LANGUAGE

TECHNIQUES
Stephanie R. Santos
Mark Ray P. Sioson

WHAT IS A TEST?
It is a method ofmeasuringa

persons ability or knowledge

in a given domain.
The method may be intuitive
and informal Or it may be
quite explicit and structured.

WHAT IS A TEST?
It

is a set of techniques,
procedures, and items that
constitute an instrument of some
sort that requires performance or
activity on the part of the testtaker (and sometimes on the
part of the tester as well).

WHY TEST?
It

must be emphasized that the

evaluation of student performance for
purposes of comparison or selection
is only one of the functions of a test.
A good classroom test will also help
to locate the precise areas of
difficulty encountered by the class or
by the individual student.

WHY TEST?
The test should also enable

the teacher to ascertain which

parts
of
the
language
program have been found
difficulty by the class. In this
way the teacher can evaluate
the effectiveness of the
syllabus as well as the

WHAT ARE TEST TECHNIQUES?

Quite simply they are means of
eliciting
behavior
from
candidates which will tell us
about their language abilities.
What we need are techniques
which:
1. will elicit behavior which is a
reliable and valid indicator of the

WHAT ARE TEST

TECHNIQUES?
2. will elicit behavior which

can be reliably scored;

3. are as economical of time
and effort as possible;
4. will have a beneficial
backwash effect

MULTIPLE CHOICE
Multiple choice items take many forms,
but their basic structure is as follows.
There is a stem:
Enidhas been here ________ half
an hour.
and a number of opinions, one of which
is correct, the others being
distractors:
A. during
B.for

MULTIPLE CHOICE
Perhaps

the
most
obvious
advantage of multiple choice, is
that scoring can be perfectly
reliable. Scoring should also be
rapid and economical. A further
considerable advantage is that,
since in order to respond the
candidate has only to make a
mark on the paper, it is possible
to include more items than would

MULTIPLE CHOICE
The advantages of multiple choice
technique
were
so
highly
regarded at one time that it
almost seemed that it was the
only way to test. While many
laymen
have
always
been
skeptical of what could be
achieved through multiple choice
testing, it is only fairly recently
that the techniques limitations

The difficulties with multiple

choice are as follows.
1. The technique tests only

recognition knowledge
2. Guessing may have a
considerable but unknowable
effect on test scores
3. The technique severely
restricts what can be tested

The difficulties with multiple

choice are as follows.

4. It is very difficult to write

successful items
5. Backwash may be harmful
6. Cheating may be facilitated

Cloze test

It its original form, the cloze

procedure involves deleting a
number of words in a
passage, leaving blanks and
requiring the person taking
the test to attempt to replace
the original words. After a
short unmutilated lead-in it
is
usually
about
every

Cloze test
What is a college?
Confusion exists concerning
the real purposes, aims, and
goals of a college. What are
these?
What
should
a
college be?

Some believe that the chief

function 1. _______ even a liberal
arts college is 2. ______
vocational one. I feel that the 3.
_________ function of a college,
while important, 4. ________
nonetheless secondary. Others
profess that the 5. _________
purpose of a college is to 6.
_________ paragons of moral,
mental, and spiritual 7. ________

Cloze test
The cloze procedure seemed

very attractive. Cloze tests

were
easy
to
instruct,
administer and score.
Unfortunately, cloze could
not deliver all that was
promised on its behalf.

Cloze test
Even

if some underlying
ability is being measured
through the procedure, it is
not
possible
to
predict
accurately from this what is
peoples ability with respect
to the variety of separate
skills (speaking, writing, etc.)

Cloze test
It turned out that different
passages gave different results,
as did the deletion of different
sets of words in the same
passage.
Another matter for concern was
the fact that intelligent and
educated native speakers varied
quite considerably in their ability

The C-test
The C-test is a variety of cloze,

instead of whole words it is the

second half of every word which
is deleted.
The advantage of the C-test
over the cloze test are that exact
scoring is necessary and that
shorter passages are possible.
Compare with the cloze test, it
also takes a little space and not

Example:
There are usually five men in the crew
of a fire engine. One o_____ them
dri____ the eng_____. Eh lea_____ sits
bes_____ the dri_____. The ot_____
firemen s_____ inside t_____ cab
o_____ the f_____ engine. T_____
leader h_____ usually be_____ in t_____
fight diff______ sorts o_____ fires.
S_____, when t______ firemen arr_____
at a fire, it is always the leader who
decides how to fight a fire. He tells

