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Designing Classroom Language Tests

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In order to design a test, there are five factors needs to taken into considered:
  1. purpose,
  2. objective,
  3. selecting and arrange items,
  4. types of scoring, grading, and
  5. feedback.

Test Types
Defining the purpose for the test will help the teacher choose the right kind of test, and it will also help the teacher to focus on the specific objectives of the test.
There are five types of test :

Language Aptitude Tests
  • This test is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language and ultimate success in that undertaking. Language aptitude tests are ostensibly designed to apply to the classroom learning of any language.
Proficiency Tests
  • This test is not limited to any one course, curriculum, or single skill in the language; rather, it tests overall ability. Proficiency tests have traditionally consisted of standardized multiple-choice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension and aural comprehension.
Placement Tests
  • A placement test usually, but not always, includes a sampling of the material to be covered in the various courses in a curriculum; a student's performance on the test should indicate the point at which the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.
Diagnostic Tests
  • A diagnostic test is designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language. A test in pronunciation, for example, might diagnose the phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore become part of a curriculum.
  • Usually, such tests offer a checklist of features for the administrator (teacher) to use in pinpointing difficulties.
Achievement Tests
  • This test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even a total curriculum. Achievement tests are limited to particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame and are offered after a course has focused on the objectives in question. Its also serve the diagnostic role of indicating what a student to continue to work on in the future, but the primary role of an achievement test is to determine whether course objectives have been met and appropriate knowledge and skills acquired by the end of a period of instruction.
Simply, there are some practical steps to test construction:
  • Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objectives by knowing the purpose of the test we’re creating
             - Set clear and specific objectives.
  • Determine a simple and practical outline, tested skills, and decide forms of item types and tasks.
  • Devising Test Tasks by drafting the questions, revising the draft, request aid from colleague, and imagine yourself as a student who write for this test.
  • Designing Multiple-choice items by checking practicality, reliability and facility of cheating.

Scoring, Grading, and Giving Feedback
  • Teacher’s assign letter grade level depend on i.e., culture, context, and relations of the English classroom and teachers expectation.
  • Even weight and points on each section.
  • After testing, students’ identification of success and challenge can be given.

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Further reading :
Brown, D. (2004). Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Longman.