An Overview of Four Language Testing Approaches*
Li Zhuanggui
（Guangzhou Civil Aviation College, Guangzhou 510403 Guangdong China）
Abstract: Language testing approach plays an increasingly important role in evaluating students’ learning efficiency. Considering the current testing methods in the classroom settings, the author attempts to analyze four major language testing approaches. This paper is essentially the elaboration of each testing approach in terms of feasibility and limitations. By studying the four testing approaches, the author hopes to provide some implications for English teaching.
Keywords: Language testing approach Essay-translation approach Structuralist approach Integrative approach Communicative approach
1 Introduction
Language testing is central to both language learning and language teaching. On the part of learners, it provides a channel to investigate to which extent they master the required knowledge. On the part of teachers, it serves as a reflection of teaching goals so that teachers can adjust their methodologies to reach those goals. With the importance of language testing highlighted, what type of language testing approach should be adopted also deserves close attention and study.
Language testing approaches can be roughly classified into four types in terms of different goals: the essay-translation approach, the structuralist approach, the integrative approach and the communicative approach[1]15. In the subsequent parts, the author will touch upon the merits and demerits of each testing approach so as to facilitate teachers’ selection of the most appropriate testing approach.
2 The essay-translation approach
The essay-translation approach consists of essay writing, translation and grammatical analysis[1]15, which does not aim at testing the learner’s specific skill or expertise. The teacher’s subjective judgment is involved in the scoring of essay-translation[1]15. As a result, different teachers may score the same test with different results based on their personal criteria. Essay-translation is advantageous in that it is easy to set on the teacher’s part. However, when it comes to the scoring procedure, it is time-consuming as it requires a large quantity of examiners to undergo the task. On the other hand, although the answers of essay-translation are open and none of the answer is absolutely correct, the examiners may make judgments according to their personal preferences. They may think certain answers are more “acceptable” than others, thus causing some unfair judgments. Moreover, the results of essay-translation are difficult to compare because they are not based on the same scoring criteria. Therefore, the essay-translation approach is supposed to lack validity and reliability. By virtue of this fact, the teacher should carefully examine when to use this approach. For instance, a student’s ability to write can be satisfactorily tested by asking him/her to perform a writing task similar to that required in real life. A teacher can also adopt this approach when assessing a student’s oral fluency. He/She may present the student with one oral question whose answers are various, then he/she scores the oral result according to whatever the student wishes to say. In this angle, the student’s oral ability is measured to a great extent.
改革开放已过四十春秋，在这40年中我国体育从积贫积弱到叱咤国际体坛，体育改革成就举世瞩目，收获了大量宝贵的经验，但同时也给我们留下不得不思考的教训和启示。
3 The structuralist approach
3.1 Nature of the structuralist approach
The structuralist approach aims at testing the learner’s four language skills separately, which is indeed discrete point test. The learner’s mastery of the separate elements of the target language is respectively measured[2]2. This approach lays more focus on the learner’s accuracy in linguistic knowledge, hence its feasibility in formative tests. However, it is hard to reveal the learner’s learning potential under the guidance of such an approach, so it is assumed to lack validity.
3.2 Case study: multiple-choice item
An integrative test is designed to test a learner’s ability to use several language skills at the same time, which is contrasted with a discrete-point test. Dictation test, cloze test, oral interview, and essay writing are assumed to be the most representative forms of an integrative test, because they require the learner to use comprehensive language skills, such as vocabulary, grammar and listening ability.
4 The integrative approach
4.1 Merits and demerits
The structuralist approach usually takes the form of multiple-choice item[2]2, a test item that is most widely used in many types of tests. The apparent advantage of multiple-choice item is its objectivity. Since there is only one answer to the multiple-choice question, accuracy is highly stressed. Besides, it is easy to carry out statistics about a student’s performance within a short time, hence its popularity among most tests. Another merit of multiple-choice item is that it can cover a wide variety of knowledge of different fields, so it can help to examine effectively what a student has mastered well and what he has not. However, linguists also keep questioning the reliability of this test item on the ground that it can only test a student’s language competence rather than language performance. Such a testing approach only reflects a student’s memorization ability and rote learning ability. Chances are that students who get high scores in the multiple-choice test still fail to communicate effectively. They may have a clear perception of language usage but do not know so much about how to actually use the language. Secondly, the words and sentences in the multiple-choice questions are completely divorced from any context and the different questions do not share any internal relationship. Thirdly, the materials provided in multiple-choice item may not be authentic. The materials are likely to be imaginary and thus detached from students’ real life. The scores obtained from such materials do not make much sense when it comes to real communication. In a word, the structuralist approach tests students’ receptive skills rather than productive skills. Under the guidance of such a testing approach, students may learn with a pragmatic purpose—to earn high scores, while neglecting the cultivation of their learning potentials. Therefore, teachers should not overstress what to learn, but encourage students how to learn it.
