How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan
20 Part 1: Why should we bother with speaking tests? following explanation:
The basic purpose of CRTs is to foster learning. Typically, teach ers administer CRTs in order to encourage students to study, re view, or practice the material being covered in a course and/or give feedback on how well they have learned the material. In contrast, the underlying purpose of NRTs is usually to spread stu dents’ performances out along a continuum of scores so the stu dents can be classified or grouped for admissions or placement purposes. While creating such groupings may be beneficial to learning, the NRTs are not typically designed to test material that is specifically and directly related to a single course or program. Thus NRTs are not created to foster learning. In the final analysis, it’s clear that each test type has its appro priate use cases It all really depends on what the main purpose is—do we want to know how our students compare to other students, or do we want to know whether they have mastery (or not) over the material we are trying to teach them (Bailey, 1998)? Choose the right tool for the right job Even within the world of CRTs, it is possible to contribute to neg ative washback by using the wrong kind of test to assess a particu lar skill To be effective, a CRT must match what is being taught in class (Brown, 1995) For example, if we are interested in truly assessing spoken interaction, then it doesn’t make sense to use mul tiple-choice, paper-and-pencil tests that contain no actual trace of talking (Weir, 2005) Simply put, if you want to encourage oral ability, then you have to test for it directly (Hughes, 1989) This naturally holds true for the other major language skills as well Tests that seek to assess any of the four basic skills need to feature them in their design As Breaux (2016) wryly observes, swimming is im proved by swimming; speaking is improved by speaking
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator