ASSESSING WRITING AND ASSESSING SPEAKING

ASSESSING WRITING

What is writing? Writing is one of the four abilities of English. Writing is one of the 2 productive skills. Assessing Writing is a refereed international journal providing a forum for ideas, research and practice on the assessment of written language. Assessing Writing publishes articles, book reviews, conference reports, and academic exchanges concerning writing assessments of all kinds, including traditional ('direct' and standardised forms of) testing of writing, alternative performance assessments (such as portfolios), workplace sampling and classroom assessment. The journal focuses on all stages of the writing assessment process, including needs evaluation, assessment creation, implementation, and validation, and test development; it aims to value all perspectives on writing assessment as process, product and politics (test takers and raters; test developers and agencies; educational administrations; and political motivations). The journal is interested in review essays of key issues in the theory and practice of writing assessment.

Types of writing: stages of the development of writing ability. It is divided in two:Micro and macro skill.

Micro skill: apply more appropriately to imitative and intensive type of writing task.

Macro skill: Are essential for the successful mastery of responsive and intensive writing.

Genres of writing language.

1. 1. Academic writing: eg. Essays, compositions, journals, reports, thesis , dissertation.

1. 2. Job-related writing: eg. Letters, mails, phone message, manuals.

1. 3. Personal writing: e.g. Notes, calendar entries, diaries, poetry, personal journal.

1. 1. Imitative: is a level at which learners are trying to master the mechanics of writing.

1. 2. Intensive (controlled): skills in producing appropriate vocabulary within a context, collocations and idioms , and correct grammatical features of a sentence.

1. 3. Responsive: Tasks requires learners to perform at a limit discourse level, connecting sentences into a paragraph an create a logically connected sequence of two or three paragraphs.

1. 4. Extensive: Implies successful management of all the process and strategies of writing for all purposes. Writers focus on achieving a purpose, organizing and developing ideas logically.

Assessing Writing embraces internationalism and will attempt to reflect the concerns of teachers, researchers and writing assessment specialists around the world, whatever their linguistic background. Articles are published in English and normally relate to the assessment of English language writing, but articles in English about the assessment of writing in languages other than English will be considered. While Assessing Writing frequently publishes articles about the assessment of writing in the fields of composition, writing across the curriculum, and TESOL (the teaching of English to speakers of other languages), it welcomes articles about the assessment of writing in professional and academic areas outside these fields.

The scope of the journal is wide, and embraces all work in the field at all age levels, in large-scale (international, national and state) as well as classroom, educational and non-educational institutional contexts, writing and programme evaluation, writing and critical literacy, and the role of technology in the assessment of writing. Through this scholarly exchange, Assessing Writing contributes to the development of excellence in the assessment of writing in all contexts, and, in so doing, to the teaching and appreciation of writing.

Types of writing performance:

1. Imitative: is a level at which learners are trying to master the mechanics of writing.
2. Intensive (controlled): skills in producing appropriate vocabulary within a context, collocations and idioms , and correct grammatical features of a sentence.
3. Responsive: Tasks requires learners to perform at a limit discourse level, connecting sentences into a paragraph an create a logically connected sequence of two or three paragraphs.
4. Extensive: Implies successful management of all the process and strategies of writing for all purposes. Writers focus on achieving a purpose, organizing and developing ideas logically.

ASSESSING SPEAKING

One of the productive skills in language is speaking. Speaking and listening are almost always closely interrelated. It is very difficult to isolate oral production tasks that do not directly involve the interaction of aural comprehension. Only in limited contexts of speaking people can assess oral language without the aural participation of an interlocutor. As a productive skill, speaking can be directly and empirically observed. The interaction of speaking and listening challenges the designer of an oral production test to tease apart, as much as possible, the factors accounted for by aural intake. Another challenge is the design of elicitation techniques. Because most speaking is the product of creative construction of linguistic strings, the speaker makes choices of lexicon, structure, and discourse.

In receptive performance, the elicitation stimulus can be structured to anticipate predetermined responses and only those responses. However, in productive performance, the oral or written stimulus must be specific enough to elicit output within an expected range of performance such that scoring or rating procedures apply appropriately. In speaking assessment, each score represents one of several traits such as: pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary use, grammar, comprehensibility, etc.

