Design a (grammar/vocabulary/reading/writing or any area) language-skills test for your learners, then take all necessary measures to validate the test after that subject it to strong reliability check as assessment research suggests, meaning administering the test to the learners, perhaps more than once. Once the test designing and piloting process is completed, document the whole process in the form of a critical report explaining the events you went through as a test designer, validity and reliability checker, and evaluator. This report should be in the form of an assignment where all elements are substantiated (supported by what experts in the field believe in e.g. regarding tests validity and reliability, their significance, methods/steps involved in achieving these tests’ characteristics, and the extent your work is in congruence with the standard practices).
1. Introduction
The test being reported in this assignment is the mid-term exam that was created for Prep. Year second semester students of Business English ENG 012 at the English Language center at Yanbu (ELCY). Previously, the course coordinator had the responsibility for designing all tests, but this time the Language Testing Unit (LTU) of ELCY was given this duty. The test was successfully administered, and almost all the students got the pass percentage i.e. 50% or more. However, the test after being administered, invited a healthy discussion between the teachers, the course coordinator, and the LTU. This report will analyze this test on the principles of language testing: validity, reliability, authenticity, usefulness/practicality, and washback.
2. Learner profile and testing context
This test was designed for monolingual (Arabic speaking) students in ...
... middle of paper ...
...creation of better and effective tests in the future.
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The topic for today’s reading was, Interpreting the Language Assessment. In one of the assigned readings, Interpreting the Behavioral Language Assessment, emphasized that the purpose of the behavioral assessment is to provide the tester with enough information to design an individualized language intervention program for a specific child. Therefore, to establish an effective intervention program for particular child the tester must identify the most appropriate starting point for initial training. The tester should review each skill in relation to the entire set of skills identified in the assessment. It is usually best to focus on the development of a few key language areas at one time, even though the child may have weaknesses in several of the areas reviewed by the assessment. Also, it is important that the tester not simply pick the areas with the lowest scores and recommend training begin in those areas, because is very important to ensure that the instructor is able to observe the learner acquiring skills relatively short period of time, in order to maintain his motivation to continue conducting language training activities. Only a few areas are selected for the initial intervention, and the focus of the intervention will be continuously changed as the student acquires new skills. Finally, the language intervention program develops the child’s skills such that he could score at least a five on each of the areas of the assessment. This score of five in a specific area may indicate that a particular skill area may not require as intensive intervention as those skills with a lower score. Furthermore, for the second reading, The Benefits of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior for Children with Autism, stated t...
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There are a lot of students being placed whose primary language is not English. Students walk into a mainstream classroom not being able to speak English. Students in this situation are call English Language Learners(ELLs). These students are not receiving appropriate language support to succeed in their language development which is causing them to not have the ability to acquire language.
The ability to test a student’s language skills is essential to have as a teacher. Over the years, classrooms have become much more diverse with a wide variety of impairments being presented on a daily basis. Often, these disabilities contain a language impairment that appears as a side effect of the main disability. Unfortunately, assessing language is not as easy as one may think because it is not clearly defined and understood. Kuder (2008) writes that “…language is not a unitary phenomenon- it is ‘multidimensional, complex, and dynamic; it involves many interrelated processes and abilities; and it changes from situation to situation” (pg. 274). Language also develops at different times for different individuals, thus making language assessment an even harder task for test administrators to grade and evaluate. In order to further understand the language impairment that students present, teachers need to be aware of appropriate language tests that could be administered. In order to assure that the best language test is being issued to a student, several various tests exist to choose from. To test a student’s overall language capability, a comprehensive language test, such as the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) or the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS), could be administered. If a teacher wanted to test a specific language skill such as pragmatics, phonology, syntax, or semantics, the teacher would need to find the best test for the student’s unique situation.
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