SKKN môn Tiếng Anh (THPT)

Preface I) Reasons for this study: When a person hear the term evaluation, the first thought that often comes to mind is tests or grades. Can you remember how you felt as a young child waiting for the teacher to return a test paper from a difficult examination? What about the sleepless nights before an important examination in school or the wait for the postcard reporting a final grade? Although the teacher gives many tests to measure how well the student has attained the objectives and to assign his final grade, evaluation plays a role in many other teacher’s dicisions. Before beginning instruction, teachers often need to assess the students backgrounds or entry behavior to set the appropriate level for instruction. During instruction it is sometimes necessary to diagnose students’strength and weakness to discover why they may be having difficulty in a particular subject. The teacher may have to assess students attitudes about classroom procedures and perhaps change his behavior to accommodate them. These are just a few of the reasons for obtaining evaluation information. For teacher to evaluate properly they must know what kind of judgements and decisions are called for and how to gather information for their decisions. II) Scope of the study: From that point of view, I would like to present this paper which covers only a small area of study, and focusses on two questions “what are teacher-made tests?” and “how can the theory be applied to English tests?”. some kinds of teacher - made tests 1 III. Methods of the study: Three main methods have been applied, that is, synthesis, analysis and illustration. IV. References: Making a good test has been a big challenge to any instructors and they have made great contribution and studies in this area. Therefore I do not want to create any thing new but sum up and learn from others’ experience: - Short- cut statistics for teacher-made tests by Deiderich.P.B. - Teaching for learnining by D.Feness - And other reference books. some kinds of teacher - made tests 2 Contents I) Kinds of teacher- made tests. II) Planning the tests III) Writing test items 1. Multiple-choice items. 2. Completion items. 3. True- false items. 4. Essay questions. some kinds of teacher - made tests 3 I. Kinds of teacher-made tests: According to D.Feness, there are two kinds of tests, that is, teacher- made and standardized ones. Standardized tests are useful for determining how local achievement compares to national norms. The teacher- made tests are more useful for measuring individual classroom instruction. Teacher –made achievement tests are usually divided into two catergories: (1) the objective tests, which are highly structured and limit the type of response a student can make. The answer key desinates a response as correct or incorrect. These tests include multiple-choice, completion, matching, and true-false items; (2) the subjective or essay tests, which allow a student to impose his own organization on the material and present it on his own words. In scoring an essay test, the teacher must make qualitative decisions about how close a student’s answer is to modal answer. There are no rules for using using an objective or subjective test other than the consideration of what the teacher want to measure and the available time for the task. Many teachers use combinations of both types of tests, since each has its own merits and limitations. A comparision of essay and objective tests appear in the table below: A comparision of essay and objective test: Essay Objective. Requires the student to express himself in his own words, using information from his own back ground and knowledge. Requires the student to select correct answer from given option, or to supply an anwer limited to one word or phrase. some kinds of teacher - made tests 4 Can tap high level of reasoning such as requred in inference organization of ideas, comparision and contrast. Can also tap high level of reasoning such as reqired in inference, organization of idea, comparision and constrast. Does not measure purely factual information effectively. Measures knowledge of fact efficiently. Covers only a limited field of knowledge in any one test. Essay questions take so long to answer that relatively few can be answer in a given period of time. Also, the student who is esspecially fluent can often avoid disscussing poin of which his is unsure. Covers a broad field of knowledge in one test. Since objective questions may be answer quickly, one test may contain many questions.A abroad coverage help provide reliable mesurement. Encorages students to learn how to organize their own ideal and express them effectively. Encorages students to build up a broad background of knowledge and ability. Requires only a few questions for the test. Task must be clearly defined, genaral enough to offer some leeway, specific enough to set limits. Requires writing many questions for a test.Wording must avoid ambiguities and “ giveaway”.Distractors should embody most likely misconceptions. Usually very time-consuming to score. Can be scored quickly. Permits teachers to comment directly on the reasoning process of Answers generally scored only right or wrong, but scoring is very accurate and consitent. some kinds of teacher - made tests 5 individual pupils. However, an answer may be scored differently by different teachers or by the same teacher at different time. (From Making the classroom test- A guide for teachers by Educational Testing Service). II) Planning the test: Before beginning to write any test items, the teacher should perform three tasks. These steps can alleviate many problems in the nature and scope of the examination. 