Speaking has five categories which are similar to listening. First, imitative, it is the ability to simply parrot back (imitate) a word or phrase or possibly a sentence. The only role of listening here is in the short-term storage of a prompt, just long enough to allow the speaker to retain the short stretch of language that must be imitated. Second, intensive, it is the production of short stretches of oral language designed to demonstrate competence in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological relationships such as: prosodic elements-intonation, stress, rhythm, juncture. The speaker must be aware of semantic properties in order to be able to respond, but interaction with an interlocutor or test administrator is minimal at best. Third, responsive, it includes interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhat limited level of very short conversations, standard greetings and small talk, simple requests and comments, and the like. Fourth, interactive, sometimes includes multiple exchanges and/or multiple participants. Interaction can take the two forms of transactional language, which has the purpose of exchanging specific information, or interpersonal exchanges, which have the purpose of maintaining social relationships. In interpersonal exchanges, oral production can become pragmatically complex with the need to speak in a casual register and use colloquial language, ellipsis, slang, humor, and other sociolinguistic conventions. The last category, extensive, includes speeches, oral presentations, and story-telling, during which the opportunity foe oral interaction from listeners is either highly limited or ruled out altogether. Language style is frequently more deliberative and formal for extensive tasks, but people cannot rule out certain informal monologues.

A task type that is generally used in imitative speaking is word repetition. In a simple repetition task, test-takers repeat the stimulus, whether it is a pair of words, a sentence, or perhaps a question. Another popular test is PhonePass. It is a widely used and commercially available speaking test in many countries. It is remarkable that research on the PhonePass test has supported the construct validity of its repetition tasks not just for a test-taker’s phonological ability but also for discourse and overall oral production ability. Scores for the PhonePass test are calculated by a computerized scoring template and reported back to the test-taker within minutes. The PhonePass findings could signal an increase in the future use of repetition and read-aloud procedures for the assessment of oral production.

The next type is intensive speaking, in which test-takers are prompted to produce short stretches of discourse through which they demonstrate linguistic ability at a specified level of language. Tasks used in this level like directed response task, the test administrator elicits a particular grammatical form or a transformation of a sentence. The following, read-aloud tasks which include reading beyond the sentence level up to a paragraph or two. Because of the results, reading aloud may actually be a surprisingly strong indicator of overall oral production ability. Reading aloud is somewhat inauthentic in that people seldom read anything aloud to someone else in the real world, with the exception of a parent reading to a child, occasionally sharing a written story with someone, or giving a scripted oral presentation. Another technique for targeting intensive aspects of language requires test-takers to read dialogue in which one speaker’s lines have been omitted. One way which is popular to elicit oral language performance at both intensive and extensive levels is a picture-cued stimulus that requires a description from the test-taker. Pictures may be very simple, designed to elicit a word or a phrase; somewhat more elaborate and “busy”; or composed of a series that tells a story or incident. Scoring responses on picture-cued intensive speaking tasks varies, depending on the expected performance criteria.

Responsive speaking, as the third type, involves brief interactions with an interlocutor, differs from intensive tasks in the increased creativity given to the test-takers and from interactive tasks by the somewhat limited length of utterances. Various tasks in this level are like question and answer consisting of one or two questions from an interviewer or it can make up a portion of a whole battery of questions and prompts in an oral interview, giving instructions and directions, paraphrasing (read or hear a limited number of sentences and produce a paraphrase of the sentence), and Test of Spoken English (TSE). The tasks on the TSE are designed to elicit oral production in various discourse categories rather than in selected phonological, grammatical, or lexical targets.

The fourth category of oral production assessment is interactive speaking. It includes tasks that involve relatively long stretches of interactive discourse (interviews, role plays, discussions, games) and tasks of equally long duration but that involve less interaction (speeches, telling longer stories, and extended explanations and translations). Interviews can vary in length from perhaps five to forty-five minutes depending on their purpose and context, while role playing is a popular pedagogical activity in communicative language-teaching classes. Role play opens some windows of opportunity for test-takers to use discourse that might otherwise be difficult to elicit. The test administrator must determine the assessment objectives of the role play, then devise a scoring technique that appropriately pinpoints those objectives. Discussions, as formal assessment devices, are difficult to specify and even more difficult to score. They offer a level of authenticity and spontaneity that other assessment techniques may not provide. Discussion scoring should be carefully designed to suit the objectives of the observed discussion. Interactive tasks tend to be what some would describe as interpersonal.

The latest one, extensive speaking tasks involve complex, relatively stretches of discourse. They are frequently variations on monologues, usually with minimal verbal interaction. Tasks used in this level are like: oral presentations, picture-cued story-telling, retelling a story and news event, and translation (of extended prose). For oral presentations, a checklist or grid is a common means of scoring or evaluation; while in retelling a story, test-takers hear or read a story that they are asked to retell. In translation, longer texts are presented for the test-taker to read in the native language and then translate into English.