In designing a cloze test, attention should be paid to the length of the text and the distance between two gaps. In other words, the number of deletions contained in the text should be reasonable, neither two large nor two small. Besides, the subject of the cloze test should be neutral[1]17. If the content is too closed to students’ real-life experiences, they may be able to make the required completions from their background knowledge without understanding much of the text[1]17, thus making the test lose its validity. If the content is detached from students’ background knowledge, they may become unfamiliar with it and the test will not make any sense accordingly. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate subject is essential to ensure a valid and reliable cloze test.
4.2 Case study: cloze test
在北京，大量建设项目没有考虑对水的滞留，缺少滞水、蓄水设施。 例如北京 2012 年“7·21”暴雨，全市受灾人口190万人，经济损失近百亿元。本次暴雨接近历史极值，尽管受灾严重不完全是因城市硬化率高造成的，但如果能像日本东京那样大量建设储水池，应该能有效缓解灾情。按北京城区 400km2，“7·21”北京城区平均降水量200 mm计算，总降水量超过8 000万m3。如果在全市建设一万个储水池，每个储水池容积5 000 m3（占地下平面 1000m2，高 5 m），就能收集5 000万m3的水量，极大地减缓道路积水量，给市政管网排水争取时间。
Consequently, an integrative test is valid in the sense that it is a good judgment of the learner’s language competence—the learner’s total sum of knowledge of the language rules. The result of an integrative test can be used to check whether the learner has received the required knowledge. However, since this type of test views language skills as a whole, the four separate skills cannot be specifically tested, which makes it hard to know detailedly each aspect of the learner’s language ability. On the basis of this, the learner’s strength and weakness are not explicitly measured in the test. Moreover, since an integrative test lays focus on the learner’s competence rather than the performance, it is hard to tell whether the learner’s knowledge can be fully realized in the actual context.
5 The communicative approach
5.1 A general knowledge of the communicative approach
Communicative tests emphasize how language is used in communication rather than their linguistic form and structure. By this testing approach, students are required to perform realistic tasks and the situations they come across are close to real life. Students’ success is judged in terms of the effectiveness of communication[1]19— whether they are able to use the appropriate words for communication depending on different situations of contexts. The communicative approach emphasizes discourse analysis; students are required not only to understand the grammatical structures of sentences, but also to understand larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations and interviews. This approach is also culture-specific[1]20. Since communicative tests lay more focus on contexts and real-life situations, the text contents should reflect the culture of one particular country. In order to avoid test difficulties and make the tests reliable, students must be aware of their own cultures and enable themselves to identify cultural bias.
2.4.5 速效钾 长顺县土壤速效钾含量涵盖1～5等级(图3e)，其中上等水平耕地面积181.87 km2，占全县耕地面积的41.4%，主要分布在长顺县的西部和东北部；中等水平耕地面积254.54 km2，占全县耕地面积的57.95%，主要分布在长顺县的北部和东部。
To sum up, communicative tests aim to help students achieve communicative competence on the basis of students’ specific needs. The communicative approach stresses that language fluency is as important as accuracy, that students’ ability to use language appropriately is just as significant as the ability to correctly handle different sentence structures. Moreover, the testing materials should be authentic and help students perform real-life tasks. In a word, students’ needs should be considered as central in the process of designing a communicative test.
In the next place, the author will discuss one of the most representative types of integrative test—cloze test. In cloze test, a certain number of gaps are provided in the text and students are required to fill in the blanks with the most appropriate words. Cloze test is treated as a good indicator of a leaner’s general linguistic ability, because three types of knowledge are involved in cloze test, including linguistic knowledge, textual knowledge and knowledge of the world[1]17. In completing a cloze test, a learner must be able to use his/her lexical and grammatical skills to fill in the blanks with the missing words of the right forms. Besides, he/she should decide what words are the most appropriate by analyzing the particular situational context. As a result of the reliability of cloze test, it is used not only in proficiency tests but also in some classroom placement tests and diagnostic tests[1]17.
