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Cross-language comparability of language tests: Year 12 examinations in Estonia

The Third EALTA Conference Krakow, 19–21 May 2006. Cross-language comparability of language tests: Year 12 examinations in Estonia. Ülle Türk ulle.turk@ut.ee. Research question. How to ensure the comparability of different foreign language Year 12 examinations?

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Cross-language comparability of language tests: Year 12 examinations in Estonia

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  1. The Third EALTA Conference Krakow, 19–21 May 2006 Cross-language comparability of language tests: Year 12 examinations in Estonia Ülle Türk ulle.turk@ut.ee

  2. Research question • How to ensure the comparability of different foreign language Year 12 examinations? • Why would the examinations need to be comparable? • What does comparability mean in this particular case? ulle.turk@ut.ee

  3. Overview • Background to Year 12 examinations • Year 12 examinations in foreign languages • Year 12 examinations in English and German • Reading • Conclusions and way forward ulle.turk@ut.ee

  4. Year 12 examinations = national school-leaving examinations established in 1997 • centrally developed, administered and marked • test the learning outcomes of the National Curriculum (2002) • contain tasks at different levels of difficulty • results on a 100-point scale • offered in 13 subjects • four foreign languages:English, French, German, Russian • students required to take three examinations:mother tongue + two others ulle.turk@ut.ee

  5. Foreign language examinations • National Curriculum for foreign languages • two compulsory foreign languages • FL A: starting in grades 1–3; 3 hrs per week/ 2 hrs per week • FL B: starting in grades 4–6; 3 hrs per week/ 2 hrs per week • level B2 in ONE foreign language by the end of Year 12 • Ministry regulations on the development, administration and grading of examinations and reporting results • five papers: listening and reading comprehension, speaking, writing, language structures • equally weighted (20 points each) • High-stakes examinations • results used for university entrance • foreign language requirement: English, French or German ulle.turk@ut.ee

  6. Questions • Does 93 in English reflect a significantly higher level of competence than 92? • Does 93 in the examination of 2006 reflect the same level of competence as 93 in the examination of 2004 (or 2001)? • Is 63 in English the same as 63 in German, French or Russian? • What does ‘the same’ mean? • The same level of competence?  B2 • The level of competence reached after the same amount of work/ same number of classroom hours? • US Foreign Service Institute (Jackson & Kaplan, 1999: 78) • US Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (MacWhinney 1995: 294) • Threshold Level (Trim) ulle.turk@ut.ee

  7. Year 12 examinations in FLs 2001 2004 Mean % No No Mean% English 8488 64.1 9099 66.6 1408 1076 German 66.0 66.7 445 509 69.4 72.3 Russian 75.4 79.6 French 67 63 ulle.turk@ut.ee

  8. German & English: reading paper • 50 minutes • Three texts with tasks • Length of texts: 1500 words • No of tasks: • German: one task per text • English: one or two tasks per text • No of items • German: 20 • English: 40 ulle.turk@ut.ee

  9. Reading: mean scores Lang Year Paper Text 1 Text 2 Text 2 English 2001 61% 71% 72%/66% 69%/35% 2004 68% 78% 75% 57% German 2001 61% 67% 67% 55% 2004 60% 84% 62% 46% ulle.turk@ut.ee

  10. Text types German English 2001 & 2004 2001 2004 Short adverts Text 1: Newspaper interview Opinion article Text 2: Short news/ opinion articles Short book reviews Magazine article Text 3: Newspaper/magazine article (600–700 words) Newspaper article Newspaper article ulle.turk@ut.ee

  11. Task types German English 2001 & 2004 2001 2004 Task 1: matching (person + advert) matching (question + answer) 1) inserting sentences into text 2) multiple choice: 3 Task 2: matching (text + heading) 1) identifying important information 2) matching (definition + word) identifying important information Task 3: multiple choice (4 options) 1) matching (text + title) 2) summary cloze 1) T/F/NI 2) matching (definition + word) ulle.turk@ut.ee

  12. Conclusions and way forward • The reading paper in English seems more difficult than that in German (B2/C1?  B1/B2?) • Perhaps this should be the case? • What about the National Curriculum? ?Relate examinations of each language to the CEFR levels ?Study the rate of acquisition of different foreign languages ulle.turk@ut.ee

  13. Sources • Hardcastle, Peter. 2004. Test Equivalence and Construct Compatibility across Languages. University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations Research Notes, 17, August, 6 − 11. • Jackson, Frederick H. & Marsha A. Kaplan. 1999. Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching. In: Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 71−87. • MacWhinney, Brian. 1995. Language-Specific Prediction in Foreign Language Learning. Language Testing, 12, 292−320. ulle.turk@ut.ee

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