There are many various skills in speaking that can be categorized into two, microskills and macroskills. The former refer to producing the smaller chunks of language such as phonemes, morphemes, words, collocations, and phrasal units. In the other hand, the latter imply the speaker’s focus on the larger elements like fluency, discourse, function, style cohesion, nonverbal communication, and strategic options. The microskills components are: produce differences among English phonemes and allophonic variants; produce chunks of language of different lengths; produce English stress patterns, word in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation contours; produce reduced forms of words and phrases; use an adequate number of lexical units to accomplish pragmatic purposes; produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery; monitor one’s own oral production and use various strategic devices; use grammatical word classes, systems, word order, patterns, rules and elliptical forms; produce speech in natural constituents in appropriate phrases, pause groups, breath groups, and sentence constituents; express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms; use cohesive devices in spoken discourse. The other one, macroskills components are: appropriate accomplish communicative functions according to situations, participants, and goals; use appropriate styles, registers, implicature, redundancies, pragmatic conventions, conversation rules, floor-keeping and yielding, interrupting, and other sociolinguistic features in face-to-face conversations; convey links and connections between events and communicative such relations as focal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings, new information and given information, generalization and exemplification; convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along with verbal language; develop and use battery of speaking strategies.

Three important issues which should be considered by test writer in designing tasks, namely: no speaking task is capable of isolating the single skill of oral production; eliciting the specific criterion people have designated for a task can be tricky because beyond the word level, spoken language offers a number of productive options to test-takers; because of the above two characteristics of oral production assessment, it is important to carefully specify scoring procedures for a response so that ultimately you achieve as high a reliability index as possible.

REFERENCES :

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/assessing-writing

http://misscatamunita.blogspot.co.id/2007/06/assessing-writing-what-is-writing.html

http://misscatamunita.blogspot.co.id/2007/06/assessing-speaking-what-is-speaking-it.html

http://pascaunesabig.blogspot.co.id/2010/06/assessing-speaking.html

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ASSESSING LISTENING AND READING

 A. Assessing Listening

OBSERVING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE FOUR SKILL
Before focusing on listening itself, think about the two interacting concepts of performance and observation. All language users perform the acts of listening. Speaking, reading & writing. They of course rely on their underlying competence in order to accomplish these performances. When you propose to asses that person’s competence, but you observe the person’s performance.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

Listening has often played second fiddle to its counterpart, speaking in the standardized testing industry, a number separate oral production test are available (Test of spoken English, Oral proficiency inventory and phone pass. to name several that are described chapter 7 of this book, but it is rare to find just a listening test. on reason for this emphasis is that listening is often implied as a component of speaking. in addition the overtly observable nature of speaking renders it more empirically measurable than listening.
We therefore need to pay close attention to listening as a mode of performance for assessment in the classroom in this chapter we will begin with basic principals and types listening, than move to a survey of task that can be used to assess listening.

BASIC TYPES of LISTENING
Ass all with effective test, designing appropriate assessment tasks in listening begins wait the specification of objectives, or criteria those objective may be classified in term of several types of listening performance.

1. You recognize speech sounds and hold a temporary “imprint” of them in short term memory.
2. You simultaneously determine the type of speech event (monologue, interpersonal dialogue, transactional dialogue) that is being processed and attend to its context (who the speakers is location purpose)
3. You use (bottom up) listening decoding skill and /or (top-down) background schemata to bring a plausible interpretation to the message and assign a literal and intended meaning to the utterance.
4. In most cases (expect for repetition task, which involve short-term memory only)

Each of these stages represents a potential assessment objective:
 Comprehending of surface structure elements such as phonemes word intonation, or a grammatical category
 understanding of pragmatic context
 determining meaning of auditory input
 developing the gist, a global or comprehensive understanding


From these stages we can derive four commonly identified types of listening performance, each of which comprises a category within which to consider assessment tasks and procedures.

1. intensive
2. Responsive
3. selective
4. extensive


INTENSIVE LISTENING

Once you have determined objectives, your next step is to design the task including making decisions about how you will elicit performance and how you will expect the test-taker to respond. We will look at tasks that range from intensive listening performance, such as minimal phonemic pair recognition to extensive comprehension of language in communicative context. The focus in this section is on the micro skill of intensive listening.

Recognizing Phonological and Morphological Elements

A typical form of intensive listening at this level is the assessment of recognizing of phonological and morphological elements of language. A classic test task gives a spoken stimulus and asks test-takers to identify the stimulus from two or more choices.

PARAPHRASE RECOGNITION

The next step up on the scale of listening comprehension micro skills is words, phrases and sentences which are frequently assessed by providing a stimulus sentences and asking the test-taker to choose the correct paraphrase from a number of choices.

RESPONSIVE LISTENING
A question and answer format can provide some interactivity in these lower end listening tasks. The test-taker’s response is the appropriate answer to a question.

SELECTIVE LISTENING
A third type of listening performance is selective listening in which the test-taker listens to a limited quantity of aural input and must discern within it some specific information. A number of techniques have been used that require selective listening.

