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Measure the students proficiency in grammar ranging from inflection to syntax.

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Much ESL teaching has been based on

grammar.

There is a general agreement on what test.

Errors in grammar are easily identified.

Both active and passive skills can be tested.

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(Direct physical responses and visuals)

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Use oral questions that require easy spoken replies or simple nonverbal actions.

e.g. TEACHER: “How many books are on the

table?”STUDENT: six << it can be in their language

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The teacher should use familiar words! WHY??

e.g. TEACHER: “Put the red folder between the two

green ones”

OR

TEACHER: “Where are the three yellow notebooks? “

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Pictures can be used to test grammar as well. (i.e. to test prepositions, tenses, conditional statements,..etc). Page.36

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It is suitable for students with very little knowledge about English.

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Test groups using directed physical responses.

For example,

“Drawing”THE TEACHER: “Draw an airplane in the middle

of the paper. Then, draw a house below the air plane. Next, draw a cloud in front of the air plane.”

- Comparative (page. 37)

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It put students at ease and avoids

unnecessary stress.

It avoids skills such as reading and writing

the students have not mastered yet.

It can scored easily and objectively.

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Individual testing takes a long time.

It is difficult to find a suitable pictures.

Only limited number of grammatical

structure can be tested that way.

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(incomplete sentence followed by four options to complete the sentence)

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#She is ___________ her breakfast.

a. eat b. eating c. ate d. eaten

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Choose the grammar points you need to test.

Prepare the right kind of sentence context

(i.e. stem).

Select three logical distractors.

Prepare simple, clear instructions.

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Structures covered in class.

Quizzes and assignments might help. HOW?

Ignore well known structures except at the

beginning of the test. WHY?

Give different weight to various grammar points.

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Good context is important. Yet, it should not be long

e.g. test (to + V)

“I don’t want to ___ “ <<< √

e.g. test (must)You need a longer context to explain the

meaning of the modal.

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______ the ones who know the answers.

a.They are

b.There

c. They’re

d.Their

Avoid distractors that sound alike.

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You can get it from the lady _____ he sold it to.

a.whichb.whoc. whomd.why

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If I had a new fur coat, ________________a. I showed it to everyone.b. I’d show it to everyonec. I’ve shown it to everyoned. I’ll show it to everyone

Avoid repetition in the distractors.

If I had a new fur coat, …………. It to everyone.a. I showedb. I’d showc. I’ve showedd. I’ll show

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They just bought ____ furniture.a. a fewb. severalc. some*d. with

Avoid mixing categories.

They just bought _______a. a few furnituresb. several furnituresc. some furnitured. a furniture

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Space saver.Tom lives (A. at, B. on, C. in, D. __ ) Center

Street. Dialogue context.“Did she ask you to go with her?”“No, she asked someone ___ instead.”a. Else b. another c. other d. ___ Error identification (which items?)

A BOne of the girls lost her wallet and does not have C D some money for the game.

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Test the grammar point directly which

increase the validity of the test.

Scoring is easy and reliable.

It allows teachers to diagnose specific

problems of students)

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It is not easy to prepare a good item.

Easy for the students to cheat.

It does not appear to measure the students’

ability to reproduce the language structures.

It can have a negative influence on class work

which leads to a harmful backwash effect.

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Sentence with a missing grammar point.

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Example;

“He went ____ school.”

Students will;

a.decide from the context which word to use.

b.write an option from a list

c. change the form of a key word.

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1. Select the grammar points you want to test.

2. Provide an appropriate context.

3. Write good instructions.

4. Decide on the kind of simple-completion

question to use.

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The ____ child was crying for her mother. (losing, lost*).

Choose the best question word from the following list (who, which, where, what, why, when)

_____ were you late? We ran out of gas.

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Similar to multiple-choice completion, but with two options only.

Example;

Complete the following sentences with ‘do’ or ‘make’

a. He ___ a lot of money last year.b. I always ____ my best.

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Students should produce the appropriate form.

It calls for more productive response.

He’s the ____ (tall) person in the class.

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“He _____ (sing) a song.

Poor item. Why?Context is not enough.

How to fix it?

- He is ___ (sing) a song.- He ______ singing now.-”What is Tom doing now?” “Oh, he ______

(sing)”

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Use common terminology.

Add a question tag to these sentences.

Tom was indecisive, ………………………?

It is good to use an example. Why?

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“You would get better sooner if ……………..”

- Minimum amount of contextual control.- Require real productivity.- Flexibility- Communicative

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Easy to prepare.

It appears to measure the productive skills.

There is no exposure to incorrect grammatical

forms

It provide a sensitive measure of achievement.

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Time consuming to correct.

Handwriting might be a problem

Students can avoid the structures being

tested by providing unexpected answers.

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Passage with deleted words.

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Cloze tests are popular these days. Why?

- easy to prepare

- easy to correct

- integrative

- it is a good measurement of overall

proficiency

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Select an appropriate passage.

Decide on the ratio of the words deleted.

Write the instruction and prepare an

example.

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Select a passage. from reading material. appropriate to the level of the students. length of the selection depends on the

number of blanks you plan to have.

Don’t ! Use passage with a lot of proper nouns,

numbers, technical word. Don’t use a passage with a lot of quoted

material.

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Ratio of the deleted items;- selected – deletion”- take out every 7th word.

Write instruction

“First, read over the whole story quickly. Then read it carefully and fill in the blanks. Finally, read it again to see that your words make sense.”

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Scoring the cloze test.1)Give credits for only the exact word from

the story.2) Allow full credit to equivalent words as

well.

Problems !

• misspellings???• bad handwriting??• Two or more words in the blank.

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Multiple-choice cloze

Selected-deletion cloze

Inflectional cloze.

*They do not have a fixed ratio of words deleted from the

passage.

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It is easy to prepare and score.

It is a good measurement of integrative

English skills.

It is a good measurement of the overall

ability in English.

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It can not be used to measure the short

term gains.

It is difficult for non native teachers to

choose accepted equivalent words.

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