Types of Language Tests

       I.            INTRODUCTION

This we use test to obtain information. The information that we hope to obtain will of course vary from situation to situation. It is possible, nevertheless, to categorize tests according to a small number of kinds of information being sought. This categorization will prove useful both in deciding whether an existing test is suitable for particular purpose and in writing appropriate new tests where these are necessary. The four types of test which in this summary are: proficiency test, achievement tests, diagnostic tests, and placement tests.

    II.            SUMMARY OF CONTENT

The four types of test are mentioned as bellow:

a.       Proficiency tests

Proficiency tests are used to measure the learners’ ability of language without concerning on their previous learning experience. The content of a proficiency test is not based on the content or objectives of language courses which people taking the test may have followed.

Proficiency Tests look to the future situation of language use without necessarily any reference to the process of teaching. In these tests, performance is measured in relation to a targeted level known as the criterion.

Main purpose of performance tests is to make inferences, however they are not valued in themselves but as indicators of how the test-taker will perform similar (or related) tasks in the real world setting of interest.

b.      Achievement tests

Teachers prefer to involve in the preparation and use of achievement tests to proficiency test. Achievement tests are directly related to language courses, their purpose being to establish how successful individual students, groups of students. There are two kinds of achievement test. First, final achievement tests are those administered at the end of a course of study. They may be written and administered by ministries of education, official examining boards, or by members of teaching institutions. Clearly the content of these tests must be related to the courses with which they are concerned, but the nature of this relationship is a matter of disagreement amongst language testers. Second, progress achievement tests as their name suggests, are intended to measure the progress that students are making.

One way of measuring progress would be repeatedly to administer final achievement test, the (hopefully) increasing scores indicating the progress made. The alternative is to establish a series of well-defined short term objectives. These should make a clear progression towards the final achievement tests based on course objectives.

     

c.       Diagnostic tests

Diagnostic tests are used to identify students’ strengths and weakness. They are intended primarily to ascertain what further teaching is necessary. At the level of broad language skill is reasonably straightforward. We can be fairly confident of our ability to create tests that will tell us that a student is particularly weak in, say, speaking as opposed to reading in a language. Indeed existing proficiency tests may often prove adequate for this purpose.

We may be able to go further, analyzing samples of a student’s performance in writing or speaking in order to create profiles of the student’s ability with respect to such categories as ‘grammatical accuracy’ or ‘linguistic appropriacy.’

d.      Placement tests

Placement tests as their name suggests, are intended  to provide  information which will  help to place students at the stage (or in the part) of the teaching program most appropriate to their abilities. Typically they are used to assigned students to classes at different levels.

 Placement tests can be bought, but this is not to be recommended unless the institution concerned is quite sure that the test being considered suits its particular teaching program. No one placement test will work for every institution and the initial assumption about any test that is commercially available must be that it will not work well.

 III.            CONCLUSION

Much has been written about kind and types of language tests. Discussions have centered on the tests which are really useful for the language learners, and they give more information through the tests

REFERENCES

Hughes, Arthur. (1983). Testing for Language Teachers. UK: Cambridge University Press.