to take a chance to do the
exercises.
 However, when writing a test and being
left alone to deal with the test activities,
the students panic and forget everything
they knew before.
 So, what is “the core meaning” of the
test?
 The students should be given confidence.
 Encouragement is a vital element in
language learning.
 Teachers should foster self-reliance.
 This way, we can speak about the tests as a
tool to increase motivation, rather than
something to be afraid of.
ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
 These two terms are entirely different.
 When we assess our students, we are interested in, “how and how much our students have learnt”.
 When we evaluate, we are concerned with, “how the learning process is developing”.

 Very frequently, teachers assess the students without taking the aspect of evaluation into
account.
 How can we distinguish an assessment from an evaluation?
o There are assessments that are typically applied at the end of the unit, course or school year. Such assessments
are known as “Achievement Tests”.
o They are very essential for comparing how the students’ knowledge has changed during the course.
o Evaluations, in the other hand, are “small” tests the teachers use during the course or studying year. They are also
called, “Diagnostic Tests”.
o After analyzing the results of these tests, the teacher will be able to improve or alter the course, and even introduce various
innovations.
 In order to incorporate evaluation together with assessment, teachers should involve students
directly into the process of testing.
o e.g. Before testing vocabulary, the teacher can ask students to guess what kind of activities could be applied in the
test. That way, they will know what to wait for and will reduce fear the students might face.
SO, WHAT’S THE IDEAL SITUATION?
 The test should test what was taught.
 Students are very different and so is their level
of knowledge.
 It is inappropriate to design a test of advanced
level if among your learners there are those
whose level hardly exceeds lower intermediate.
 The instructions of the test should be
unambiguous.
 Otherwise, students will spend more time on
asking the teacher to explain what they are
supposed to do, instead of completing the
tasks.
 Once the students are able to apply their
knowledge in various contexts, they’ll have in
turn acquired the new material correctly.
 When testing, we need to learn about the
students’ progress, but not to check what they
remember.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST

 Validity. A test is valid if it tests

what it is supposed to test.
 Thus it is not valid, for example,
to test writing ability with an
essay question that requires
specialist knowledge of history or
biology, unless all students share
this knowledge.
 It is very difficult to design a
proper test with a good validity.
Nevertheless, it is essential for
the teacher to know and
understand what validity really is.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST
 Regarding Weir, there are five types of validity:
 Construct validity. It is the theoretical ground on which the test is based. In order to
construct or plan a test, teachers should research into students’ behavior and mental
organization. Appropriately constructed at the beginning, the test will not provoke any
difficulties in its administration and scoring later.
 Content validity. To test students’ knowledge, teachers have to choose what was taught,
whether it was a specific vocabulary or various texts connected with the topic, for it is
impossible to test the whole material. The teacher should not pick up tricky pieces that
were either mentioned once or were not discussed in the classroom at all, though
belonging to the topic.
 The test is not a punishment, or an opportunity for the teacher to show students that they are less
clever.
 Both Construct and Content validity are closely bound and sometimes even overlap with each
other.
 Content validity is closely connected with a definite item that was taught and is supposed to be
tested.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST
o Face validity. It is how the
examinees and administration
staff see the test: whether it is
Construct and Content valid or
not.
 Includes debates and discussions
about a test. It will involve the
teachers’ cooperation and exchange
of their ideas and experience.
o Backwash validity. “Backwash” is
the effect (repercussion) of testing
on teaching and learning process.
It could be both positive and
negative…
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST
 If the test is considered to be a significant element, then the preparation to it will take
up most of the time, and other teaching and learning activities will be ignored.
 This is already a habitual action in many schools of our country, for teachers are

faced with centralized exams that have been used over the years. Thus, numerous
interesting activities are left behind, since teachers are concerned just with the result
and forget about different techniques that could be introduced and later used by their
students to deal with the exam tasks easier (e.g. guessing from context).
 As a result we will have a negative backwash, for the objectives of the course

differ from the objectives of the test. This happens due to inappropriate test
design.
 There can be a positive backwash as well, if the course is designed to make

students pass a certain exam.

