Unit III Reflection

In this unit we have learn many things that we did not know before, we discovered that there are different types of test and they have different objectives to measure the different abilities in the language; it is very useful for us as future teachers because we are going to know which can choose which tests are more appropriate for us.

When we make or choose a test, we can decide if we are going to test all the skills or a specific one; we have to decide which items we’ll include to measure our students taking in consideration the objectives of the course. There are different ways to assess a test, where the exam is applied twice but in a different day, an individual or in teams; it can be a representation of the teacher’s work during the course to know how much students have learned and it can include the skills that the teacher is interested to perform.

All these tools are quite important in the teaching practice because we are going to take decisions that are going to influence our students’ learning and teaching process; for that reason we have to look for the best way to measure our students’ performance trying to help them to learn more about their mistakes and let them know how much they have learned.

TEAM MEMBERS
Esquivel Suazo Fabiola
Rocha Morelos Josué
Valadez Acosta Leticia

Validity, Reliability, Practicality and Backwash Explanations Activity 3

Validity: The test needs to have validity since the purpose of it is to measure what we are teaching thinking about what do we want to test, for example, if we are going to focus in a specific skill (reading, grammar, etc.).

Reliability: A test has to be reliable, if the instructions are not clear it will result difficult to the students to do an incoherent test and for the teacher it will be harder to get good results. Let’s take into consideration that we as teachers are the ones responsible for doing a reliable test (of course if we design it because some schools provide their own tests).

 

Practicality: This means the way that the teacher grades a test, it’s necessary that students know how many points or what score does each activity in the test has; it must be well done and accurately.

Backwash: It’s a paper which shows how testing can influence in the teaching and learning aspects, it can be done after or during a test; it displays feedback. Backwash means to go backwards; it can present negative and positive effects in the students’ learning or teaching process.

Do you know if the tests you have been using or done are valid, reliable, and practical or if they have a negative or positive backwash effect in teaching and learning?

The test that we used was valid, reliable and practical because it was testing the skills that wanted the teacher. It was reliable because it was well done and it was focused on what they saw in class.

TEAM MEMBERS
Rocha Morelos Josué
Valadez Acosta Leticia

Analysis of a test Activity 2

ANALYSIS OF THE TEST

1. What is the purpose of the test?

It mainly tests the skills that are intended to measure directly, that is reading comprehesion by reading, writing by writing, listenign by listening and not indirectly. It also measures the knowledge acquired of the students by activities that involved these skills with vocabulary and rules already taught during the course.

2. Does it represent direct or indirect testing (or a mixture of both)?

It represents a mixture of both.Some activities are discrete and the others are integrative because they require of several elements to answer them, for example, in writing they have to focus on organization of ideas, grammar, punctuation, etc. In the listening and reading exercises they need reading and writing and listening and writing.

3. Are the items discrete point or integrative (or a mixture of both)?

They are objective items because there is only one possible answer and in the others the answers will vary (are subjective).

4. Which items are objective and which are subjective? Can you order the subjective items according to degree of subjectively?

Objectives:

 • Present progressive (5 points)

• Grammar modals (5 points)

• Fill in the gaps (10 points)

Subjective:

5. Is the test norm-referenced or criterion-referenced?

This test is criterion because the marking and the grades will be based on established criteria about the performance of each student and not in the comparison with other students' performance.

6. Does the test measure communicative abilities? Would you describe it as a communicative test? Justify your answers.

It does measure communicative abilities since writing and listening activities (conversations) are integrated in the test.

7. What relationship is there between answer to question 6 and the answers to the other questions?

That it mentions all the skills. In our opinion this is a very well done test since integrates the four skills that need to be evaluated, including all the skills it not only measures student’s aptitudes but also their communicative abilities.

TEAM MEMBERS

Esquivel Suazo Fabiola

Rocha Morelos Josué

Valadez Acosta Leticia

Types of Testing Activity 1 UNIT III

Types of testing

PROFICIENCY TEST

This kind of test is useful to find out the level that students have and to see how proficient they are using the second language. This test provides more general information than the others.

Example:

CPE-Cambridge ESOL's most advanced exam (used to certificate that you have the C2 level).

ACHIEVEMENT TEST

It is useful to see the progress that students have in the classroom. There are two kinds of achievement test, the final and the progress test.

Final achievement test is applied at the end of the course by the minister of education and the progress test is useful to see how students have been progressing during the course, these tests also help the teacher to know what students need to reinforce.

Example: The test that we make in the classroom after the units and the ordinary test at the end of the course.

PLACEMENT TEST

Placement test is useful when the teacher needs to know the different capacities that each student has in the classroom; to look for better methods and techniques to use for the everyday class taking account that it is to assess the students that have different levels in the same classroom.

Example:

The English test applied in UABC to know the level of English that the participants have.

DIAGNOSTIC TEST

This kind of test is useful to identify the possible troubles that students could have and to know is students really understand the topics covered during the unit. It also helps to see if students need to reinforce something about the last classes.

Example:
The pre-test made by the teacher. He can observe or identify the trouble that the student has.

TESTING

DIRECT VS. INDIRECT TESTING

DIRECT TESTING

Testing is direct when it needs students to perform exactly what we want to measure. We already know what abilities we are going to assess. The people who are aware about test as a real situation, we need to make them know it is going to be grade.

Example:

When we want to test our students write an academic essay.

INDIRECT TESTING

We can notice the knowledge that students have in the language. They have to demonstrate what they can do using their skills.

Example:

Test our learners’ listening ability by asking them to match words that rhymed with each other.

DISCRETE POINT VS. INTEGRATIVE TESTING

Discrete point testing is very particular, it focuses just in one element at time, and it tends to be indirect.

Example:

A multiple choice test.

Integrative testing is when the participants need to combine all the elements of the language to complete specific task, it is direct and it involves writing.

Example:

An example can we found in this testing is the dictation.

NORM-REFERENCED VS. CRITERION REFERENCED TESTING

Norm-referenced is when the students show their capacity using the language but in this case the teacher is not going to say to the students what they already able to do.

Example:

Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS).

Criterion Referenced Testing

This kind of testing is for classify the participants according to what they are able to perform of what they are not able to perform, which means that performance is evaluated, the participants have two options the pass or they fail in this way the students are motivated to measure their progress.

Example:

We can found, for example, the TABE test published by McGraw Hill.

Objective Testing vs. Subjective Testing

OBJECTIVE TESTING

Judgment is not needed on the part of the person who evaluate.

Example:

The true or false question based on a text.

SUBJECTIVE TESTING

Judgment is requiring on the part of the person who evaluate.

COMPUTER ADAPTIVE TESTING

It is useful to get more specific information about the people ability and to know who I sable to answer to difficult items or easy items depending of their levels.

Example:

TOEFL (Test of Language as a Foreign Language)

TEAM MEMBERS

Esquivel Suazo Fabiola

Rocha Morelos Josué

Valadez Acosta Leticia

Unit 2 Reflection

In this unit we learnt how important is to use the informal assessment with our students, not only to know their capacity on all the skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), we have to identify, furthermore, the attitude of the students like participation, tolerance, respectful, and other factors. This is very useful in all classrooms and the progress of the students at any level. Lastly, the teacher can give to his students feed-back and they can know their strength and weaknesses in their learning progress; besides the teacher can see how well the progress with his teaching process is going, and discover a variety of activities that can make them understand the subject.

TEAM MEMBERS:

Esquivel Suazo Fabiola

Rocha Morelos Josué

Valadez Acosta Leticia