5.2 Evaluation of the communicative approach
Next let us move to the evaluation of the communicative testing approach. The advantages of it are self-evident. It is linked to the integrative approach and gives equal emphasis on the four language skills. So it not only tests a student’s grammatical competence, but also his/her discourse and strategic competence. The score obtained on a communicative test will thus result in several measures of proficiency rather than simply one overall measure[1]19. In this sense, the communicative approach has high predictive validity. Another equally important advantage of such an approach lies in the more humanistic attitude it brings to language testing[1]21. Since communicative testing is often criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced, it is able to evaluate a student’s performance according to the degree of success in performing the language tasks, free from the influence of other students’ performances. As a result, it is assumed to be fairer and more objective. However, the communicative testing also has its own limitations. Though the result of it is more objective, the scoring of it is more subjective, making it not so reliable in interpreting the performance. In addition, since this testing approach is culturally-specific, it is not easy to implement in other cultures.
旅游部门对信息资源实施管理工作的过程中，整理信息时，应该保证信息的准确性、真实性和及时性。由于旅游行业受到季节的影响较大，相关信息会呈现变化的状态，冬季和夏季的信息就存在较大的差异性[3]。信息是旅游部门开展工作的主要依据。因此，信息管理人员应该及时收集有效的信息，并从中筛选出对工作有用的信息，对其进行深入的分析、管理和研究，对网站上的信息进行及时更新。这样的工作方式不仅能保证游客从网站上所获得的信息是真实有效的，还能借助信息技术实现工作效率的提升。科学管理信息资源是旅游管理工作中不可缺少的组成部分，应该引起旅游部门的高度重视。
5.3 Case study: the BEC test
The BEC test, TOEFL test and IELTS test are good cases in point related to communicative tests. Take the BEC test as an example: this test is intended for testing students’ ability for successful business communication. It aims at developing students’ English language skills for international business and serves as clear and reliable evidence for students’ language ability. The reading and listening materials in the BEC test are all based on real-life situations. If students are able to understand such materials, they will prove to have less problems in daily communication. In terms of the writing section, students are required to write business letters or other types of business documents which they may encounter in real work. As for the oral section, self-introduction, presentation, role-play participation and interviews are involved to assess students’ ability of fluent communication. The BEC test measures the four relevant skills separately and indicates a student’s different levels of performance for each skill. In this sense, different profiles of a student’s performance in the language are clearly obtained, which shows that the BEC test is a reliable approach to assess a student’s communicative competence.
6 Conclusion
This paper has respectively studied four language testing approaches. Each approach has its own strengths and constraints, so teachers should scientifically select the most appropriate approach according to different teaching goals. If a teacher aims to test students’ linguistic knowledge or receptive skills, either the structuralist approach or the integrative approach is advisable. In contrast, if a teacher intends to assess students’ communication ability in different situations of contexts, he/she can adopt the communicative approach by requiring them to perform realistic tasks or creating some real-life situations in class. Furthermore, if a teacher only attempts to measure students’ general ability, he/she can even use the essay-translation approach by presenting them questions whose answers are open, then the teacher may make judgments according to his/ her personal preferences.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the four approaches are not mutually exclusive. A good test will frequently incorporate features of several of these approaches, depending on the particular purpose of the test[1]15,23. It is not desirable for a teacher to stick to one approach all the time. A competent teacher should enable himself/herself to use several testing approaches and know when to use which to whom for how long. It is important for a teacher to devise a test which is as valid and reliable as possible.
References
[1] J.B.Heaton. Writing English Language Tests [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000
[2] 邹申. 简明英语测试教程（第三版）[M]. 北京：高等教育出版社，2011
[3] 刘润清，文旭. 新编语言学教程[M]. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2006
四种语言测试方法概览
李壮桂
（广州民航职业技术学院 广东广州 510403）
摘 要：语言测试方法在评估学生的学习效率中起着越来越重要的作用。分析四种主要的语言测试方法，就每种测试方法的可行性和局限性进行研究，以期对英语教学提供一些启示。
关 键 词：语言测试方法 写作-翻译法 结构主义测试法 综合测试法 交际测试法
*广东省高职院校公共英语课程教学指导委员会2018年项目（2018CE40）的部分研究成果
标签：语言测试方法论文; 写作-翻译法论文; 结构主义测试法论文; 综合测试法论文; 交际测试法论文; 广州民航职业技术学院论文;