Dictation
Dictation tests give results similar to

those obtained from cloze tests. In

predicting overall ability they have
the advantage of involving listening
ability. Certainly they are easy to
create and administer. But they are
certainly easy to score. Because of
this scoring problem partial dictation
is often used to overcome it. In this,
part of what is dictated is already
printed on the candidates answer
sheet. The candidate has simply to fill

Dictation
Like cloze, dictation is a useful

technique where estimates of

overall ability are needed. When
administering it, it is usual to
begin with the entire passage
straight
through.
Then
the
passage is read out sentence by
sentence, not too slowly, one
after the other. Enough time
should
be
given
to
the

The following are some of the

most common types of
objective items used to test
awareness of the grammatical
features of the language.
multiple-choice items
error-recognition items
rearrangement items

completion items
transformation items
items involving the changing

of words
broken sentence items
combination items
addition items

MULTIPLE CHOICE GRAMMAR

ITEMS, ITEM TYPES

The type of multiple-choice item

favored by many constructors of
grammar tests is the incomplete
statement type, with a choice of
four or five options. These items
may be written in any of the
following ways:

Type 1

Tom ought not to (A.

tellB. having toldC. be
telling D. have told) me your
secret, but he did.

Type 2
Tom ought not to me your
secret, but he did.
A.tell
B.having told
C.be telling
D.have told

Type 3
Tom ought not to
A. tell me your
secret, but he B.
did.
having
told
C. be
telling
D. have
told.

Type 4
Tom ought not tohave toldme
your secret, but he did.
A.No change
B.Tell
C.Having told
D.Be telling

Item types 2 and 3 are preferable

to 1 because the option do not
interrupt the flow of meaning in
the sentences: these items
present the entire sentence so
that it can be read at a glance.
Unfortunately, type 1 confuses
the reader because of the long
parenthesis (i.e. the four options
occurring
betweenought
not
toandme).

Item type 4 shows the correct (or

an incorrect) form as part of the
sentence in such a way that it
cannot be compared on equal
terms with the other options: a
correct option, for instance, is
generally easier to recognize
when it appears in the framework
of the sentence than as part of a
list of distractors.

Type 5
A. Tom ought not to tell me your
secret, but he did.
B. Tom ought not to having told
me your secret, but he did.
C. Tom ought not to be telling me
your secret, but he did.
D. Tom ought not to have told me
your secret, but he did.

Another item type appears below,

but it is not recommended since
it requires the testees to spend
time on unnecessary reading. Not
only is it uneconomical but it
does not present the problem
(i.e. the options) as clearly as
item type 2 does.

The following method is useful for

testing short answers and responses:
Type 6
Tom ought not to have told anyone
the secret.
A. So ought youC. Neither you
oughtnt.
B. Neither ought you.D. So
oughtnt you.

 In type 7 requires the

students
to
select
the
alternative
which
is
true
according to the information
conveyed in each sentence.
Such an item may be included
either in a test of reading
comprehension or in a test of
understanding of the sentence.

Type 7
Tom ought not to have told me.
A.Tom did not tell me but he
should.
B.Perhaps Tom may not tell me.
C.Tom told me but it was wrong of
him.
D.It was necessary for Tom not to
tell me.

TRANSFORMATION ITEMS
The transformation type of item is

extremely useful for testing ability to

produce structures in the target
language and helps to provide a
balance when included in tests
containing multiple-choice items. It is
the one objective item type which
comes closest to measuring some of
the skills tested in composition
writing,
although
transforming
sentences is different from producing

Rewrite each of the following

sentences in another way,
beginning each new sentence
with the words given. Make any
changes that are necessary but
do not change the general
meaning of the sentence.
1. I havent written you for a long
time.
Its a long time

Other transformation items giving

some idea of the range of areas
that can be covered in this way
are:

1. It was impossible to work under

those conditions.
Working
.
2. I dont think its necessary for
you to stay any longer.

CONSTRUCTING ITEMS INVOLVING THE CHANGING OF

WORDS

This type of item is useful for testing

the students ability to use correct
tenses and verb forms. It is a
traditional type of test but the layout
is improved in this particular case by
providing blanks on the right of the
text for completion. The continuity of
the text is not impaired more than
necessary by having both blanks and
underlined words inserted in the
sentences. Thus the risk of obscuring

1. Verbs; tenses;
etc.
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THANK YOU FOR

LISTENING