AssessingGrammar.ppt

Assessing Grammar Christine Alice Stacey Jenny Ann Test Evaluation Summary Teaching Evaluation of an Existing Test Five characteristics to measure communicative grammar The test must provide more context than only a single sentence. The test taker should understand what the communicative purpose of the task is. He or she should also know who the intended audience is. He or she must have to focus on meaning and not form to answer correctly. Recognize is not sufficient. The test taker must be able “to produce grammatical responses.” Therefore… Have the test taker say or write something (5) of discourse length (1) in order to perform some communicative task (2) for a known audience (3), and what is said or written must make sense (4). Assessing grammar can only be tested as part of a test of writing or speaking? Important Principle: What are we trying to Measure? “English grammar is chiefly a system of syntax that decides the order and patterns in which words are arranged into sentences.” – Close 1982 Separated but closely related to assessing writing and assessing speaking. Oral performance Writing samples Accuracy and fluency Count the errors and rate their severity Focus on Grammar only ‘Meaning’ is a separated matter Integrated tests Discrete point tests Traditional Paper and Pencil Test NRT: TOEFL CRT: Classroom tests Types of Questions: Complete sentences Sentence combining Paragraph editing Correct topic sentence task Multiple Choice Fill in the blank True/False Combination Alternative Assessment Games Class observation Online activities Portfolio Games Design to restrict the language need Usually these games are defined by their focus on The Use of Language Limited options for communication Accuracy Split Sentences Write out some sentences, and then cut each sentence in half. Hand out these pieces to the students, and ask them to find the matching half among the other students. Students’ abilities in combing sentences Grammar knowledge to all forms of th