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168Reasoning gap, which involves deriving some new information from given information through processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a perception of relationships or patterns. One example is working out a teacher's timetable on the basis of given class timetables. Another is deciding what course of action is best (for example cheapest or quickest) for a given purpose and within given constraints. The activity necessarily involves comprehending and conveying information, as in information-gap activity, but the information to be conveyed is not identical with that initially comprehended. There is a piece of reasoning which connects the two.
Opinion gap, which involves identifying and articulating a personal preference, feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation. One example is story completion; another is taking part in the discussion of a social issue. The activity may involve using factual information and formulating arguments to justify one's opinion, but there is no objective procedure for demonstrating outcomes as right or wrong, and no reason to expect the same outcome from different individuals or on different occasions.
Here below we can suggest some TBLT activities which can be used in EFL classes. All these activities use at least two skills in integration which is very helpful for developing learners' communicative competence.
1. Road Trip.
This activity can be started by asking students where they are going to travel over winter break or summer vacation and if not, let them help plan a trip. It is not important whether you take one of these proposed trips or not, but it will help our students feel like they are making an impact on our life, the same way they know that you are impacting their lives. For this activity, we should have enough maps for each group in our class. Because our students are likely more familiar with their home country than the country whose language they are studying, we should be sure to have local maps—and everyone should work under the assumption that this is going to be a true "road trip," meaning that you will be driving.
References
1. Harmer Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Longman, 2001.
2. Jolly and Bolitho R. Material design, 2000.
LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS
Nizamova R.A.
Nizamova Ra 'no Akhmadjanovna - Teacher, MANAGEMENT IN PRODUCTION FACULTY, FERGANA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, UZBEKISTAN, FERGANA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article under discussion describes advantages and disadvantages of multiple choice tests in language skills assessment. The author underlines that multiple choice tests could be successfully usedfor testing grammar, as well as for testing listening or reading skills. Keywords: multiple choice tests, skills, language, demand, abilities, students, testing, distractors.
It is not surprising why we have started exactly with multiple-choice tests. To the author's concern these tests are widely used by teachers in their teaching practice, and, moreover, are favoured by the students. Heaton believes that multiple-choice questions are basically employed to test vocabulary. However, we can argue with the statement, for the
multiple choice tests could be successfully used for testing grammar, as well as for testing listening or reading skills [2, p.p.34-58].
It is a well-known fact how a multiple-choice test looks like:
1. not until the invention of the camera that artists correctly painted horses racing.
(A) There was
(B) It was
(C) There
(D) It
A task basically is represented by a number of sentences, which should be provided with the right variant, that, in its turn, is usually given below. Furthermore, apart from the right variant the students are offered a set of distractors, which are normally introduced in order to "deceive" the learner. If the student knows the material that is being tested, she/he will spot the right variant, supply it and successfully accomplish the task. The distractors, or wrong words, basically slightly differ from the correct variant and sometimes are even funny. Nevertheless, very often they could be represented by the synonyms of the correct answer whose differences are known to those who encounter the language more frequently as their job or study field. In that case they could be hardly differentiated, and the students are frustrated.
The following list of advantages and disadvantages generated by Weir. He lists several advantages and disadvantages of the multiple-choice questions test. Let us look at the advantages first: according to Weir, the multiple-choice questions are structured in such a form that there is no possibility for the teacher or as he places "marker" to apply his/her personal attitude to the marking process [1, p.p. 4-16].
I find it to be very significant, for employing the test of this format we see only what the student knows or does not know; the teacher cannot raise or lower the marker basing on the students' additional ideas displayed in the work. Furthermore, the teacher, though knowing the strong and weak points of his/her students, cannot apply this information as well to influence the mark. What she/he gets are the pure facts of the students' knowledge.
