CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
A. The Nature of Language Testing
1. The Definition of Test
Testing plays important roles in language teaching. Without testing, there is no reliable means of knowing how effective a teaching sequence has been (Thornbury, 2002: 129). Testing provides a form of feedback, both for learners and teachers.
Gronlund and Linn define testing as an instrument or systematic procedure for measuring a sample of behavior. Gronlund and Linn defines that it answers the question how individual perform, either in comparison with others or in comparison with domain of performance tasks.
2. The Reason for Testing
There are many reasons for testing which authors of different methodological books present and they divide them according to various criteria. Heaton (1990: 9) divides teacher’s reasons for testing into several categories: a. Finding out about progress
b. Encouraging students
c. Finding out about learning difficulties d. Placing students
e. Finding about proficiency
3. The Principles of Test
Every test should fulfil some criteria to be useful and full-value. There are some factors a testing needs to take:
a. Validity
Hughes (1989: 23) declares that a test is said to be valid if it measures accurately what is intended to measure. Hughes (1989: 23) also mentions some aspects of validity:
1) Content Validity
meant to be concerned. It is obvious that vocabulary test, for instance, must be made up of items testing knowledge or control vocabulary. 2) Criterion-related Validity
A test is said to have criterion-related validity if the test can be used to see how far results on the test agree with those provided by some independent and highly dependable assessment of the candidate’s ability. There are essentially two kinds of criterion-related validity: concurrent validity and predictive validity. Concurrent validity is established when the test and the criterion are administered at about the same time. While predictive validity concerns the degree to which a test can predict
candidates’ future performance. 3) Construct Validity
A test, part of test, or a testing technique is said to have construct validity if it can be demonstrated that it measures just the ability which it is supposed to measure. The word ‘construct’ refers to any underlying ability (or trait) which is hypothesized in a theory of language ability. 4) Face Validity
b. Reliability
Anastasi in Weir (1990: 31) said that a fundamental criterion against which any language test had to be judged is its reliability. The concern here is with how far we can depend on the results that a test produces or, in other words, could the results be produced consistently. Anastasi in Weir (1990: 32) also mentioned three aspects of reliability usually taken into account. The first concerns the consistency of scoring among different markers. The degree of inter–marker reliability is established by correlating the scores obtained by candidates from marker A with those from marker B.
It is also considered necessary to try and ensure that relevant sub-tests are internally consistent in the sense that all items in sub-test are judged to be measuring the same attribute. The third aspect of reliability is that of parallel-forms reliability, the requirements of which have to be borne in mind when future alternative forms of a test have to be devised
c. Practicality
B. Vocabulary
1. The Basic aspects of vocabulary
Vocabulary is the basic element in learning English that should be mastered well by learners. Learners should have a great number of words in their mind and know how to use them accurately in order to master all of the English skills which have to do with vocabulary. Harmer (1991: 153) says that if language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh. In other words, no matter how brilliantly one masters his or her English grammar, without the knowledge of vocabulary it is useless because words are the basis that creates the speech.
To know a word is a boarder term because we need to know several aspects of it. Ur in Pavlu described the individual aspects in this order: form, grammar, collocation, meaning, and word formation. Ur in Pavlu added that to know the form of a word means to know the pronunciation and spelling of a word. The order aspect is grammar if it is necessary, for example, when teaching irregular verb we should present the other two forms, as well. Another important thing is teaching collocation, so that students know in what context they can use the word.
hyponyms (lion, cat, zebra- animals). More advanced learners will probably deal with word formation in which we create new words by modification of the old ones, there are several ways how to form a new words such as compounding (second-hand), adding a prefix (in/decisive) or a suffix (comfort-able) etc. The last basic thing is to know the word class, which we usually distinguish eight word classes: noun, adjective, pronounce, numeral, verb, adverb, preposition, and conjunction.
2. Why Test Vocabulary
Thornbury (2002: 129) states that the main reason for testing is that it gives us information about how well our students proceed in their learning of English. It gives a useful feedback to both teacher and students. In addition, when the teacher announces her or his students that a vocabulary test is coming in a period of time, they will probably start to study the vocabulary harder than before, so it will have a positive effect. In general, testing helps to recycle vocabulary as well as to consolidate it.
in placement tests or diagnostic tests to find out students’ level of knowledge or in achievement tests at the end of the school year (Thornbury, 2002: 130).
3. What to Test
We have to decide about the purpose of such a test before giving a test to our students. According to the purpose, we design the test which is either
contextualized or de-contextualized. Contextualized test means that the
vocabulary is examined through a text whereas de-contextualized test there are only words without any text. If the teacher needs to test student’s knowledge of spelling, he or she can dictate words without any context. On the other hand, when we test meanings of words, we have to put them into a context. These contextualized tests can be further divided into tests that test active vocabulary or
passive vocabulary (Thornbury, 2002: 131).
4. The Vocabulary Testing Technique
a. Multiple Choice
Multiple choice is a question which consists of a so called stem and four options from which only one is correct. The examinee has to choose the right answer (Ur, 1991: 38). The biggest advantage of this kind of testing is that we do not have to worry about subjectivity because only one answer should be correct. Secondly, it is very easy and quick for the examiner to correct this test because he or she just puts ticks or crosses. On the other hand, Hughes (1989: 60) proves that it does not show the real level of someone’s abilities because the examiner or the teacher cannot discover the knowledge of grammar, for instance, because we do not know if the examinee can use it in writing or speaking. He explains that in multiple choice the chance for guess the right answer is about 33 percent which means that from 100 questions someone is able to guess about 33. The result is that the teacher cannot be really sure if the student has mastered the curriculum (Hughes, 1989: 60).
The other difficulty with multiple choice is that we have to find three
distracters which are items that would distract or confuse the examinee.
Therefore, it is hard to create a good multiple choice test. This causes problems with more correct answers or even no correct answer. This all means that it is very difficult and time-demining to write such a test (Hughes, 1989: 60).
recognize what the person answered as there can be seen circles A, B, C, or D (Hughes, 1989: 62). It means it can be prevented by giving several versions of tests. Here is the possible form of multiple choice:
He accused me of... lies. a. speaking
b. saying c. telling d. talking
b. Cloze Procedure
In the cloze procedure words are deleted from a text after allowing a few sentences of introduction. The deletion rate is mechanical set, usually between every fifth and eleventh word. Candidates have to fill each gap by supplying the word they think has been deleted (Weir, 1990: 46).
There are some advantages and disadvantages from cloze procedure. Weir (1990: 46) mentions the advantages of cloze procedure as follow:
1. Cloze tests are easy to construct and easily scored if the exact word scoring procedure is adopted. They are claimed to be valid indicators of overall language proficiency.
3. In the literature cloze tests are often feted as valid and uniform measures of reading comprehension.
Weir (1990: 47) also mentions the disadvantages of cloze procedure as follow:
1. Despite the arguments adduced in favour of cloze procedure, a number of doubts have been expressed, largely concerning its validity as a testing device. It has been shown to be irritating and unacceptable to students and doubt has been thrown on the underlying assumption that it randomly samples the elements in a text.
2. If one changes the text, changes the deletion rate, starts at a different place or alters the scoring procedure, one gets a different test in terms of reliability and validity coefficients and overall test difficulty.
3. The evidence is contradictory about the differing scoring methods to be adopted in marking a cloze procedure.
5. Perhaps the most crucial reservation is the question of what performance on a cloze test really tells us about a candidate’s language ability. It is difficult to translate scores on a cloze test to a description of what a candidate can or cannot do in real life.
c. Translation
