Assessing Reading and Assessing Listening versi indonesia

SUMMARY OF LANGUAGE TESTING AND ASSESSMENT

(Assessing Listening and Assessing Reading)

A.     ASSESSING LISTENING

Observing the performance of the four skills

            Sebelum memberikan tes terlebih dahulu guru akan mengamati empat kemampuan siswanya, dalam hal ini empat kemampuan yang dimaksudkan adalah listening, speaking, reading, dan writing. Pengamatan dapat dilakukan dalam setiap proses belajar mengajar. Pengamatan ini dilakukan agar guru dapat mengetahui kekurangan dan kelebihan siswanya, sehingga guru dapat memberikan tes secara merata.

The importance of listening

            Listening sangatlah berperan penting dalam mengembangkan kemampuan berbahasa karena listening merupakan faktor utama dalam berkomunikasi, sebab kita terlebih dahulu mendengarkan kemudian hasil dari yang kita dengarkanlah yang nantinya kita ungkapkan. Olehnya itu dapat dikatakan bahwa seorang pembicara yang baik adalah seorang peendengar yang baik pula.

Basic types of listening

1.      INTENSIVE

Menguji bagian terkecil dari bahasa, seperti: phonemes, words, intonation, discoursemarkers, dll.

2.      RESPONSIVE

Merespon dengan tepat apa yang telah didengarkan. Dalam hal ini, test-taker diharaokan dapat menguasai “WH question” agar dapat menjawab pertanyaan dengan tepat. Contohnya: ketika test-taker mendengar pertanyaan menggunakan kata “why”, maka test-taker akan menjawab perntanyaan dengan memberi “alasan, biasanya ditandai dengan kata karena”.

3.      SELECTVE

Test-taker mampu memilih jawaban yang paling tepat berdasarkan pada specific information yang telah didengarkan. Dalam selective listening, siswa biasanya diminta untuk mendengarkan nama, angka, arah, atau fakta dan kejadian tertentu.

4.      EXTENSIVE

Pada extensive listening dibutuhkan pemahaman yang lebih meluas dan umum. Biasanya mencakup tentang intisari atau ide pokok dari apa yang didengarkan.

Micro and macro skills of listening

Beberapa hambatan dalam listening (adapted from Richards, 1983; Ur, 1984; Dunkel, 1991)

1.      Clustering: Kesulitan dalam membedakan phrase.

2.      Redundancy: Adanya pengulangan kata atau kalimat pada soal yang menyebabkan test-taker kebingungan dalam menjawab soal. Oleh karena itu, test taker harus mengetahui jenis-jenis dari repetitions, rephrasing, elaborations dan insertions.

3.      Reduced, mesti mengetahui bentuk kalimat dari redused sehingga apa bila dalam test kelak test taker tidak kebingungan dengan kalimat yang di reduced.

4.      Performance variables, dalam hal ini kesesuaian tempat dan persiapan test yang matang sangat perlu diperhatikan jangan sampai karena ketidak matangan persiapan test dapat mengganggung jalannya test.

5.      Colloquial language, adanya perbedaan budaya atau bahasa sehari-hari yang berasal dari spoken language, sehingga menyebabkan ada kata yang tidak diketahui artinya.

6.      Rate of delivery, kecepatan yang didengarkan test taker.

7.      Stress, rhythm, and intonation: adanya ketidaktepatan tekanan, ritme dan intonasi spoken langunge yang menyebabkan test-taker salah dalam memaknai permintaan soal.

8.      Interaction; mendengarkan terlebih dahulu lalu mengungkapakan apa yang telah didengarkan dan merekamnya setelah itu mendengarkan kembali hasil rekaman yang tadi.

Designing assessment tasks

1.      Intensive listening

Dalam membuat soal listening hindari kata yang dapat mebuat test taker kebingungunan.

a.       Recognizing phonological and morphological elements.

Hal ini berupa kata yang memiliki bunyi yang sama tapi makna yang berbeda.

- Phonemic pair, consonant

               Example: penggunaan kata “He’s” dengan “She’s”

- Phonemic pair, vowels

Penggunaan bunyi huruf vocal “vowels” dalam soal.

Ex:  Penyebutan “sea” dengan “see”

-  Morphological pair, -ed ending

Mendengarkan kata atau kalimat past tense merupakan salah satu kesulitan atau tantangan dalam listening termasuk bagi advanced learners.

