How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

59 Chapter 5: Identify & define your evaluation criteria

Remember this when adapting rating scales Again, a great way to develop your analytic marking chops is to look to the literature on language testing for guidance and inspiration When adapting information, keep the following points in mind: • Choose your constructs carefully Your choices will have a big influence on what students learn • Define each construct in simple, clear language your students can understand In other words, try to avoid overly vague or technical descriptions Translate to Japanese if need be • Make sure you choose constructs that are conceptually dis tinct from each other • Think about how you’ll assess each construct live What will you need to notice in order to give the correct score? • Regarding the number of rating scale levels, find a good bal ance between ease of marking and encouraging progress • Accept that a learning curve exists for choosing and defining marking categories well Commit to it, and don’t let perfec tionism get in your way A simplified combo rubric format If choosing and defining constructs is too much for you, take heart—there is another way to go about constructing rubrics that is less complex and offers a different mix of pros and cons Instead of defining each construct across a number of levels in detail, you simply assess students on whether they approach , meet , or exceed basic aims of student performance (Goldstein, 2013) In other words, you list single statements of ability that are con nected to constructs of interest and assess them in a very simple, straightforward manner Here is an example to illustrate this ap-