英语语言测试方法在评估学生学习效率中的作用（英文）

　　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.

　　

　　Keyword: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]15which 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 i 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.

　　

　　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

　　

　　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.

　　

　　4 The integrative approach

　　

　　4.1 Merits and demerits

　　

　　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.

　　

　　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.

　　

　　4.2 Case study:cloze 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.

　　

　　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.

　　

　　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 approachisalsoculture-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 tes difficulties and make the tests reliable, students mus be aware of their own cultures and enable themselves to identify cultural bias.

　　

　　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 importan 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.

　　

　　5.2 Evaluation of the communicative approach

　　

　　Next let us move to the evaluation of the communicative testing approach.The advantages of i 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 grammatica 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.Sincecommunicativetestingisoften 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, sincethistestingapproachis culturally-specific, it is not easy to implement in other cultures.

　　

　　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 tha 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 tes 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 tes which is as valid and reliable as possible.

　　

　　参考文献

　　

　　[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