Ex: dalam kalimat ”You called me” bisa jadi yang test takers dengarkan adalah “You call me”.

-  Stress pattern in can’t

Ex: She can’t pick me up.

       I can pick me up.

b.      Paraphrase Recognition

Mengungkapkan ide yang sama dalam kalimat yang berbeda.

-  Sentence paraphrase

Ex: test taker hear - Hellow, my name’s Keiko, I come from Japane.

Test taker read – Keiko is Japanese.

2.      Responsive listening

Bertujuan agar test taker mampu menguasai “yes/no question” dan “WH-question”, dan mengetahui bagaimana mendapatkan jawaban yang sesuai.

3.      Selective listening

a.       Listening cloze

Dalam bagian ini test taker akan mendengarkan sebuah cerita, monolog, ataupun bentuk percakapan. Listening cloze membantu memilih jawaban dari informasi yang spesifik. Bentuk soal dari listening cloze adalah fell-in-the-blank.

b.      Information Transfer.

Dalam information transfer test taker akan mendengarkan arahan yang ingin ditransfer kedalam bentuk visual, seperti menandai sebuah diagram, mengidentifikasi elemen dari sebuh gambar, atau menunjukkan jalan dalam sebuah peta.

c.       Sentence Repetition

Sentence repetition menekankan kemampuan mengingat, dimana test taker akan mendengarkan beberapa pengulangan kalimat yang ada dalam teks.

4.      Extensive listening

Extensive listening menekankan pemahaman dari inti sari atau main idea yang test taker dengarkan.

a.       Dictation

Mendengarkan secara dikte, test taker akan mendengarkan bacaaan sekitar 50 sampai 100 kata yang dibacakan sebanyak 3 kali. Pada proses pendengaran pertama cara mendengarkan dengan natura speed tanpa pause untuk mendapatkan inti sarinya. Sedangkan proses pendengaran selanjutnya dilakukan secara pelan dan mempausenya lalu test taker menulis apa yang didengarkan.

b.      Communicative stimulus-Response Tasks

Test taker akan mendengarkan sebuah dialog percakapan

B.     ASSESSING READING

Types (genres) of reading

1.      Academic reading

Teks bacaan yang behubungan dengan dunia pendidikan. Jenis bacaan ini biasanya terdiri dari bacaan-bacaan yang bersifat formal seperti; tesis, makalah, tajuk, kamus, koran, dll

2.      Job-related reading

Teks bacaan yang berhubungan dengan job-work. Jenis bacaan ini adalah jenis bacaan yang digunakan dalam dunia kerja. Contohnya, surat elektronik, dokumen keuangan, agenda, pengumuman, dll.

3.      Personal reading

Teks bacaan yang berhubungan dengan privacy. Jenis bacaan ini biasanya digunakan untuk fungsi pribadi. Contohnya, bacaan berupa karya sastra, dokumen-dokumen pribadi, undangan kartu ucapan, resep, dll.

Microskills, macroskills, and strategies for reading

1.      Microskills

Kemampuan dalam mengenali hal-hal yang lebih spesifik dalam bacaan, seperti dalam hal struktur kata, tenses, kata dasar dalam sebuah kata.

2.      Macroskills

Kemampuan dalam memahami bacaan secara umum, baik mengenai tujuan bacaan ataupun makna.

3.      Strategies for reading comprehension

Dalam memahami suatu bacaan ada beberapa strategi yang dapat diterapkan, diantaranya; Teknik membaca dalam hati dan scanning.

Types of reading

1.      PERCEPTIVE

Pada perceptive reading, jenis bacaan cenderung pendek dan involve attending to the components of larger streches of discourse seperti huruf, kata, tanda baca, dll.

2.      SELECTIVE

Selektive reading adalah jenis bacaan yang berfokus pada vocabulary dan grammatikal.

3.      INTERACTIVE

Pada interactive reading, teks bacaan berfokus pada main idea dan lebih menekankan pada aspek makna.

4.      EXTENSIVE

Pada extensive reading, Teks bacaannya cenderung lebih panjang.