Listening Cloze
Listening cloze tasks (sometimes called cloze dictations or partial dictations) require the test-taker to listen to a story, monologue, on conversation and simultaneously read the written text in which selected words or phrases have been deleted. Cloze procedure is most commonly associated with reading only (see chapter 9). In its generic form, the test consists of a passage in which every nth word (typically every seventh word) is deleted and the text-taker is asked to supply an appropriate word. in a listening cloze task, test-taker see a transcript of the passage that they are to listening to and fill in the blanks with the words or phrases that they hear.

Information Transfer
Selective listening can also be assessed through an information transfer technique in which aurally processed information must be transferred to a visual representation, such as labeling a diagram, identifying an element in a picture, completing a form, or showing routes on a map.

SENTENCE REPETITION
Sentence repetition is far from a flawless listening assessment task. buck (2001 p. 79) noted that that such tasks “are not just tests of listening, but tests of general oral skills”. Further, this tasks may tests only recognition of sounds, and it can easily be contaminated by lack of short-term memory ability, thus invalidating it as an assessment toning comprehension error from an oral production error. therefore, sentence repetition tasks should be used with caution.

EXTENSIVE LISTENING
Drawing a clear distinction between any two of the categories of listening referred to hear is problematic, but perhaps the fuzziest division is between selective and extensive listening. As we gradually move along the continuum from smaller to larger stretches of language, and from micro- to macro skill of listening. the probability of using more extensive listening task increases.

DICTATION
Dictation is a widely researched genre of assessing listening comprehension. in a dictation, test takers hear passage, typically of 50 to 100 word, recited three times: first at normal speech; than, with long pauses between phrases or natural word groups, during which time test takers write down what they have just heard; and finally, at normal speech once more so they can check there work and proofread.
Scoring criteria for several possible kinds of errors:
 Spelling error only, but the word appears to have been heard correctly
 Spelling and / obvious misrepresentation of word, illegible word
 Grammatical error (for example, test-takers hears I can’t do it, writes I can do it)
 skipped word or phrase
 permutation words not in the original
 replacement of a word with an appropriate synonym

Communicative stimulus – response tasks
Example of extensive listening is found in a popular genre of assessment tasks in which the task-takers is presented with a stimulus monologue or conversation and than is asked to respond to a set of comprehension questions.

Authentic listening tasks
Ideally, the language assessment field would have a stockpile of listening test types that are cognitively demanding, communicative, and authentic, not to mention interactive by means of integration with speaking. The nature of test as a sample of performance and a set of task with limited time frames implies an equally limited capacity to mirror all the real-world contexts of listening performance.

There is no such thing as a communicative test, “stated back (2001.p92).”Every test requires some components of communicative language ability, and no test covers them all similarly, with the nation of authenticity every task shares some characteristics with target-language tasks, and no test is completely authentic.

1. Note-taking. in the academic world, classroom lectures by professors are common features of a non-native English-user’s experience . These notes are evaluated by the teacher on a 30-points system, as follows:

Scoring system for lecture notes

0-15 points

Visual representation: Are your notes clear and easily to read? Can you easily find and retrieve information from them? Do you use the space on the paper to visually represented ideas? Do you use indention headers, numbers, etc?

0-10 points

Accuracy: Do you accurately indicate main ideas from lectures? Do you note important details and supporting information and examples? Do you leave out unimportant information and tangents?

0-5 points

Symbols and abbreviations: Do you use symbols and abbreviations as much as possible to save time? Ado you avoid writing out whole words and do you avoids writing down every single word the lectures say?

2. Editing. Another authentic task provides both a written and a spoken stimulus, and requires the test-taker to listen for discrepancies. Scoring achieves relatively high reliability as there are usually a small number of specific differences that must be identified. Here is the way the task proceeds.

3. Interpretive tasks. One of the intensive listening tasks described above was paraphrasing a story or conversation. An interpretive task extends the stimulus material to a longer stretch of discourse and forces the test – takers to infer a response potential stimulus include.

 Song lyrics
 (recited) poetry
 radio/television news reports and
 an oral account of an experience

4. Retelling. in a related task, tasks takers listen to a story or news event and simply retell it, or summarize it, either orally (on an audiotape) or in writing. In so doing, test takers must identify the gist, main idea, purpose, supporting points. 

B. Assessing Reading

Assessing Reading Proficiency

Reading ability is very difficult to assess accurately. In the communicative competence model, a student's reading level is the level at which that student is able to use reading to accomplish communication goals. This means that assessment of reading ability needs to be correlated with purposes for reading.

Reading Aloud

A student's performance when reading aloud is not a reliable indicator of that student's reading ability. A student who is perfectly capable of understanding a given text when reading it silently may stumble when asked to combine comprehension with word recognition and speaking ability in the way that reading aloud requires.