Another advantage is: the usage of pre-test that could be helpful for stating the level of difficulty of the examples and the test in the whole. That will reduce the probability of the test being inadequate or too complicated both for completing and marking. This could mean that the teacher can ensure his/her students and him/herself against failures. For this purposes she/he just has to test the multiple-choice test to avoid troubles connected with its inadequacy that later can lead to the disaster for the students receiving bad marks due to the fact that the test's examples were too complicated or too ambiguous.
The last advantage displayed by Weir is that the MCQs in a certain context are better than open-ended or short-answer questions, for the learners are not required to produce their writing skills. This eliminates the students' fear of mistakes they can make while writing; moreover, the task does not demand any creative activity, but only checks the exact knowledge of the material.
Having considered the advantages of MCQs, it is worth speaking about its disadvantages. The first disadvantage concerns the students' guessing the answers; therefore, we cannot objectively judge his/her true knowledge of the topic. We are not able to see whether the student knows the material or have just luckily ticked or circled the right variant. Therefore, it could be connected with another shortcoming of the following test format that while scoring the teacher will not get the right and true picture of what the students really know.
Another interesting point that could be mentioned it that multiple-choice differ from the real-life situation by the choice of alternatives. Usually, in our everyday life we have to choose between two alternatives, whereas the multiple-choice testing might confuse the learner by the examples s/he even has not thought about. That will definitely lead to frustration, and, consequently, to the student's failure to accomplish the task successfully.
To conclude we can cite Heaton who stipulates that designing a multiple-choice items test is not so fearful and hard as many teachers think [2, p.p. 34-58]. The only thing you need is practice accompanied by a bit of theory. He suggests for an inexperienced teacher to use not more than three options if the teacher encounters certain difficulties in supplying more examples for the distractors. The options should be grammatically correct and of equal length. Moreover, the context should be appropriate to illustrate an example and make the student guess right.
References
1. Weir C. Communicative Language Testing. Prentice Hall, 1990. P.p. 4-16.
2. Heaton J. Classroom Testing. Longman, 1990. P.p. 34-58.
PORTFOLIO AS AN ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR INDIVIDUALIZED
INSTRUCTION Yagyaeva E.B.
Yagyaeva Elvina Bakhtiyarovna - Teacher of English, MANAGEMENT IN PRODUCTION FACULTY, FERGANA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, FERGANA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article under discussion describes portfolio as one of an assessment tool for individualized instruction which motivates learners to study a foreign language. The author of the article discusses types of portfolios and depicts the main advantages of keeping them. Keywords: portfolio, collection, activities, accomplishment, writing, capabilities, achievement, demonstrate, progressive.
A student portfolio is a systematic collection of student work and related material that depicts a student's activities, accomplishments, and achievements in one or more school subjects. The collection should include evidence of student reflection and self-evaluation, guidelines for selecting the portfolio contents, and criteria for judging the quality of the work. The goal is to help students assemble portfolios that illustrate their talents, represent their writing capabilities, and tell their stories of school achievement.
Two major types of portfolios are process and product portfolios. A process portfolio documents the stages of learning and provides a progressive record of students' growth. A product portfolio demonstrates mastery of a learning task or a set of learning objectives and contains only the best work. Teachers use process portfolios to help students identify learning goals, document progress over time, and demonstrate learning mastery. In general, teachers prefer to use process portfolios because they are ideal for documenting the stages that students go through as they learn and progress. The Portfolio can help develop more responsibility for your students' learning and become more autonomous as a learner [1, p.p. 60-63].
The Portfolio is an open-ended document which means that your students can revise what they have written regularly. Obviously, students will need more than one copy of the documents, for example, the study plan which they will fill in every week/fortnight/month/3 months. Therefore, students should make a copy of the documents and keep the original blank. If your students find it difficult to complete any of the entries in English you can allow them to use Uzbek or Russian.
The English Language Portfolio is your students' and they can decorate it or use different colours, symbols, pictures to express your creativity and individualism. Learners can also show Portfolio to their peers and the Counselor. The Portfolio will give an idea to the reader about the way they are learning, any made achievements, concerns and others.