Designing assessment tasks

1.      Perceptive reading

Dalam menilai kemampuan dasar dapat dilakukan dengan berbagai cara, diantaranya:

a.       Membaca dengan suara keras, test-taker diminta membaca dengan suara keras, sehingga test-taker bisa mengerti maksud bacaan melalui mendengarkan apa yang mereka baca.

b.      Written response, test-taker diminta untuk menulis kembali apa yang mereka mengerti dari bacaan yang telah mereka baca.

c.       Pilihan ganda, test taker diminta untuk menjawab soal pilihan ganda yang berkaitan dengan bacaan agar guru dapat melihat sejauh mana pemahaman test-taker terhadap bacaan yang telah dibacanya.

d.      Picture-cued items, dalam jenis teks ini peserta tes diperlihatkan sebuah gambar kemudian dalam kertas tes terdapat beberapa kata yang berhubungan dengan gambar. Kemudian test taker diberi pertanyaan atau instruksi yang berhubungan dengan gambar tersebut.

                                                                                                                          

2.      Selective reading

Ada beberapa jenis teks yang dapat digunakan dalam menilai aspek leksikal dan grammatikal dalam kemampuan membaca diantaranya;

a.       Multiple-choice (for form-focused criteria), metode yang paling banyak digunakan dalam mengukur pengetahuan kosakata dan grammar adalah pilihan ganda. Jenis multiple-choice yang dapat digunakan dalam selective reading ini juga bermacam-macam; multiple-choice vocabulary/grammar task, contextualized multiple-choice vocabulary/grammar task, Multiple-choice cloze vocabulary/grammar task.

b.      Matching task, ada dua contoh bentuk teks yang dapat digunakan yaitu; vocabulary matching task, jenis teks ini intinya adalah memasangkan kata atau frase yang yang bermakna sama.fill-in vocabulary selected response task, memasukkan atau mengisi kata yang kosong pada setiap nomor dengan memilih kata yang sesuai dari beberapa kata yang sudah disiapkan, tetapi ini berbeda dengan pilihab ganda karna jumlah kata yang disiapkan sesuai dengan jumlah nomor pada stem.

c.       Editing task, atau yang lebih sering kita kenal dengan error identification. Dalam editing task peserta tes harus menemukan kata atau frase yang salah atau tidak sesuai dalam stem, jawabannya juga dalam bentuk pilihan dengan tanda garis bawah pada setiap pilihannya.

d.      Picture-cued task, beberapa jenis teks yang umum digunakan diantaranya;multiple-choice picture-cued response dan diagram labeling task.

e.       Gap-filling tasks, atau yang biasa disebut fill-in-the-blank. Jenis teks ini mengukur kemampuan reading dan writing.

3.      Interactive reading

Ada beberapa jenis teks yang dapat diterapakan dalam jenis teks ini diantaranya;

a.       Cloze task, secara umum jenis cloze teks ada dua yaitu; fix-ratio deletion dan rational deletion. Sedangkan, variasi cloze teks yang sering digunakan ada dua yaitu; cloze-test procedure dan cloze-elide procedure.

b.      Improptu reading plus comprehension question, jenis teks yang jenis bacaannya tidak diketahui dan tidak dipelajari sebelumnya kecuali tehnik-tehnik menjawabnya. Teks yang seperti ini biasanya sering ditemukan dalam TOEFL.

c.       Short answer task, dalam jenis teks ini peserta didik diberikan bacaan kemudian membaca soal dan menjawabnya dalam bentuk satu kalimat atau lebih.

d.      Editing longer task, Pada editing longer teks kalimat pada setiap nomor saling berhungan.

e.       Scanning, strategi yang digunakan olah pembaca untuk menemukan informasi yang spesifik dalam sebuah teks.

f.        Ordering task, dalam jenis teks ini peserta tes diminta untuk menyusun paragraf yang tersaji secara acak menjadi paragraf yang runtut.

g.       Information transfer; reading charts, maps, graphs, diagrams

Dalam jenis teks ini perserta tes dituntut untuk menyampaikan informasi yang tersaji dalam bentuk grafik, diagram, peta, dan daftar kedalam bahasa tulisan ataupun disampaikan secara langsung.

references : http://inamutmainnah79.blogspot.co.id/2014/11/assessing-listening-and-assessing.html

designing classroom language test

DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

TEST TYPES

Defining your purpose will help you choose the right kind of test, and it will also help you to focus on the specific objectives of the test. 

Below are the test types to be examined:

• Language Aptitude Test
• Proficiency Test
• Placement Test
• Diagnostic Test
•  Achievement Test 

1.  Language Aptitude Test

· A language aptitude test is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language.

· Task in MLAT includes: Number learning, phonetic script, spelling clues, word in sentence, and repaired associates.

· There’s no unequivocal evidence that language aptitude test predict communicative success in a language .