 Teaching should correspond to the demands of the test.
 The problem is that teachers are not always supplied with the appropriate material for the test
preparation. Instead, they are just given vague instructions and are free to act on their own.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST
Criterion-related validity. It is connected with criterion and
evaluation the teacher uses to assess the test. Thus, the teacher
has to design a definite evaluation system and then explain what
he/she thinks is worth evaluating and why. This way students will
be aware of what they are expected to do.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST
 Reliability. According to Bynom, a test is
reliable if the score obtained by students is the
same and will not change if it were applied on
various days, either to the same group or two
similar groups.
 Thus, a reliable test will contain well-
formulated tasks and not indefinite questions.
The test will always present ready examples
at the beginning of each task to clarify what
should be done.
 Reliability also depends on the people who
mark the tests – the scorers.
 e.g. there could be teachers that are more
demanding than others, or even a teacher who has
a personal attitude towards a particular student.
These factors will also impact on the final score.
 Last but not least, careless students who lack
patience don’t bother to double-check the
instructions before doing the tasks. This is another
important factor that affects reliability in tests.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST
 To summarize, we can say that even though validity and reliability are
good qualities of a good test, they are not enough to ensure its success.
 The test should be practical.
 It should be easily understood by the student.
 It should be easily scored and administered.
 It should not last for eternity.
 It should encourage students, rather than make them reassure their own
abilities.
 It should measure what it is supposed to measure, so it shouldn’t go
beyond students’ abilities.
 The test will be a true indicator of whether the learning process and the
teacher’s work is effective or not.
TYPES OF TESTS
 There are four traditional
categories or types of tests:
Placement Tests.
Diagnostic Tests.
Progress or Achievement
Tests.
Proficiency Tests.
 Placement Tests. According to
Longman Dictionary, a placement test
is a test that places students at the
appropriate level in a course.
o It should be general and purely
focused on a vast range of topics of
the language, not just one.
o It could be represented in the form of
dictations, interviews, grammar tests,
etc.
o It should deal exactly with the
language skills that will be taught
during a particular course.
o Each institution will have its own
placement test meeting its needs.
o Some schools ask students to assess
themselves as part of the placement
process.
 Diagnostic Tests. While placement tests
are designed to show how good a
student’s English is in order to fit a system
of levels, diagnostic tests can be used to
expose learner’s difficulties, gaps in their
knowledge, and skill deficiencies during a
course.
 Very often, teachers don’t put any marks
for this type of test, and sometimes they
don’t even show the test to students. This
is done to avoid a negative impact on
students’ motivation.
 The results of diagnostic tests will give
significant information to teachers about
the group he/she is going to work with, as
well as a basis for the forming syllabus.
TYPES OF TESTS
 Progress or Achievement Tests.
 Progress Test. A progress test will show the
teacher whether the students have learnt the
recently taught material successfully. It will
basically display the activities based on the
material the teacher is determined to check.
Therefore, the teacher intends to check certain
items, not general topics covered during the
course.
 Typically, such tests do not affect the students’ final
grade at the end of the course.
 Achievement Test. It is a test which measures
a language someone has learned during a
specific course, study or program.
 They are “more formal”, and will only work if they
contain item types which the students are familiar
with.
 The should reinforce the learning that has taken
place, not go out of their way to expose
weaknesses.
TYPES OF TESTS
 Proficiency Tests. They measure
how much of a language a
person knows or has learnt.
 They are rather long.
 They are intended to check the
learners’ language competence.
 This test could make the
prospect depressed and
exhausted after spending a long
time in the classroom.
 On the other hand, proficiency tests
are rather impartial; they are not
prospect-friendly.
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 A major factor in the success or failure of an
exam or test will be determined by the item types
that it contains.
 Direct and Indirect Test Items.
 A test item is direct if it asks students to perform
the communicative skill which is being tested.
 e.g. if the aim of the test is to check listening
comprehension, students will be given a test that will
check their listening skills, such as listening to the
audio and doing the reproduction activities.
 Introduces real-life language through authentic
tasks.
 e.g. role-plays, summarizing the general idea,
providing missing information, etc.
 Gives us precise information about students’
abilities.
 e.g. when writing an essay, the teacher might be
interested in checking a particular skill only, such as
producing the right layout of an essay or just
grammar usage.
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 Indirect testing, on the other hand, measures a skill through some other skill.
 Indirect items try to find out about a student’s knowledge through more controlled items.
 e.g. multiple choice questions or grammar transformation items.

 They are easier to design en easier to grade, producing more reliability.

