Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1 Teaching and testing
- 2 Testing as problem solving: an overview of the book
- 3 Kinds of tests and testing
- 4 Validity
- 5 Reliability
- 6 Achieving beneficial backwash
- 7 Stages of test development
- 8 Common test techniques
- 9 Testing writing
- 10 Testing oral ability
- 11 Testing reading
- 12 Testing listening
- 13 Testing grammar and vocabulary
- 14 Testing overall ability
- 15 Tests for young learners
- 16 Test administration
- Appendix 1 The statistical analysis of test data
- Appendix 2 Item banking
- Appendix 3 Questions on the New Zealand youth hostels passage
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Author Index
13 - Testing grammar and vocabulary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1 Teaching and testing
- 2 Testing as problem solving: an overview of the book
- 3 Kinds of tests and testing
- 4 Validity
- 5 Reliability
- 6 Achieving beneficial backwash
- 7 Stages of test development
- 8 Common test techniques
- 9 Testing writing
- 10 Testing oral ability
- 11 Testing reading
- 12 Testing listening
- 13 Testing grammar and vocabulary
- 14 Testing overall ability
- 15 Tests for young learners
- 16 Test administration
- Appendix 1 The statistical analysis of test data
- Appendix 2 Item banking
- Appendix 3 Questions on the New Zealand youth hostels passage
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Author Index
Summary
Testing grammar
Why test grammar?
Can one justify the separate testing of grammar? There was a time when this would have seemed a very odd question. Control of grammatical structures was seen as the very core of language ability and it would have been unthinkable not to test it. But times have changed. As far as proficiency tests are concerned, there has been a shift towards the view that since it is language skills that are usually of interest, then it is these which should be tested directly, not the abilities that seem to underlie them. For one thing, it is argued, there is more to any skill than the sum of its parts; one cannot accurately predict mastery of the skill by measuring control of what we believe to be the abilities that underlie it. For another, as has been argued earlier in this book, the backwash effect of tests that measure mastery of skills directly may be thought preferable to that of tests that might encourage the learning of grammatical structures in isolation, with no apparent need to use them. Considerations of this kind have resulted in the absence of any grammar component in some well-known proficiency tests.
But probably most proficiency tests that are administered on a large scale still retain a grammar section. One reason for this must be the ease with which large numbers of items can be administered and scored within a short period of time.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Testing for Language Teachers , pp. 172 - 185Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002