· Any test that claims to predict success in learning a language is undoubtedly flawed

2     2. Proficiency Test

· A proficiency test is not limited to any one course, curriculum, or single skill in the language ; rather , it test overall ability.

· It includes: standardized multiple choice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and aural comprehension.

· Proficiency test are almost always summative and norm-referenced.

· They are usually not equipped to provide diagnostic feedback.

· Their role is to accept or to deny someone’s passage into the text stage of a journey.

3    3. Placement Test

· The ultimate objective of a placement test is to correctly place a student into a course or level.

· A placement test usually includes a sampling of the material to be covered in the various courses in a curriculum.

· In a placement test , a student should find the test material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.

· The English as a Second Language Placement Test ( ESLPT ) at San Francisco State University has three parts, part 1: student read a short article and then write a summary essay. Part 2: student write a composition in response to an article. Part 3: multiple choice; students read an essay and identify grammar errors in it.

4     4.Diagnostic Tests

· A diagnostic test is designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language.

· A diagnostic test can help a student become aware of errors and encourage the adoption of appropriate compensatory strategies.

· A typical diagnostic test of oral production was created by Clifford prator (1972) to accompany a manual of English pronunciation.

- Test-takers are directed to read a 150-word passage while they are tape recorded.

- The test administrator then refers to an inventory of phonological items for analyzing a learner’s production.

-After multiple listening, the administrator produces a checklist for errors in five separate categories.

-Stress and rhythm.

-Intonation,

-Vowels,

-Consonants, and

 -Other factors.

5    5. Achievement Test

· An achievement test is related directly to classroom lessons, units, or even a total curriculum.

· Achievement tests should be limited to particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame and should be offered after a course has focused on the objectives in question.

· The primary role of an achievement test is to determine whether course objectives has been meet – end of a period of instruction.

· Achievement test are often summative because they are administered at the end f a unit or term of study. But effective achievement tests can serve as useful wash back by showing the errors of a students and helping them analyze their weaknesses and strengths.

· Achievement test range from five-or ten-minutes quizzes to three hour final examinations, with an almost infinite variety of item types and formats.

· Some practical steps in constructing classroom tests:

-     Assessing Clear, Unambiguous Objective.

Before giving a test; examine the objectives for the unit you’re testing. Your first task in designing a test, then, is to determine appropriate objectives.

Example: “ students will recognize and produce tag question, with the correct grammatical from and final intonation pattern, in simple social conversation.“

-    Drawing Up Test Specification

Test specifications will simply comprise

- A broad outline of the test

-What skill you will test

-What the items will look like

This is an example for test specification based on the objective stated above:

“Student will recognize and produce tag questions, with the correct grammatical form and final intonation pattern, in simple social conversation.”

Test specification

1. Speaking (5 minutes per person, previous day)

Format: oral interview, T and S

Task: T ask question to S

2. Listening (10 minutes)

Format: T makes audiotape in advance, with one other voice on it

Tasks: a. 5 minimal pair items, multiple choice

3. Reading (10 minutes)

Format: cloze test items (10 total) in a story line

Task: fill inn the blanks

4. Writing (10 minutes )

Format: prompt for a topic: why I like /didn’t like a recent TV sitcom

Task: writing a short opinion paragraph

- Devising Test Task

As you devise your test items, consider such factors as

-How students will perceive them (face validity)

- The extent to which authentic language and contexts are present

- Potential difficult caused by cultural schemata

- Designing Multiple-Choice Test Items

There are a number of weaknesses in multiple-choice items:

- The technique tests only recognition knowledge.

- Guessing may have a considerable effect of test scores.

- The technique severely restricts what can be tested.

- It is very difficult to write successfully items.

- Wash back may be harmful.

v Cheating may be facilitated

Some important jargons in Multiple-Choice Items:

1. Multiple-choice items are all receptive, or selective, that is, the test taker chooses from a set of responses rather than creating a response. Other receptive items types include true-false question and matching lists.

2. Every multiple-choice item has a stem, which presents several option or alternatives to choose from.

SCORING, GRADING AND GIVING FEEDBACK

A. Scoring

As you design a classroom test, you must consider how t test will be scored and graded. Your scoring plans reflect the relative weight that you place on each section and items in each section. The integrated skills class that we have been using as an example focuses on listening and speaking skills with some attention to reading and writing. Three of your nine objectives target reading and writing skills. How do you assign scoring to the various components of this test?