 Discrete-point testing is meant to test a particular language item (grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation or spelling)
 e.g. choosing the correct tense of a verb.
 Integrative testing intends to check several language skills simultaneously.
 e.g. writing a composition or doing a conversational oral test.
 In many proficiency tests, there is a mixture of direct and indirect, discrete-
point and integrative testing.
 For more information regarding types of testing, please visit the website
address provided at the end of this presentation.
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 Indirect Test Item Types.
 Multiple choice questions
(MCQs).
 Easy to grade and to read by
computers.
 Very difficult to write well,
especially when designing
incorrect choices.
 Both their validity and reliability
are suspect, for the score would
depend on the student’s ability to
dominate MCQs techniques,
rather than his/her understanding
of the language.
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 Cloze test and gap-filling tests.
 “Cloze” comes from the word
“closure”, and meant the individual’s
ability to complete a model.
 There are two cloze test techniques:
 Pseudo-random. Involves partial or

total deletion of random words at a

definite range (e.g. every 7th. word)
 Rational cloze technique or gap-
filling. It’s based on the deletion of
words connected with the topic the
teacher wants to check (e.g. Present
Tense of “be”)
  Transformation and paraphrase.
 It’s meant to ask students to rewrite sentences in a slightly different form, retaining
the exact meaning of the original.
 e.g. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get her an anniversary present”

I wish ____________________________________
 Sentence re-ordering.
 Getting students to put words in the right order to make appropriate sentences tells us
quite a lot about their knowledge of syntax and lexico-grammatical elements.
 e.g. Put the words in order to make correct sentences.

called / I / I’m / in / sorry / wasn’t / when / you

__________________________________________
 There are other indirect items, such as “sentence fill-ins”, “choosing the
correct tense of verbs in sentences and passages”, “finding errors in
sentences” and “choosing the correct form of a word”.
 For more information regarding this topic, please visit the webpage
address provided at the end of this presentation.
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 Direct Test Item Types. For
direct test items to achieve
“validity” and to be “reliable”,
test designers need to do the
following:
 Create a “level playing field”.
Choose topics that come close
to ensure that all candidates
have the same chance of
success:
 e.g. “Why was the discovery of
DNA so important for the science
of the twentieth century?”…???
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 Replicate real-life interaction.
Tests of reading and listening
should reflect real life, even
when they’re not authentic.
 Speaking Item Types.
 An interviewer questioning a
candidate about themselves.
 “Decision-making” activities, such
as showing paired candidates
photos of people in order to come
up with a specific opinion about
them.
 Using pictures to compare and
contrast.
 Role-play activities.
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
 Writing Item Types.
 Writing composition and stories.

 A set of instruction for some common task.

 Newspaper article about a recent event.

 Reading Item Types.

 Multiple choice questions to test comprehension of a text.

 Choosing the best summary of a paragraph or a whole text.

 Inserting sentences provided by the examiner in the correct place in the text.

 Listening Item Types.

 Completing charts with facts and figures from a listening text.

 Identifying which pictures are being described in a conversation.

 Identifying which of two or three speakers says what.

 Following directions on a map.

EXERCISES
 Take a look at the test attached at the end of this presentation.
In groups of three or four, evaluate the exam’s:
 Validity.
 Reliability.
 Type of test.
 Type(s) of testing involved.
 Type(s) of test item(s) displayed.

Determine what could be done to improve the sample exam as a

whole (design, content, etc).
 Writing and checking tests.
There are a number of things
we need to do before
designing a test and then
giving it to a group of students:
 Assess the test situation.
Take into account:
 Context in which the test takes
place.
 How much time should be given.
 Where it will take place.
 How much time there is for
checking it.
 Decide what to test.
 What skills are we intending to
evaluate? (e.g. reading
comprehension or speaking).
 What syllables can be legitimately
included?
 What kinds of topics and situations
are appropriate for our students?
 Balance the elements.
 How much of indirect and direct test
items are we going to include?
 Weight the scores.
 How many points will be given to
each section of the test,
 Making the test work.
 It is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that we
try out the designed test on
colleagues and students alike
before applying them to real
candidates.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Internet Resources.
Types of tests used in English Language Teaching
Bachelor Paper – A paper on types of tests and their
application in the language classrooms
 http://www.bestreferat.ru/referat-39308.html