TESTING READING
Dr. Muhammad Shahbaz
I. OPERATIONS
1. Straight forward activity
2. Receptive skill
3. Measured
Skills ????????
a) Slow
reading
b) Flip the
page reading
c) Search for
Particular information
reading
OPERATIONS
Diagnostic test?
Achievement test?
Placement and proficiency tests?
OPERATIONS
Learners´ reading skills
a. Expeditious
reading
operations
b. Slow and
careful reading
operations
CRITERIAL LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE
a) Norm-reference
testing
b)Criterion-reference
testing
POSSIBLE TECHNIQUES
a) Multiple
choice
Information
transfer
When
writing
items
Gap filling
b) Short
Answers
WHICH LANGUAGE FOR ITEMS AND
RESPONSES?
-Writing items should not cause
difficulties of comprehension
- Less demanding than the text itself
- Responses should make minimum
demand on writing ability: candidates
share the same language
PEOCEDURES FOR WRITING ITEMS
a. Careful reading of the text
b. Ask yourself what one can
get from the text
c. Note main points or
examples
d. Decide what candidates
would be able to perform
e. Text and items should be presented to
colleagues for moderation
PRACTICAL ADVICE ON ITEM WRITING
1.Scanning: present items in the order they are to be
found in the text
2. Do not include items that candidates may be able to
answer from general knowledge
3. Make items independent of each other
4. Be ready to make minor changes of a text to
improve the items.
CONCLUSIONS


Assessment of reading must include decoding skills
and reading comprehension strategies.
Include student attitudes and feelings toward
reading.
What is writing:
The act or art of forming letters and characters on paper,
wood, stone, or other material, for the purpose of
recording the ideas which characters and words express,
or of communicating them to others by visible signs.
“Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except
your mother."
(Richard Peck, writer of young adult fiction)
What is a test
A test or examination is an assessment intended
to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill,
aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in
many other topics.
What is the testing writing
A test or an assessment intended to measure
writing skill of students.
Writing Skills
1)
2)
3)
4)
Grammatical Skills – the ability to write correct
sentence
Stylistic Skills – the ability to manipulate sentences
and use language effectively
Mechanical Skills – the ability to use correctly those
conventions peculiar to the written language
Judgment Skills – the ability to write in an appropriate
manner for a particular audience in mind, together
with an ability to select, organize and order relevant
information
The ways to test writing
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Essay
Letter
Paragraph
Short story
Matching Items
Make a synopsis
Rearrange sentence into paragraph
How a writing test should be

Clearly defined purpose and audience for writing

Restrict students’ answers

Test only writing ability, nothing else

Well-defined and authentic task

Ensure long enough sample

Appropriate scales for scoring
Characteristics of writing tests
• Since current teaching of writing
emphasizes also strategies of
writing, the process should get
attention in testing writing as well as
the final product of writing.
The way to score
No
Criteria
score
1
Grammar
20%
2
Organization
20%
3
Content/Substance
20%
4
Fulfillment of purpose
20%
5
Vocabulary/word choice
20%
EVALUATION CRITERIA

Evaluation should be conducted when students
engage in their prepared conversations.
Choose the appropriate techniques
Interview
Formats
Responses to
audio/video
recorded
stimuli
Interaction
with fellow
candidates
Format 1 - Interview
Traditional
form
Relationship
testercandidate
One style of speech
is elicited
Questions and requests for
information
Try
Avoid
Pictures

Elicit descriptions
Role play
Does it really elicit
natural language?

Elicit other
language
functions
Interpreting
What do you think?
Is it always feasible?

Test production
and
comprehension
Prepared monologue

Should be used
only when the
candidate needs
the ability to
make prepared
presentations
Reading aloud

Should be used
only when the
reading ability
is a course
objective
FLUENCY OF SPEECH:

Based upon the smoothness, not speed, and
take into account use of hesitancy in
conversation.
PHRASING:

The grouping of words in meaningful phrases.
LISTENING COMPREHENSION:

This phase of evaluation is initially tested during
the prepared conversation section of the exam.
PRONUNCIATION:

Where it hinders communicative understanding.
EXPRESSION:

Use of tone, inflection, intonation, and volume .
The Importance of Listening

Listening is often implied as a component of
speaking
Types of Listening




Intensive: phonemes, words, intonation
Responsive: a greeting, command, question
Selective: TV , radio news items, stories
Extensive: listening for the gist, the main idea,
making inference
Micro and Macro Skills of Listening
Micro Skills

Attending to the smaller bits and chunks of
language, in more of bottom-up process
Macro Skills

Focusing on the larger elements involved in a
top-down approach
What Makes Listening Difficult
1. Clustering
Chunking-phrases, clauses, constituents
2. Redundancy
Repetitions, Rephrasing, Elaborations and
Insertions
3. Reduced Forms
Understanding the reduced forms that may
not have been a part of English learner’s past
experiences in classes where only formal
”textbook” language has been presented
4. Performance variables
Hesitations, False starts, Corrections, Diversion
5. Colloquial Language
Idioms, slang, reduced forms, shared
cultural knowledge
6. Rate of Delivery
Keeping up with the speed of delivery, processing
automatically as the speaker continues
7. Stress, Rhythm, and Intonation:
Correctly understanding prosodic elements of
spoken language, which is almost always much
more difficult than understanding the smaller
phonological bits and pieces.
8. Interaction:
Negotiation, clarification, attending signals,
turn taking, maintenance, termination
Designing Assessment Tasks:
Selective Listening
Selective listening, in which the test-taker listen
to a limited quantity of aural input and must
discern within it some specific information
A number of techniques have been used that
require selective listening.



Listening Cloze
Information Transfer
Sentence Repetition
Information Transfer



Information transfer: multiple-picture-cuedselection
Information transfer: single-picture-cued-verbalmultiple-choice
Information transfer: chart-filling
Information transfer: chart-filling
8:00
10:00
12:00
2:00
4:00
6:00
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
get up
get up
get up
get up
get up
Weekends
Designing assessment Test:
Extensive Listening

Listening to develop a top down, global
understanding of spoken language
Difficulty can be manipulated by:
The length of the word group
 The length of pauses
 The speed
 Complexity of the discourse, grammar and
vocabulary
 Scoring (spelling, grammatical, additional words,
replacement)

Buck (2001: p. 92)  p.136

“Every test requires some components of
communicative language ability, and no test
covers them all”
SCORING METHODS
FOR RESPONSIVE AND
EXTENSIVE WRITING
Holistic Scoring
Each point on a holistic scale is given systematic set of descriptors
to arrive score.
Weigle, 2002, p. 113
Primary Trait Scoring
Primary trait scoring focuses on “how well students
write within a narrowly defined range of discourse
(e. g. persuasion or explanation) (Weigle, 2002, p.
110).
Weigle, 2002, p. 111
Analytic Scoring
In analytic scoring, scripts are rated on several
aspects of writing or criteria rather than given a
single score. Depending on the purpose of the
assessment, scripts might be rated on such features
as content, organization, cohesion, register,
vocabulary, grammar, or mechanics.
Weigle, 2002, p. 114
Analytic Scoring
Example
Weigle, 2002, p. 116