How Can Classroom Tests Help Students?

Classroom language testing in its all 3 phases; pre-test, test and post-test; helps learners in different aspects. These aspects could be related to the language learning or to the future life in general. Before discussing the advantages of the classroom language tests for learners, we need to define the term test and other related terms, evaluation and assessment.

Staring from the big circle evaluation is "the process of gathering information in order to determine the extent to which a language program meets its goals" (Loannou and Pavlou, 2003, as cited in socyberty.com). This definition shows that evaluation deals with the whole educational elements to find out whether the general goals were achieved or not. Assessment takes place at the middle circle as a tool of evaluation. Nunan (2004, p118, as cited in socyberty.com) defines assessment as "the set of processes by which we judge students learning."  It is obvious from the definition that assessment concerns with a more specific educational element that is learners' performance. Small circle represents test which is defined as "one of the procedures that can be used to assess child's performance. A test has a certain objective, for example, to see to what extent a child understand a written text." (Loannou and Pavlou, 2003, p.4, as cited in socyberty.com).

The aforementioned definitions show that testing is one of many instruments that help us to answer many questions that are related to the teaching/learning process such as, to what extent do our learners reach? Are we, as teachers, doing well in class? ...

But what are the good things that learners can gain from classroom language test? To answer this question I will talk about each phase of classroom test taking starting with the pre-test phase. Tests or marked tasks derive learners to make real revision or study to get good marks. This will help learners to go over lessons and try to understand them. If the learner finds difficulty in certain points he will try hardly to get the correct answer by asking the teacher or even a classmate. Preparing for the tests or marked tasks involve searching for some extra help using the web which might helps learner to understand a piece of information through different resources specially with the availability of multimedia.

The second phase is the test taking. In this phase learners start to use the main four skills independently. They read/listen to comprehend the instruction, they negotiate the meaning to difficult or unfamiliar words after trying to guess their meaning, they follow the roles of writing …etc. This will help learners to use language in more authentic setting. Tests usually focus on important knowledge i.e. knowledge that is needed either for upper stages on for the real life situations.

The last phase is post-test. In this phase learners get benefits of feedback from teachers. Discussing mistake correction with learners one by one helps them to know how they can answer using the context. Learners may motivated by their scoring either to keep it high or to improve it. Regular tests make learners in a continuous contact with the subjects that they suppose to study. Crooks (1988, as cited in Gibbs & Simpson, P 12) mentioned that tests, as self-evaluation, help learners to track their progress. They also help them to feel the sense of achievement.

To sum up, although tests are designed by the teachers to give them an overview about the efficiently of what they do in the class and about their learners progress, learners can get benefits from these tests in different phases and aspects. Each phase of the test has its advantages. For the learners either in the language learning processes as in going over and over subjects, looking for the information using different resources, using the skills authentically and motivating them to do better in their upcoming tests or in their future life as classroom tests prepare them for more important tests like placement tests and job interviews.

References

- Gibbs, G & Simpson, C (2004) ‘Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning’, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Issue 1

- Testing, testing… what is a language test?, Oxford University Press

- socyberty.com

Positive washback on Curriculum Designing

Curriculum design is a phase of curriculum development phases. It falls between two phases, planning and implementing[1]. Tyler's curriculum development model[2] shows that curriculum designing consists of two processes that are selecting & organizing of learning experiences. Designers need to test the curriculum in authentic settings to measure its validity and efficiency. The next paragraph will discuss the positive washback on curriculum design processes.

Testing the curriculum in authentic settings provides designers with a great deal of information about their work. From test results designers can determine wither the learning experiences that they select and organize work to achieve the desirable objectives or not. Test helps designers to measure the efficiency of the provided teaching/learning activities.  It also gives a clear view about the quality of the chosen experiences. Designers may re-sequence or re-grade some experiences in accordance with the test results. Test also helps in avoiding unnecessary details in the content (redundancy). There is a possibility that the content is good but it is presented in a way that does not suite the target students; in this case, designers have the opportunity to represent it in an interactive way. One of the information that test provides and need to be dealt with carefully is students' needs and interests. Designing curriculum according to students' needs and interests increases the chance of their learning autonomy. In terms with teaching, test shows wither, the followed methods are sufficient to achieve the objectives or not.

The aforementioned positive washback helps designers to avoid defects in the curriculum and to enhance strengths. This kind of washback comes as a result of a well constructed test i.e. to get such washback we need a test that have the characteristics of the good test.

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[1] http://bit.ly/SXY5s0 P:8

[2] Same reference P:5

Judging the Appropriateness of an Evaluative Tool

A Teacher evaluates the appropriateness of the evaluative tool twice, one as he chooses it and the other as he gets the feedback.  For each phase, various factors for judging the appropriateness should be taken into consideration. In the both phases the teacher might deal with the same factors but in a different evaluative way.

While choosing the evaluative tool age, in my opinion, is the most important factor that affects the appropriateness judgment. For a young learner the tool should be motivational i.e. it should encourage learners to do their best for example by using role play, student portfolio, new apps … Another factor is the skill/area that is evaluated. Evaluative tools vary in their appropriateness and efficiency from one skill to another. Written tests are not the best tool to evaluate the ability of communication while, in this case, role-play can give more trusted results than interview. Individual differences play a major role in choosing the appropriate tool.  A Teacher may divide his class into groups in terms of the evaluative tool. For example, while testing speaking for shy learners, teacher can evaluate them by using interview. Then he evaluates them in a small role-play group. After that, they may participate in role-playing or oral presentation in front of the whole class. Any evaluation has objectives. Objectives should be counted while judging the appropriateness of the tool. It is obvious that not all tools give the same quality while measuring certain objectives. For instance, measuring oral comprehension is best done by using verbal tools rather than written ones. Difficulty of using the tool is a factor in determining its suitability. Teacher needs to make sure that his students do not find any difficulty in using the tool. With new tools it is better to use it first in small quizzes to have a clear view difficulties that you students may face. "Time is a crucial factor in any issue" therefore teacher needs to consider time while choosing the evaluative tool.

On the other hand, teacher reevaluates the evaluative tool after finishing evaluation. Some factors might be the same but with more and clear evidences. When we come to the objectives, teachers can judge to how extent the tool achieves them depending on students' results. Teachers can get some information that help them in judging on the tool suitability from students and their reaction toward the tool. The used tool will affect students' performance in a way or another; in any case, this effect helps in judging the appropriateness of the tool.

The previous paragraphs talk about judging the appropriateness of the evaluative tool before and after the evaluation. Each paragraph presents some factors that should be considered while this judgment such as students age, skill or area which we want to evaluate, individual differences, objectives, difficulty of using the tool and time. These factors and more help teacher in planning and implementing the evaluation effectively.