In addition, reading aloud is a task that students will rarely, if ever, need to do outside of the classroom. As a method of assessment, therefore, it is not authentic: It does not test a student's ability to use reading to accomplish a purpose or goal.

However, reading aloud can help a teacher assess whether a student is "seeing" word endings and other grammatical features when reading. To use reading aloud for this purpose, adopt the "read and look up" approach: Ask the student to read a sentence silently one or more times, until comfortable with the content, then look up and tell you what it says. This procedure allows the student to process the text, and lets you see the results of that processing and know what elements, if any, the student is missing.

Comprehension Questions

Instructors often use comprehension questions to test whether students have understood what they have read. In order to test comprehension appropriately, these questions need to be coordinated with the purpose for reading. If the purpose is to find specific information, comprehension questions should focus on that information. If the purpose is to understand an opinion and the arguments that support it, comprehension questions should ask about those points.

In everyday reading situations, readers have a purpose for reading before they start. That is, they know what comprehension questions they are going to need to answer before they begin reading. To make reading assessment in the language classroom more like reading outside of the classroom, therefore, allow students to review the comprehension questions before they begin to read the test passage.

Finally, when the purpose for reading is enjoyment, comprehension questions are beside the point. As a more authentic form of assessment, have students talk or write about why they found the text enjoyable and interesting (or not).

Authentic Assessment

In order to provide authentic assessment of students' reading proficiency, a post-listening activity must reflect the real-life uses to which students might put information they have gained through reading.

• It must have a purpose other than assessment
• It must require students to demonstrate their level of reading comprehension by completing some task

To develop authentic assessment activities, consider the type of response that reading a particular selection would elicit in a non-classroom situation. For example, after reading a weather report, one might decide what to wear the next day; after reading a set of instructions, one might   repeat them to someone else; after reading a short story, one might discuss the story line with friends.

Use this response type as a base for selecting appropriate post-reading tasks. You can then develop a checklist or rubric that will allow you to evaluate each student's comprehension of specific parts of the text.

References

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/assessread.htm

http://sitiroliyahwigati.blogspot.co.id/2010/05/assessing-listening.html

Standardized Testing

What Are Standardized Tests?

A standardized test is a test  that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.

Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers, is a standardized test. Standardized tests do not need to be high takes task time-limited tests, or multiple-choice tests. The questions can be simple or complex. The subject matter among school-age students is frequently academic skills, but a standardized test can be given on nearly any topic, including driving tests, creativity, personality, professional ethics, or other attributes.

The opposite of standardized testing is non-standardized testing, in which either significantly different tests are given to different test takers, or the same test is assigned under significantly different conditions (e.g., one group is permitted far less time to complete the test than the next group) or evaluated differently (e.g., the same answer is counted right for one student, but wrong for another student).

Standardized tests are perceived as being fairer than non-standardized tests, because everyone gets the same test and the same grading system. This is fairer and more objective than a system in which some students get an easier test and others get a more difficult test. The consistency also permits more reliable comparison of outcomes across all test takers, because everyone is taking the same test.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF STANDARDIZED TESTS

Basically, standardized testing is a way to determine the academic achievement and potential of students. But when the skills of American students were ranked against others around the world, America didn’t even rank in the top tier.

When George W. Bush was president, he announced his No Child Left Behind program on his third day in office. With the addition of this program, federally mandated tests increased from six to 17.

Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, emphasized during his campaign the absurdity of heavy testing. But when he assumed office, he introduced his own initiative called the Common Core state standards. While there was nothing wrong with the concepts, the system is very flawed. A lot of the tests given are also very challenging but at the same time, they don’t really reflect a student’s ability.

Standardized testing has been implemented for over a decade, but according to studies, the achievement gap still hasn’t narrowed. In fact, students, parents and even teachers are opting out of the Common Core exams. The numbers are continuing to grow, and just recently, Missouri Legislature banned the test.

But why are legislators still pushing for standardized tests despite the protests? And why are parents, teachers and students not interested in taking them? Here’s a look at the advantages and disadvantages of standardized testing.

Advantages of Standardized Testing

1. A practical solution.
First off, most of the standardized tests are in multiple choice format. In other words, they are not complicated enough to explain and any student – no matter what level – can understand that they have to tick one of the boxes as their answer. Also, given that tests are easy to implement, they save a lot of time too. Not a lot of time is wasted on giving explanations for why certain sections should be done like this and so. The instructions are fairly simple: choose the answer to the question based on the suggestions below.

2. Results are quantifiable.
When educators are able to quantify the achievement of students, they are able to identify proficiency levels. As such, they can easily identify the students who need remediation or advancement.

