The importance of designing a test for english classes

As we know, nowadays the innovation has generated the extensive preparatory work at schools. Educational institutions have been provided with teachers. An extensive work has been carried out to advance teachers’ skills and train them to work with first-graders.

Teaching of certain subjects in foreign languages in higher education institutions is another this year’s innovation. They are mostly technical subjects and international disciplines. Experts believe that this approach will further help the graduates to communicate with foreign colleagues, to read and analyze foreign editions. As today, teaching and learning foreign languages are very important we have known that everybody who teaches, must know how to assess and evaluate his/her pupils or students.

Assessment is the process of gathering information on student learning.

Evaluation is the process of analysing, reflecting upon, and summarizing assessment information, and making judgements and decisions based on the information collected. When we talk about assessing and evaluation process just we think about testing or taking a test or the ways of testing and also its advantages and disadvantages.

A test may be defined as an activity whose main purpose is to conyey (usually to the tester) how well the testee knows or can do something. This is in contrast to practice, whose main purpose is sheer learning. Learning may of course, result from a test, just as feedback on knowledge may be one of the spin-offs of a practice activity: the distinction is in the main goal. [1]

It is often conventionally assumed that tests are mostly used for assessment:

the test gives a score which is assumed to define the level of knowledge of the testee. This may be in order to decide whether he or she is suitable for a certain job or admission to an institution, has passed a course, can enter a certain class. But in fact testing and assessment overlap only partially: there are other ways of assessing students (an overview of assignments over a long period, for example, or the teacher’s opinion, or self-evaluation) and there are certainly other reasons for testing.

As a teacher we should know how to design our own test. This should be for a learner population we know: a class we, as a new teacher or as an experienced, teach or have taught, or the kind of class we have in the past been a member of ourselves. Ideally, of course, the test should be one that can be integrated into our own teaching programme with our own class, and that you will have a chance to administer in practice.

The material to be tested should, similarly be part of a syllabus and teaching

programme we are familiar with: perhaps a section of a coursebook, or certain

elements of a set curriculum.

As a new teacher or even experienced we have to know how to design a test or testee. Below we have tried to analyze some designing ways of test. We’ve opened the essence of designing a test according to some stages:

Stage: Preparation

Prepare your test. It is a good idea to list in writing all the material that you want your test to cover: you can then refer back to the list during and after the test-writing to see if you have included all you intended.

Stage: Performance

If possible, administer your test to a class of learners; if not, ask colleagues to try doing it themselves.

Stage: Feedback

Look at how your test was done, and ask the testee and how they felt about it.

So, we have use the period leading up to the test in order to do all we can to ensure that my students will succeed in it. Thus, the tests are announced at least a week in advance in order to give them plenty of time to prepare and details are given of when, where and how long the test will be. The class is also told as precisely as possible what material is to be tested, what sort of items will be used, and how answers will be assessed.

Bibliography

1. Brown J. B. Textbook Evaluation Form. The Language Teacher. 21 (10),1997.,p.15-21.
2. Heaton J. B. Classroom Testing. London: Longman.1996.
3. Hughes A. Testing for Language Teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 1989.
4. Jemery Harmer “How to Teach English”. Addison Wesley Longman, 1998.

References

1. Alderson C ., Clapham C. and Wall D. Language Test Construction and Eualuation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.,1995.