Testing Grammar and Vocabulary

1. Testing Grammar and Vocabulary Jeremy 69100001

2. Is testing grammar required? • Control of grammatical structures was seen as the very core of language ability. • Now, there has been a shift towards the view that since it is language skills that are usually of interest, then they should be tested directly, not the abilities that seem to underlie them. • Most proficiency test that are administered on a large scale still retain a grammar section. • It cannot ensure that a grammar test includes a good sample of all possible grammatical elements.

3. Writing Specification • For achievement test where teaching objectives or the syllabus list the grammatical structures to be taught, specification of content should be quite straightforward. • For proficiency and diagnostic tests, the van Ek and Trim publication referred to a notional-functional approach and Cobuild English Usage.

5. Writing Items • Whatever techniques are chosen for testing grammar, it is important for the text of the item to be written in grammatically correct and natural language.

8. 4 Techniques for testing grammar • Gap Filling • Paraphrase • Completion • Multiple choice The first three requires production on the part of the candidates, while multiple choice calls only for recognition.

9. Gap Filling What was most disturbing ___________ that for the first time in his life Henry was on his own. • What was most disturbing : Noun Clause as the subject. • That for the first time in… : Noun Clause as the object. (preceded by the conjunction “that” ). • Subject (noun clause) + _____________ + Object (noun clause) • “_________ “ should be filled by verb Answer: “was”

10. Paraphrase • Paraphrase items require the student to write a sentence equivalent in meaning to one that is given. It is helpful to give part of the paraphrase in order to restrict the student to the grammatical structure being tested.

11. Testing passive, past continuous form. When we arrived, a policeman was questioning the bank clerk. When we arrived, the bank clerk _________________ Steps to explain: • Past continuous form. • Passive form. Answer : was being questioned.

12. Testing present perfect with for It is six years since I last saw him. I ____________________________ six years. Steps to explain: • Present perfect. • The adverb of time for perfect tense “for” and “since”

13. Testing Vocabulary • Writing Specifications If vocabulary is being consciously taught, then presumably all the item thereby presented to the students should be included in the specifications. We can add all the new items that the students have met in other activities (reading, listening, etc). The usual way to specify the lexical items that may be tested is to make reference to one of the published word lists that indicate the frequency with which the words have been found to be used. http://www.wordfrequency.info/ http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

16. Sampling Words can be grouped according to their frequency and usefulness. From each of the groups, items can be taken at random, with more being selected from the group containing the more frequent and useful words.

17. Writing Items Testing Recognition Ability Recognize synonyms: Choose the alternative (a,b,c,d) which is the closest in meaning to the word on the left of the page. Gleam a. gather b. shine c. welcome d. clean

18. Recognise definitions Loathe means a. Dislike intensely b. Become seriously ill c. Search carefully d. Look very angry

19. Recognise appropriate word for context That strong wind ________the man’s efforts to put up the tent. a. disabled b. hampered c. deranged d. regaled

20. Testing production ability The testing of vocabulary productivity is so difficult that it is practically never attempted in proficiency tests as information on receptive ability is regarded as sufficient.

21. Pictures Write down the names of the objects

22. Definitions ______________ is a person who looks after our teeth. ______________ is a fine misty rain.

23. Group Project Construct items to test the following: 3rd conditional sentence : if……had….., …..would have…. Relative clause Phrasal verb