However, this is also one of the major complaints about testing: that it truly does not measure the actual skill of a student in a given subject. The outcry over the absurdity of standardized testing warranted it an 18-minute skewering on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. One of the most ludicrous points brought up was the inclusion of a story about a talking pineapple to which children had to answer questions after having gone through the piece.

3. Scoring automation.
With so many students at different grade levels taking the exam, it’s difficult for educators to get through them all. Now, that problem has been simplified through computerized testing – and even scoring.

Then again, computer issues – inability to log on and such – have delayed testing in certain schools across America. In fact, it’s become one of the complaints against standardized testing as well. Also, another complaint about the use of computers is the algorithm for evaluating student performance itself: it is just mysterious.

4. Not biased.
Since a computer handles the grading and all, there is no possible influence of a teacher on the exams. In the past, a teacher can make up their mind about a student’s skills based solely on their biases towards the child. But with computers, those powers are stripped from them and students can now be judged on what they have put on paper – no external factors involved.

5. Allows for comparison.
Educators can compare the results of examinations within the school or even compare it to other schools. Through this, teachers can assess which areas they need to improve on for the students. For example, students from their school may have scored lower in mathematics compared to a rival school. From there, teachers can focus on improving the math curriculum so students will score better next time.

6. Traces student progress.
Standardized tests are taken at certain levels, and over that time, educators can see the progress students have made. They either go into decline or improve tremendously. But whichever the case, teachers now have an idea how best they would respond to a child’s education needs.

Disadvantages of Standardized Testing

1. Questions are general in nature.
The tests do not really assess skill as the questions have to be generalized for the entire population. In short, the test items are not in conjunction with classroom skills and behavior. What standardized tests do is assess the general knowledge and understanding of students rather than their actual ability.

2. Questions are sometimes ridiculous.
Some of the ridiculousness was brought up in John Oliver’s show, and that included questions that were too difficult to comprehend. For instance, a teacher took the exam (not the exact one but something that was close to a legal standardized exam) and the test graded him as a poor reader. What’s worse, the teacher had a Master’s degree.

A fifth-grade teacher in New York also highlighted just how difficult some of the questions are. For example, only six students out of 17 finished an ELA test but the ones who didn’t finish were those the teacher considered avid readers. The teacher declared that “There was just far too much material on the test for them to get through and comprehend.” And also added, “The test isn’t designed for them to pass.”

3. Results doesn’t allow educators to update their instruction methods.
The questions on the test are general in nature, and it’s hard for teachers to know how to improve students’ understanding of a particular topic based on general information alone. What this does though is allowing teachers to “teach to the test” rather than educate students properly based on the needs of the classroom.

4. Scores are influenced by external factors like fatigue.
Students study hard for these exams. They study so hard that there are even instructions on what teachers should do if a student vomits on their test booklets. Students feel pressured taking these exams and sometimes their final scores are reflective not of their ability but of being influenced by other factors instead. 

Creating a Standardized Assessment Test: Practice Makes Perfect 

If you are going to bother doing something, do it well and make it worth your time. I take that mantra and apply it to almost everything in my classroom, and preparing for standardized tests is no different. Whether you love or hate the nature of high-stakes testing, it is a necessary evil until a better way to ensure equal evaluation of students comes along. Here is how my class attacks the tests head-on and how I ensure high levels of learning in the process.

Assessment Test Plan: Know Your Blueprint

Currently, states have different assessments and information available depending on where you live, but we are moving towards common assessments with the implementation of Common Core. No matter your assessment, there is a blueprint somewhere. Know exactly how long each test is, what the sections are, and how they are to be administered. Can your students use calculators on any one part? Blueprints, sometimes called “specs” or “specifications,” tell you exactly what skills will be tested and how many points each question is worth. They may include important details, like which questions require open-ended responses and what will not be included as well. Find your blueprint and know it inside and out. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium offers potential blueprints for common assessments, and more definite blueprints will surface as Common Core assessments are created.

Ask the Right Questions

Find sample tests and dissect them. Many times questions are asked in a very prescribed format. We take the sample books, examples from presentations, and any other test-prep material we can find and pull the question stems. Question stems are going to be the format you want to ask all your practice questions in. For example, I know that my students will be asked about author’s purpose. The question stem might say, “Why did the author most likely write this passage?” Knowing how the question will be asked allows me to create similar questions for my students. If the test is going to use italics instead of bold words, then so am I. If the test says “provide evidence,” then I’m not going to say “give examples.” I’m going to say exactly what the test does. Here is one example of the question stems I use in 4th grade English language arts.

Open-Ended Preparation

Assessments may include open-ended responses. These questions require students to write responses or show their work and reasoning. Again, we check the blueprint and figure out what questions could be asked in an open-ended way. Then, we find question stems that mirror those on sample tests. While we are learning throughout the year, we adapt test questions to this format so that students are used to writing their responses. We get out the rubrics and show students how to grade open-ended questions, so they know exactly what will be required. As we get closer to test time, students participate in a guided response before tackling a similar question on their own daily. Yes, I said daily.

