Testing the Untestable in Language Education (New Perspectives on Language and Education, Band 17) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847692664 ISBN 13: 9781847692665

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

The testing and assessment of language competence continues to be a much debated issue in foreign language teaching and research. This book is the first one to address the testing of four important dimensions of foreign language education which have been left largely unconsidered: learner autonomy, intercultural competence, literature and literary competence, and the integration of content and language learning. Each area is considered through a theoretical framework, followed by two empirical studies, raising questions of importance to all language teachers: How can one test literary competence? Can intercultural competence be measured? What about the integrated assessment of content-and-language in CLIL and teaching? Is progress in autonomous learning skill gaugeable? The book constitutes essential reading for anyone interested in the testing and assessment of seemingly largely untestable aspects of foreign language competence.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Amos Paran is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is Programme Leader of the MA TESOL. He has a special interest in masterâs level teaching by distance learning, and has also been involved in testing projects in a variety of different languages. His main research interests are reading in a foreign language, literature in language teaching, and distance education.

Lies Sercu is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Leuven. Her research interests concern the promotion of intercultural competence through foreign language education as well as SLA vocabulary acquisition from reading and writing texts in a foreign language. She has been involved in the development of language tests and blended learning environments for the professionalisation of language teachers. She has widely published in major international journals on intercultural competence and foreign vocabulary acquisition.

Amos Paran is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is Programme Leader of the MA TESOL. He has a special interest in masterâs level teaching by distance learning, and has also been involved in testing projects in a variety of different languages. His main research interests are reading in a foreign language, literature in language teaching, and distance education.Lies Sercu is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Leuven. Her research interests concern the promotion of intercultural competence through foreign language education as well as SLA vocabulary acquisition from reading and writing texts in a foreign language. She has been involved in the development of language tests and blended learning environments for the professionalisation of language teachers. She has widely published in major international journals on intercultural competence and foreign vocabulary acquisition.

Amos Paran is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is Programme Leader of the MA TESOL. He has a special interest in masterâ??s level teaching by distance learning, and has also been involved in testing projects in a variety of different languages. His main research interests are reading in a foreign language, literature in language teaching, and distance education.Lies Sercu is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Leuven. Her research interests concern the promotion of intercultural competence through foreign language education as well as SLA vocabulary acquisition from reading and writing texts in a foreign language. She has been involved in the development of language tests and blended learning environments for the professionalisation of language teachers. She has widely published in major international journals on intercultural competence and foreign vocabulary acquisition.

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Testing the Untestable in Language Education

By Amos Paran, Lies Sercu

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2010 Amos Paran, Lies Sercu and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84769-266-5

Contents

Contributors, 
1 More than Language: The Additional Faces of Testing and Assessment in Language Learning and Teaching Amos Paran, 
Part 1: Intercultural Competence, 
2 Assessing Intercultural Competence: More Questions than Answers Lies Sercu, 
3 Interculturally Savvy or Not? Developing and Assessing Intercultural Competence in the Context of Learning for Business Kaisu Korhonen, 
4 Eliciting the Intercultural in Foreign Language Education at School Anthony J. Liddicoat and Angela Scarino, 
Part 2: Autonomy, 
5 Measuring Autonomy: Should We Put Our Ability to the Test? Phil Benson, 
6 Assessment of Autonomy or Assessment for Autonomy? Evaluating Learner Autonomy for Formative Purposes Terry Lamb, 
7 Learners Reflecting on Learning: Evaluation versus Testing in Autonomous Language Learning Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen, 
Part 3: Literature, 
8 Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Dilemmas of Testing Language and Literature Amos Paran, 
9 Crossing the Bridge from Appreciative Reader to Reflective Writer: The Assessment of Creative Process Jane Spiro, 
10 The Taming of the Immeasurable: An Empirical Assessment of Language Awareness Hui-wei Lin, 
Part 4: Language and Content, 
11 Assessing Language and Content: A Functional Perspective Bernard Mohan, Constant Leung and Tammy Slater, 
12 Teachers and Texts: Judging What English Language Learners Know From What They Say Marylin Low, 
13 Towards Systematic and Sustained Formative Assessment of Causal Explanations in Oral Interactions Tammy Slater and Bernard Mohan, 

CHAPTER 1

More than Language: The Additional Faces of Testing and Assessment in Language Learning and Teaching

AMOS PARAN

Testing and Assessment: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon

'Teaching involves assessment' (Rea-Dickins, 2004: 249). This simple, three-word sentence hides what is in fact a whole world, a world where 'young people in many countries ... are now faced with an unprecedented number of exams and tests as they go through school and higher education' (Broadfoot, 2005: 125). It is a world which has been developed into a testing society (Broadfoot, 2005), where standardised testing is a major part of the assessment regime, which in some countries, e.g. the UK, starts as early as the age of seven (for an overview, see Leung & Scott, 2009).

