1?Introduction to language testing 5
1.1?Testing and teaching 5
1.2?Why test? 6
1.3?What should be tested and to what standard? 7
1.4?Testing the language skills 8
1.5?Testing language areas 9
1.6?Language skills and language elements 10
1.7?Recognition and production 11
1.8?Problems of sampling 12
1.9?Avoiding traps for the students 14
2?Approaches to language testing 15
2.1?Background 15
2.2?The essay-translation approach 15
2.3?The structuralist approach 15
2.4?The integrative approach 16
2.5?The communicative approach 19
3?Objective testing 25
3.1?Subjective and objective testing 25
3.2?Objective tests 26
3.3?Multiple-choice items: general 27
3.4?Multiple-choice items: the stem/the correct option/the distractors 30
3.5?Writing the test 33
4?Tests of grammar and usage 34
4.1?Introduction 34
4.2?Multiple-choice grammar items: item types 34
4.3?Constructing multiple-choice items 37
4.4?Constructing error-recognition multiple-choice items 39
4.5?Constructing rearrangement items 41
4.6?Constructing completion items 42
4.7?Constructing transformation items 46
4.8?Constructing items involving the changing of words 48
4.9?Constructing ‘broken sentence’ items 49
4.10?Constructing pairing and matching items 49
4.11?Constructing combination and addition items 50
5?Testing vocabulary 51
5.1?Selection of items 51
5.2?Multiple-choice items (A) 52
5.3?Multiple-choice items (B) 56
5.4?Sets (associated words) 58
5.5?Matching items 58
5.6?More objective items 60
5.7?Completion items 62
6?Listening comprehension tests 64
6.1?General 64
6.2?Phoneme discrimination tests 65
6.3?Tests of stress and intonation 68
6.4?Statements and dialogues 69
6.5?Testing comprehension through visual materials 71
6.6?Understanding talks and lectures 82
7?Oral production tests 88
7.1?Some difficulties in testing the speaking skills 88
7.2?Reading aloud 89
7.3?Conversational exchanges 90
7.4?Using pictures for assessing oral production 92
7.5?The oral interview 96
7.6?Some other techniques for oral examining 102
8?Testing reading comprehension 105
8.1?The nature of the reading skills 105
8.2?Initial stages of reading: matching tests 107
8.3?Intermediate and advanced stages of reading: matching tests 110
8.4?True/false reading tests 113
8.5?Multiple-choice items (A): short texts 116
8.6?Multiple-choice items (B): longer texts 117
8.7?Completion items 124
8.8?Rearrangement items 129
8.9?Cloze procedure 131
8.10?Open-ended and miscellaneous items 133
8.11?Cursory reading 133
9?Testing the writing skills 135
9.1?The writing skills 135
9.2?Testing composition writing 136
9.3?Setting the composition 138
9.4?Grading the composition 144
9.5?Treatment of written errors 149
9.6?Objective tests: mechanics 150
9.7?Objective tests: style and register 152
9.8?Controlled writing 154
10?Criteria and types of tests 159
101?Validity 159
10.2?Reliability 162
10.3?Reliability versus validity 164
10.4?Discrimination 165
10.5?Administration 167
10.6?Test instructions to the candidate 168
10.7?Backwash effects 170
10.8?Types of tests 171
11?Interpreting test scores 174
11.1?Frequency distribution 174
11.2?Measures of central tendency 175
11.3?Measures of dispersion 176
11.4?Item analysis 178
11.5?Moderating 185
11.6?Item cards and banks 185
Selected bibliography 188
Index 191
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