Both reading and math open-ended questions are practiced each day throughout much of the year, so they are commonplace and students are ready to respond. I try to make it as easy as possible. For math, I took the sample questions and created four or five of each question, just changing the figures. Copied into binders, these sets can be used over and over without making excess copies! Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students’ Comprehension of Text is a great resource for developing great open-ended questions.

Assembling an Assessment Test

Once you know the number and type of each kind of question, and you have the wording down, you are ready to assemble your test. Make your test as much like the real format as possible. If your blueprint says that there are seven questions about double-digit multiplication and you know the different ways the question might be asked, then your assessment should also have seven questions asked in the same way. I have test “blanks” that I use. Our math and reading tests are given in the same format, with numbers going down the columns and each question in a box. I retype all my tests into this format so that it is familiar to the students.

Going back to the blueprint can also give clues about the answer document. We run sample documents provided by the state. If a response must be gridded, we get the exact grid. If answers are on lined paper, we use the same paper the test will have.

Taking Time to Test

My school has what we call “shutdowns.” A shutdown is basically a practice run for the real test. The test will start in the morning and run for a specific length of time. During that time, there is no movement in the hallways and all classes are testing the entire time. We prepare our assessments and documents ahead of time and proctor the test in the same way as will happen with the real test. My grade usually does reading one day and math the next, but that varies by grade level with some classes testing both subjects in one span. We start with short one or one-and-a-half hour tests every month or so early in the school year. As we move through the year, the frequency and time increase. By this point in the year, we are testing every eight days for up to two hours.

Practice Makes Perfect

We don’t simply take tests and that’s that. After an assessment, my class reviews the test. How we review depends on the subject, and I try to change it up to keep everyone’s attention. I might run diagnostics, only spending focused time reviewing the questions we struggled with. I sometimes have students grade each other’s papers, but other times I grade them all and pull small groups to review specific skills. Fellow blogger Alycia has some great ways to keep up engagement during test prep. I reward for improvement and for focus during the test time, more than for final grades. The point? Students know how to answer next time and we hone in on skills that are weak with immediate feedback.

Final Analysis

The work is never done when preparing for these types of assessment tests. Throughout the year, we are conscious of how we teach and assess our students. When results come in, we spend data meetings highlighting students that fell below desired levels and figure out what skills to work on throughout the year. We take grade-level results and locate weak areas, making specific lesson plans to address those needs. If we only got two out of three points on an open-ended question, we figure out what type of question it might have been and formulate practices to help raise the score.

 References :

http://connectusfund.org/10-big-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-standardized-testing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardized_test#Advantages

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/04/creating-standardized-assessment-test-practice-makes-perfect

How to grade a language test by using AP

SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

How to Find and Use AP Score Calculators

Posted by Halle Edwards

What is the best way to use AP score calculators? In this post we will discuss how to get the most out of them – and when you shouldn’t use them at all.

 Where Do I Get an AP Score Calculator?

Before we talk about the best ways to use score calculators, you need to learn where to find one for your particular AP class!

Each AP test uses a different scoring system. There are no “official” AP score calculators released by College Board, so teachers and test prep companies have to make their own.

To get an AP score calculator, first talk to your teacher – AP teachers often have a formula they use for grading practice tests.

If your teacher doesn't have one or you're self-studying, get a prep book for your AP class. Prep books written for individual tests will always have a score calculator.

Finally, look online – many websites have approximate score calculators you can use for each AP class.

A word of caution: all score calculators are approximations since the scaling of an AP test changes year to year to keep the difficulty level the same. For example, 100 points could be enough for a 5 one year, but in the next year it would only get a 4. We’ll talk about how to compensate for that below.

Our Calculator Example: AP English Language and Composition

Throughout this post we’ll be using AP English Language and Composition as an example as we talk about score calculators. It’s the most popular AP test currently. Over 500,000 students took it in 2014!

There are 55 possible multiple choice points (1 point per question) worth 45% of your score, and 3 essays (worth 9 points each) for 27 possible points worth 55% of your score.

This is the calculator we are using:

(Multiple Choice Score x 1.23) + (Essays x 3.05) = Total Score

That total score is translated to the final composite AP score of 1-5 like so:

• 5: 104-150    
• 4: 92-103
• 3: 76-91
• 2: 50-75
• 1: 0-49

It seems a bit complicated, but once you get used to the formula it’s easy to use, and it can help you design a target score for the AP test. Using this calculator, we'll now explore the do's and don'ts of using AP score calculators.