1. Identify the learning outcomes to be mesured by the test. If you have writen objective before instruction, you should have little difficulty in completing this planing phase .If you have no specified objectives for the unit, this initial step will take you more time and efford. 2. Outline the subject- matter content to be measured by the test. This step is taken to ensure that you identify all the important content. 3. Prepare a test plan or table of specifications. The second is a two dimensional table on which the learning outcomes are listed along one side and the subject-matter topic along the other side. For example: some kinds of teacher - made tests 6 Topic: Learning outcomes Describing a person -Apperance -Personality. Regardless of the type of the test items written for an examination, there are some genaral guidelines about writing tests that are always applicable (Chase, 1974). + Avoid replication of the textbook in writing test items. + begin writing the test well in advance of the tesr, and allow time for test revision. + Avoid trick items and procedures. + Make sure the directions are clear. III) Writing test items. 1.Multiple-choice items: The multiple-choice item contains a stem, which identifies a problem stuation, and several alternatives or options, which provide possible solutions to the problem. The alternatives include a correct answer and several plausible wrong answers or distractors. The sterm may be stated as a direct question or an in complete statement. The student’s task is to the correct or best response from the list of alternatives provided. For example: Sterm: The beautiful village is sheltered . the weather by the mountain. some kinds of teacher - made tests 7 Responses: A.in B.from C.with D.by Most multiple-choice items offer four or five choices to reduce the students’ chances of obtaining the correct response by guessing. The quality of a multiple choice item is the combination of the clarity of the stem and the skill with which the various alternatives are written. Here are some suggestions for writing multiple- choice items: 1. Make all alternative responses gramatically consistent with the stem and parallel in form. 2. Avoid making the correct response consitenly longer or shorter than the others. 3. Underline negative wording whenever it is used in the sterm of an item. 4. Avoid overuse of alternatives “all of the above” and “none of the above”. 5. Vary the possition of the correct answer in a random manner. 6. Make certain each item is independent from the other items in the test. The multiple choice item has numerous merits. First, it can measure objectives from entry knowledge level to the most complex level. Second, the teacher can sample a great deal of information in a relatively short time. Third, scoring is completely objective. Last, the four or five choice redure the possibility of obtaining a correct answer through guessing. some kinds of teacher - made tests 8 The main problem with this is the difficulty of writing test items and the students complaint that there is more than one defensible correct answer. However , this can be remedied by carefully written items or “item analysis”. 2.Matching items: The matching item is a modification of the multiple-choice form. A series of stems appear in one column and the responses in another. The student must select the option that is correctly associated with the stem. The following is an example: Choose a right sentence from the right- hand column and place the letter identifying it on the line preceding the number of the term. ---- 1) 7.15 a, It is a quarter to nine ---- 2) 8.45 b, It is ten past nine ---- 3) 9.10 c, It is half past eleven ---- 4) 11.30 d, It is a quarter past seven -----5) 12.25 e,It is twenty five past twelve. The following are some suggestions for constructing matching tests: 1. Include only homogenious material in each matching exercise. 2. Indicate clearly the basis on which the matching is so to be done. 3. The questions should contain at least five and not more than fifteen items. 4. The items in the response column should be arranged in a systematic order. Dates should be in chronological order, whereas names some kinds of teacher - made tests 9 of people, terms and so on should be in alphabetical order. This reduces the amount of time needed to search for the correct response. 5. All the items should be on a single page. The matching item is most appropriate for assessing associations. It is not readily adaptable for measuring complex level of learning. 3.Completion items: A completion, or fill-in-the-blank, item confront the individual with a statement for which his must supply a missing word or phrase. This type of item emphasize recall of previously learned material rather than recognition. Ex: A person who drives a taxi is called a(an) The following are some suggestions for constructing completion items: 1. Omit key words and phrases rather than trivial details 2. Avoid overmultilated statements. 3. If possible, item should reqire a single- word answer 4. Avoid lifting statements directly from the text 5. Make the blanks of uniform length 6. Avoid grammatical clues to the expected answer 7. Arrange the test with the answers in a column for easier scoring. 8. Prepare a scoring key that contains all acceptable answers. some kinds of teacher - made tests 10