Because oral production is a driving force in your overall objectives, you decide to place more weight on the speaking (oral interview) section than on the other three sections. Five minutes is actually a long time to spend in a one-on-one situation with a student, and some significant information can be extracted from such a session. You therefore designate. 40 percent of the grade to the oral interview. You consider the listening and reading sections to be equally important, but each of them, especially in this multiple choice format, is of less consequence than the oral interview. So you give each of them a 20 percent weight. That leaves 20 percent for the writing section, which seems about right to you given the time and focus on writing in this unit of the course.

Your next task is to assign scoring for each item. This may take a little numerical common sense, but it doesn’t require a degree in math. To make matters simple, you decide to have a 100-point test in which.

-    The listening and reading items are each worth 2 points.

-   The oral interview will yield four scores ranging from 5 to 1, reflecting fluency, prosodic features, accuracy of the target grammatical objectives, and discourse appropriateness. To weight these scores appropriately, you will double each individual score and then add them together for a possible total score of 40.

-   The writing sample has two scores: one for grammar/mechanics (including the correct use of so and because) and one for overall effectiveness of the message, each ranging from 5 to 1. Again, to achieve the correct weight for writing, you will double each score and add them, so the possible total is 20 points.

Here are your decisions about scoring your test:

                                    Percent of                                                       Possible Total

                                    Total Grade                                                   Correct

Oral Interview                  40%            4 scores, 5 to 1 range x 2        = 40    

Listening                          20%            10 items @ 2 points each        = 20

Reading                            20%            10 items @ 2 points each        = 20

Writing                             20%            2 scores, 5 to 1 range x 2        = 20

Total                                                                                                        100

At this point you may wonder if the interview should carry less weight or the written essay more, but your intuition tells you that these weights are plausible representations of the relative emphases in this unit of the course.

After administering the test once, you may decide to shift some of these weights or to make other changes. You will then have valuable information about how easy or difficult the test was, about whether the time limit was reasonable, about your student’s affective reaction to it, and about their general performance. Finally, you will have an intuitive judgment about whether this test correctly assessed your students. Take note of these impressions, however no empirical they may be, and use them for revising the test in another term.

B. Grading

Grading doesn’t mean just giving “A” for 90-100, and a “B” for 80-89.

It’s not that simple . How you assign letter grades to a test in a product of

- The country, culture, and context of the English classroom,

- Institutional expectations (most of them unwritten),

- Explicit and implicit definitions of grades that you have set forth,

- The relationship you have established with the class, and

- Student expectations that have been engendered (cause) in previous test and quizzes in the class.

C. Giving feedback

Feedback should become beneficial wash back. Those are some examples of feedback:

1. A letter grade

2. A total score

3. Four sub scores (speaking, listening, reading, writing)

4. For the listening and reading sections

- An indication of correct/incorrect responses

- Marginal comments

5. For the oral interview

- Scores for each element being rated

- A checklist of areas needing work

- A post-interview conference to go over the results

6. On the essay

- Scores for each element being rated

-A checklist of areas needing work

- Marginal and end –of-essay comments, suggestions

- A post-test conference to go over work

- A self-assessment

7. On all or selected parts of the test, peer checking of results

8. A whole-class discussion of results of the test

9. Individual conferences with each student to review the whole test

Ways of Assessing Learners

Progress and achievement can also be assessed through written work (done in class or for homework), class activities such as simulations or oral presentations, group projects, and self assessment by the learners themselves. Clear assessment criteria are needed. If the results are to be included in the overall course assessment of the learners, the criteria should be understood and agreed upon by all the teachers involved.

CONCLUSION

There are five kinds of test types: Language aptitude tests, proficiency tests, placement tests, diagnostic tests, and achievement tests. Every test must be a wonderfully innovative instrument that will garner the accolades of the colleagues and the admiration of the students.

In the test, we have some practical steps to test construction, they are: assessing clear and unambiguous objectives, drawing up test specifications, devising test tasks, and designing multiple-choice test items.

Evaluation can fulfill two functions: assessment and feedback. Assessment is a matter of measuring what the learners already know. Any assessment should also provide positive feedback to inform teachers and learners about what is still not known, thus providing important input to the content and methods of future works.

 reference :  http://desvieta.blogspot.co.id/2010/04/designing-classroom-language-tests.html
 http://febbyeni.blogspot.co.id/2013/06/designing-classroom-language-test.html