1. Communicative Language assessment Ministry of Education Seminars & Workshops Jahanbakhsh Nikoopour nikoopour2000@gmail.com

2. 1.The Traditional Approach  grammar-translation approaches to language teaching  Translation, free composition, essay writing, & grammatical analysis  difficult to score objectively  no statistical techniques applied to validate the tests  simple, but unfair to students  The subjective judgment of teacher

3. 2.The Structuralist Approach  audio-lingual and related teaching methods  objectivity, reliability, and validity of tests considered  measure discrete structure points  multiple-choice format (standardized tests)  follow scientific principles, have trained linguists and language testers

4. 3.The Integrative Approach  Involves the testing of language in context & is concerned primarily with meaning & the total communicative effect of discourse  Is concerned with a global view of lang  Is often designed to assess the learner’s ability to use two or more skills together  Does not separate lang skills into neat divisions to improve test reliability  Cloze & dictation best characterize the integrative tests

5. 4.The Communicative Approach  Chomsky’s (1965) distinction of competence and performance Competence & performance  Hymes’s (1972) proposal of communicative competence  Canale & Swain’s (1980) framework of communicative competence: 1.Grammatical competence 2. Sociolinguistic competence 3.Discourse competence 4.Strategic competence

6. Framework of Communicative Language Ability

7.  Bachman’s (1990)’s framework of communicative language ability:  Language competence: grammatical, sociolinguistic, and discourse competence (Canale & Swain):  organizational competence  grammatical competence  textual competence  pragmatic competence  illocutionary competence  sociolinguistic competence  Strategic competence: performs assessment, planning, and execution functions in determining the most effective means of achieving a communicative goal  Psychophysiological mechanisms: characterize the channel (auditory, visual) and mode (receptive, productive)

8. Communicative Language Ability

9. 4.The communicative approach  Based on the needs of the learners  Use is concerned with how people actually use language for various purposes while usage concerns the formal patterns of language  Communicative tests are concerned primarily, if not totally, with how language is used in communication  The attempt to measure different language skills in communicative tests is based on the view of language referred to as the divisibility hypothesis  CTs cover the four lang skills & are designed on the basis of communicative competence

10. Four principles of communicative test design  1. start from somewhere: test makers should state clearly what they expect test takers to perform  2. concentration on content: Tasks should be constructed based on the testees’ relevant needs  3. bias for best: test makers should create a test that can exploit test takers’ performance at their best  4. working on washback: test writers should create clear scoring criteria to both teachers and test takers. Course objectives and test content are also put into consideration in the hope of promoting positive washback.

11. Five requirements for setting up a communicative test  Meaningful communication: The test meets their personal needs. It promote & activate language which is useful for them.  Authentic situation: Lang cannot be meaningful if it is devoid of context  Unpredictable language input: In reality, it is impossible to predict what speakers will say  Creative language output  Integrated language skills: the use of combined language skills

12. Qualities of a good test  Test reliability  Construct validity  Authenticity  Interactiveness  Impact  practicality

13. authenticity  The language in the test is as natural as possible  Items are contextualized rather than isolated  Topics are relevant and meaningful for learners  Some thematic organization to items is provided  Tasks represent, or closely approximate, real-world tasks

14. Types of assessment practices  Diagnostic assessment  Formative assessment  Summative assessment  Self-assessment  Authentic assessment  Alternative assessment  Performance assessment

15. Main benefits of self-assessment  Diminished intimidation  Personal involvement and attitude  Awareness  Motivation  Self-direction  Beneficial long-term and post- course effects

16. Authentic assessment  Performance assessment- any form of assessment in which the student constructs a response orally or in writing. It requires the learner to accomplish a complex and significant task, while bringing to bear prior knowledge, recent learning, and relevant skills to solve realistic or authentic problems (O’Malley & Valdez, 1996; Herman, et. al., 1992).

17. Alternative assessment  Self and peer-assessments  Oral production-student self-checklist, peer checklist, offering and receiving holistic rating of an oral presentation  Listening comprehension- listening to TV or radio broadcasts and checking comprehension with a partner  Writing-revising work on your own, peer- editing  Reading- reading textbook passages followed by self-check comprehension questions, self-assessment of reading habits (page 416, Brown, 2001)

18. Examples of authentic assessment  Portfolio assessment  Student self-assessment  Peer assessment  Student-teacher conferences  Oral interviews  Writing samples  Projects or exhibitions  Experiments or demonstrations

19. Characteristics of Performance- based assessment  Constructed response  Higher-order thinking  Authenticity  Integrative  Process and product  Depth versus breadth

20. Four Steps in test construction  1. Determining  What kind of test is to be made?  What is the precise purpose?  What abilities are to be tested?  How detailed & accurate the results must be?  How important is the backwash effect?  What constraints are set by the unavailability of expertise, facilities, time of construction, administration, and scoring?  Who will take the test?  What is the scope of the test?

21. 2. planning  Describing the purpose of the test  Describing the characteristics of test takers, the nature of the population of the examinees for whom the test is designed  Defining the ability we want to measure  Developing a plan for evaluating the qualities of test usefulness: reliability, validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact, & practicality  Identifying resources & developing a plan for their allocation & management  Determining format 7 timing of the test  Determining levels of performance  Determining scoring procedures

22. 3.Writing Communicative test writers should:  Be experienced in test construction  Be quite knowledgeable of the content of the test  Have the capacity in using language clearly and economically  Be ready to sacrifice time and energy

23. 4. Reviewing  The test items should not be reviewed immediately after its construction, but after some considerable time  It should be reviewed by other teachers or testers (it is preferable if native speakers are avaiable to review the test)

24. Assessing Listening  Identifying letters/numbers/words/ names  Identifying functions/conversational expressions  The item format  Listen & put a check  Listen & draw  Listen & circle/match/underline  Listen & write

25. Assessing speaking  Responding to conversational expressions  Identifying & saying the names of objects  Answering questions about the items in a picture  The item format  Interviewing (the examiner asks questions about the students)  Picture naming ( the examiner shows a picture and asks the students to label the item)  Picture description (the examiner asks questions about the items in a picture)  Role playing (the examinees role play the conversations)

26. Assessing Reading & writing  Identifying word-meaning relation  Understanding simple statements  Understanding simple questions  The item format  Look/read & put a check or cross  Look/read & draw  Look/read & underline  Look/read & write  Look/read & circle  Look/read & match