A Summary of Approaches to Language Testing: From Classical to Performance-Based by: I.G.A Lokita Purnamika Utami & Rina Sari

A Summary of

Approaches to Language Testing: From Classical to Performance-Based

by:

I.G.A Lokita Purnamika Utami & Rina Sari

Historically, language-testing trends and practices have followed the shifting sands of teaching methodology. For example, in the 1950s, an era of behaviorism and special attention to contrastive analysis, testing focused on specific language elements such as the phonological, grammatical, and lexical contrasts between two languages. In the 1970s and 1980s, communicative theories of language brought with them a more integrative view of testing in whlch specialists claimed that ~ the whole of the communicative event was considerably greater than the sum of its linguistic elements (Clark, 1983, p. 432). Today, test designers are still challenged in their quest for more authentic, valid instruments that simulate real world interaction.

Discrete Point 

Discrete point tests are constructed on the assumption that language can be broken down into its component parts and that those parts can be tested successfully. These components are the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and various units of language (discrete points) of phonology/graphology, morphology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse. It was claimed that an overall language proficiency test, then, should sample all four skills and as many linguistic discrete points as possible. 

 Integrative Testinng. integrative testing is he opposite of discrete points. It is believed that language should be assessed integratedly. The examples of integrative tests: cloze tests and dictations. A cloze test is a reading passage (perhaps 150 to 300 words) in which roughly every sixth of the seventh word has been deleted; the test-taker is required to supply words that fit into those blanks. Dictation is a familiar language-teaching technique that evolved into a testing technique.

Communicative Language Testing

Communicative testing presented challenges to test designers. Test constructors began to identify the kinds of real world tasks that language learners were called upon to perform. It was clear that the contexts for those tasks were extraordinarily widely varied and that the sampling of tasks for anyone assessment procedure needed to be validated by what language users actually do with language.

Weir (1990, p. 11 ) reminded his readers that “ to measure language proficiency ... account must now be taken of: where, when, how, with whom, and why language is to  be used, and on what topics, and with what effect." And the assessment field became more and more concerned with the authenticity of tasks and the genuineness of texts.

Bachman and Palmer (1996, p.700) emphasized the importance of strategic competence (the ability to employ communicative strategies to compensate for breakdowns as well as (to enhance the rhetorical effect of utterances) in the process of communication. All elements of the model, especially pragmatic and strategic abilities, needed to be included in the constructs of language testing and in the actual performance required of test takers.

Performance-Based

Performance based assessment of language typically involves oral production, written production, open-ended responses, integrated performance (across skill areas), group performance, and other interactive tasks. In technical terms, higher content validity is achieved because learners are measured in the process of performing the targeted linguistic acts.

 To an English language-teaching context, performance-based assessment means that we may have a difficult time distinguishing between formal and informal assessment. If we rely a little less on formally structured tests and a little more on evaluation while students are performing various tasks, we will be taking some steps toward meeting the goals of performance-based testing.

A characteristic of many (but not all) performance-based language assessments

is the presence of interactive tasks. In such cases, the assessments involve learners in actually performing the behavior that we want to measure. In interactive tasks, test-takers are measured in the act of speaking, requesting, responding, or in combining listening and speaking, and in integrating reading and writing. Paper-and pencil tests certainly do not elicit such communicative performance. A prime example of an interactive language assessment procedure is an oral interview. The test-taker is required to listen accurately to someone else and to respond appropriately. If care is taken in the test design process, language elicited and volunteered by the student can be personalized and meaningful, and tasks can approach the authenticity of real-life language use.

Reference

Brown, H. D. 2003. Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. White     Plains, NY: Pearson Education.