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Do’s Of Using Score Calculators

Grade Your Practice Exams With Them

We highly recommend taking the extra step of grading any practice AP tests you take. Getting a predicted 1-5 AP score is a great way to get a snapshot of how you’re shaping up to do on the test. So instead of just getting a free response and multiple choice raw score, you can put those scores in context and get an idea of how much they need to improve before exam day.

To use AP English as an example, if you took a practice exam and got a 30/55 on multiple choice and 12/27 on the essays, you might be discouraged.

But using the calculator, you find you get a final score of 73 – which is just a few points away from passing! Which isn’t so shabby for a practice test. So instead of feeling disappointed, you can figure out exactly how much you need to improve to pass your next practice test.

You can also get a sense of how much score improvements will help you. To use our example, you might realize “If I go from a 4 to a 6 on all my essays, I could not only pass, but get a 4 overall!” (If you got 30/55 on multiple choice and 18/27 on the essays, you would get a total score of 92, which would just barely get you a 4.)

This helps you create manageable improvement goals. Remember, you don’t need to get every single point on an AP test to get a 5. And you certainly don't need every single point to pass.

Come Up With a Detailed Target Score

AP score calculators allow you to understand both the multiple choice and free response scores you need for certain final AP scores. This can help you decide where to focus your studying efforts. You might go for all-around improvement, or you could target your studying on just the free response or multiple choice.

On AP English Language, if you’re going for a 5, you could go for near-perfect essays and have more wiggle room on multiple choice, or go for nearly-perfect multile choice and aim for middle-of-the-road essays.

For example, if you get 8s on all your essays and 35/55 on multiple choice, you would get a 115 total score, which is pretty comfortably a 5. On the flipside, if you got 6s on your essays and 50/55 on multiple choice, you would also get a 115 total score.

This allows you to play to your strengths on the AP exam -- and not overwhelm yourself trying to be perfect at everything. If you're a strong writer, you could aim for 8s on your essays and not worry about making your multiple choice score perfect. Or if you're great at taking multiple choice tests, you could aim for a 50 on multiple choice and try and make your essays decent. In short, you don't have to burn yourself out if you use a score calculator to set target scores for each section.

Go For Consistency

Don’t take one practice exam, calculate a 5 using the score calculator, and stop studying. Use the score calculator every time you practice, and make an effort to take at least two or three full-length practice exams before the real thing.

Also try your hardest on practice free response questions and multiple choice sections your teacher may assign in class.

Why? Especially when it comes to essays, you could be in trouble if you’re hit with an essay that you’re not well-equipped to answer. If you stop studying after you get a 5 on one practice test, you won't be prepared for whatever the AP test throws at you. Only by practicing consistently can you be adequately prepared or whatever questions appear on the AP test.

By practicing a lot, you make sure that 5 is all-but-guaranteed, not just a fluke. In short, practice makes perfect – or at least it makes 5s!

Don’ts of Using AP Score Calculators

Don’t Use Them Too Early in the Year

There is no point in taking and grading a practice AP exam early in the year. That would be like taking a final exam for a class before winter break! You still have a lot to learn, so taking an exam early on would just stress you out. The score calculators are best used to inform you how you’re shaping up to do on the exam, so using them too early will demoralize you.

You shouldn’t expect yourself to be able to tackle the AP exam before the first semester is over! Especially on the hardest exams. Wait until the first semester is over before taking practice exams and grading them.

Don’t Panic If You Don’t Get the Scores You Want in Practice 

Even though it can be frustrating to get a 1 or 2 on a practice exam, don't despair. Remember that you’re practicing to find your weak points and improve them. Getting a low score in practice can be good because it shows you mistakes you are apt to make so you can learn from them.

Think of it this way: any mistake you make while practicing is one you won’t make on the real thing as long as you study.

Even if you get a 1 or a 2 on a practice exam, that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail on the real thing. The key is to analyze your mistakes so you can learn from them and improve for the real AP exam.

Don’t Assume AP Score Calculators are 100% Accurate

Simply put, they’re not! As we discussed above, they can only approximate your real score.

Since AP tests are equated each year so scores are consistent, a raw score that’s good enough for a 5 on one exam could only be good enough for a 4 on another.

This means when setting target scores, be generous. For example, if you’re going for a 5, don’t just practice for the lowest possible raw score that could work according to your calculator – aim for many points above that!

For AP English, we would set the 5 threshold 10 points higher, 114. We would set the passing threshold (a score of 3) at 86 instead of 76. By doing this, we leave wiggle room for year-to-year test scaling differences and unexpected mistakes you might make on the exam.

Bottom Line

AP Calculators are an excellent tool to help you get the most out of your AP exam practice and set smart target scores. Just beware of using them too early, and don’t let them make you complacent!

Reference : http://www.apcalculator.com/calculator/englishlanguage.php