erkan's+testing+statement

Most of my students are good at listening and writing when these are compared to the reading and speaking skills. That’s is why the test is mostly reading based and an additional purpose of the test is to determine lacks of students in these contents. However it doesn’t mean that there is no listening and writing tests in it. They are also included in order to be able to provide students get good grades and feedback on them as well. OKAY. BEWARE....SOMETIMES TESTING-TEACHING BECOMES A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY, I>E. WE DON'T TEST WHAT STUDENTS CAN'T LEARN, SO THEY NEVER HAVE TO LEARN. :) || What tasks will you use to test specific elements within the domain? (e.g., if the domain is 'language instruction' in terms of academic writing, tasks may include summarizing, paraphrasing, choosing best topic sentences, etc.) || · The use of target language is based on language instruction as the students are not efficient or not equipped with the required skills yet for free communication or handling of communication test without use of native language. So I regard that evaluating them with pieces of language in which they are required to understand and answer the given grammatical content and vocabulary rather than requiring them to provide a communicative test as it would decrease the face validity as well. OKAY. 
 * ~ Criteria ||~ General explanation. ||~ Your detail about your particular test ||
 * ~ Purpose of the test || Why are you testing?
 * Think in terms of making inferences about the language ability of the test takers, and specific decisions that you will make based on these inferences.
 * Also consider the potential washback. || I’m testing my students reading capabilities and understanding of particular grammar points such as past tense, past perfect and present perfect.
 * ~ Describing the TLU domain || In what domain will you test the TLU (target language use): is the domain
 * 'real-lfe' (i.e., situations where language is used primarily for communication) or
 * 'language instruction' (i.e., situations where language is used for the purposes of teaching and learning of language.)

At the initial part of the test reading will be placed and by this text the comprehension capabilities of the students with the understanding of some grammatical points are aimed to be evaluated. For these purpose they are asked to answer three comprehension questions in full sentences. Following that they are required to do a True&False task.

Within the next part students are provided a ‘’fill in the blank task’’ aiming to assess students understanding of Past Participle, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous  tenses.

In the third part is composed of tasks on listening and writing. For the listening part students listen to a dialogue about two friends who haven’t seen each other for years. These two friends meet each other coincidentally and talk briefly about what they have done since the last time they saw each other and use of Past Participle, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous  tenses mostly take place within the dialogue. By the way their understanding of these tenses and pronunciation is evaluated. Students listen to the dialogue just two times and are asked to complete the dialogue. || Age:14-15 Mother Tongue: Turkish Nationality: Turkish Education context: 10th grade High School. Background : They are second year high school students and new in department of language. Their English level is intermediate. They are good at listening however their reading is not as good as listening except one or two students. For this reason in this test reading is more focused in order to be able to determine students’ lacks and give feedback or make them up. Also this is the first exam of the terms and the subjects covered is limited. Their knowledge of language involves understanding of fundamental grammatical points and ability to communicate for basic needs in daily life. But their pronunciation is not efficient as they are at the beginning of the first term and it will be focused in the following phases of the course. OKAY ||
 * ~ Defining the construct || What is the basis of your test? Is it
 * 1) syllabus-based (e.g. define the construct according to the components of languge ability as given in the course syllabus, or linked to learning objectives and outcomes)
 * 2) theory-based (i.e. define the construct according to components of language ability based on a theoretical model of language ability; linked to descriptors of ablity in context, e.g. ALTE 'can do' statements of ability) || The construct of the test is theory based in an eclectic way. ECLECTIC?  The applied methods while preparing the test are composed of reading approach, functional and notional approach, task based approach and audiolingual method. ||
 * ~ Characteristics of the test-takers || These will include:
 * 1) Personal characteristics (age, gender, L1, nationality, etc.) and educational context (primary, secondary, higher, vocational, etc.)
 * 2) Backround knowledge (i.e. will the test make assumptions about the test-taker's world knowledge, language functions, e.g. register, intonation, language skills, e.g. making inferences, etc. that may contribute to a test bias)
 * 3) General level and profile of language ability (link to CEF)
 * 4) Potential affective response to test (i.e. how will students feel about doing the test. What factors might make lead to positive or negative affective responses.) || Students’ Profile
 * ~ Plan for evaluating test usefulness || What factors will you take into consideration to evaluate the usefulness of the test according to reliability, validity, practicality, authenticity and washback. How will you collect the data and analyze the usefulness? || As the test aims to measure skills of students’ especially receptive skills by providing materials to be comprehended, it is a reliable and also it is authentic since the reading and listening part provide real life situations. However the practicality and validity is not satisfying as much as multiple choice tests. So it will take a little bit longer to evaluate, but washback is much more useful and opportunistic for improvement of student skills and teacher skills. GOOD. WE'LL SEE HOW IT WORKS OUT. ||
 * ~ List of resources you will use in developing the test || List the explicit resources (who will be involved in designing the test, what materials/equipment/sources will you use, how much time will it take you to design the text.) || One of my colloquies colleagues evaluated the test after it has been completed and also the director of the language department or an authority from administration. WOW. THAT'S GREAT. The resources contain the course book of the lesson( The New English File UNIT/page? ), an additional source (Essential Grammar in Use UNIT/page? ), Internet-data base URL/page? . ||