Unsurprisingly, such a ubiquitous phenomenon as testing exerts an extremely powerful influence on its environment; it is now recognised that tests have powerful washback effects, what Cheng and Curtis (2004: 7) call, 'a set of relationships, planned and unplanned, positive and negative, between teaching and testing'. These effects extend throughout the educational system and, indeed, throughout society, becoming, as Shohamy (2007: 120) has argued, de facto instruments of language policy: 'since tests are often more powerful than any written policy document, they lead to the elimination and suppression of certain languages in societies ... Tests can also be used as tools to privilege certain forms and levels of language knowledge ... Thus, language tests, given their power and influence in societies, play a major role in the implementation and introduction of language policies'.

In language teaching, the field of testing and assessment has an additional effect: a number of important models of language competence, such as Bachman's (1990) model or the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001) originate in the need to specify language competences for testing and, in the case of the CEFR, finding a way 'to compare the objective and achievement standards of learners in different national (and local) contexts' (Morrow, 2004: 6; see also Alderson, 2004). Thus, our view of language learning and language competence is strongly influenced by our understanding of language testing and assessment.

An additional issue is reflected in the title of this book: the assumption that everything we teach in the language classroom can in fact be tested. Within language education, since often more is taught than only language (see below for a discussion of this point), the case can be made that not only language should be tested.

This volume brings together 12 chapters in which educators from around the globe grapple with issues that arise from these points. In this introductory chapter, I start by looking at some of the recent critiques of policy and practice in language testing, and at some of the responses to the current situation. I then present the four areas in language education on which the present volume focuses, and provide an overview of the different chapters. I end with a discussion of the themes emerging from the different chapters in the book.

Language Tests: A Narrowing Agenda?

In spite of the ubiquity of testing, there is nevertheless 'a widespread perception that the needs of teachers and learners are not currently well served by assessment practice and by assessment research' (McNamara, 2001: 340). The reason for this becomes clear when we consider the way language testing has developed over the last half-century. Spolsky (2008) charts the major trends in language testing, highlighting the dominance of the psychometric approach and the industrialisation of tests. McNamara and Roever (2006: 1) suggest that in language testing, 'psychometrics became the substrate discipline ... and language was virtually poured into these preexisting psychometric forms'. Leung and Lewkowicz (2006: 212) voice a similar view, suggesting that 'the form that has been most prevalent in ELT all over the world in the past 50 or more years has been standardised, psychometrically oriented testing'. Leung and Lewkowicz (2006) attribute the tendency towards standardisation in a wish (or requirement) for fairness, but make it clear that a commitment to standardisation will come at the expense of acknowledging differences between test takers.

The drive for achieving standardisation, alignment and conformity has another important consequence: it will almost always come at the expense of broadness of vision. Wall (1997) provides a history of the worry about the narrowing of education as the result of tests, tracing it back to the beginning of the 19th century. In language testing, this trajectory in the history of tests is exemplified in Weir's (2003) fascinating account of the development of the Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE) during the 20th century. What emerges from Weir's account is how the examination, through its numerous revisions, increasingly focused on language and on language only. With each revision and expansion of the construct of language proficiency, the examination shed aspects that did not reflect this construct, reflecting 'a gradual but critical change of the examination to one of language as against language, literature and culture' (Weir, 2003: 18). This process may well be underway in other countries as well – Eckes et al. (2005: 373) seem to imply a criticism of language tests that 'assess far more than language proficiency proper (e.g. they also tap knowledge of German literature, history, and civilisation)'; elsewhere they mention the importance of increasing reliability in the marking of essays on a literary theme in Slovenia. It seems logical to assume that this will be...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1847692664
• ISBN 13: 9781847692665
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 269
• Herausgeber: Paran Amos, Sercu Lies
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar