CC BY
14References
1. EllisR. (1998). The evaluation of communicative tasks. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.): Materials Development in Language Teaching (pp. 217-238). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Holt D. & Van Duzer C. (2000). Assessing success in family literacy and adult ESL. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
3. Marshall B. (2002). Preparing for success: A guide for teaching adult ESL learners. [Electronic Resource]. URL: http://calstore.cal.org/store/ (date of access: 02.02.2021).
4. Martyniuk Waldemar, Fleming Mike, Noijons and José. (2007). Evaluation and assessment within the domain of Language(s) of Education. Strasbourg: Language Policy Division, Council of Europe.
5. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Inc. (2003). Standards for adult education ESL programs. [Electronic Resource]. URL: http://www.tesol.org/ (date of access: 02.02.2021).
THE ROLE OF DIAGNOSTIC AND APTITUDE TESTS Rakhmatova D.P.
Rakhmatova Dilnoza Pardabaevna — English language Teacher, SCHOOL № 291, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: it is wise to start our discussion with that type of testing, for it is typically the first step each teacher, even non-language teacher, takes at the beginning of a new school year. In the establishment the author of the paper was working it was one of the main rules to start a new study year giving the students a diagnostic test. Every year the administration of the school had stemmed a special plan where every teacher was supposed to write when and how they were going to test their students. Moreover, the teachers were supposed to analyse the diagnostic tests, complete special documents and provide diagrams with the results of each class or group if a class was divided. Then, at the end of the study year the teachers were demanded to compare the results of them with the final, achievement test. The author of the paper has used this type of testfor several times, but had never gone deep into details how it is constructed, why and what for. Therefore, the facts listed below were of great value for her.
Keywords: test, assessment, diagnostic tests, placement tests, aptitude, overgeneralization.
A diagnostic test is a test that is meant to display what the student knows and what s/he does not know. The dictionary gives an example of testing the learners' pronunciation of English sounds. Moreover, the test can check the students' knowledge before starting a particular course. Huba [1] adds that diagnostic tests are supposed to spot the students' weak and strong points. Maki [2] compares such type of test with a diagnosis of a patient, and the teacher with a doctor who states the diagnosis. Suskie [3] adds that a diagnostic test provides the student with a variety of language elements, which will help the teacher to determine what the student knows or does not know. We believe that the teacher will intentionally include the material that either is presumed to be taught by a syllabus or could be a starting point for a course without the knowledge of which the further work is not possible. Thus, we fully agree with the Heaton's comparison where he contrasts the test with a patient's diagnosis. The diagnostic test displays the teacher a situation of the students' current knowledge. This is very essential especially when the students return from their summer holidays (that produces a rather substantial gap in their knowledge) or if the students start a new course and the teacher is completely unfamiliar with the level of the group. Hence, the teacher has to consider carefully about the items s/he is interested in to teach. This consideration reflects Heaton's proposal, which stipulates that the teachers should be systematic to design the tasks that are supposed to illustrate the students' abilities, and they should know what exactly they are testing. Moreover, Huba points out that apart from the above-mentioned the most essential element of the diagnostic test is that the students should not feel depressed when the test is completed. Therefore, very often the teachers do not put any marks for the diagnostic test and sometimes even do not show the test to the learners if the students do not ask the teacher to return it. Nevertheless, regarding our own experience, the learners, especially the young ones, are eager to know their results and even demand marks for their work. Notwithstanding, it is up to the teacher whether to inform his/her students with the results or not; however, the test represents a valuable information mostly for the teacher and his/her plans for designing a syllabus.
Returning to Suskie we can emphasise his belief that this type of test is very useful for individual check. It means that this test could be applicable for checking a definite item; it is not necessary that it will cover broader topics of the language. However, further Maki assumes that this test is rather difficult to design and
the size of the test can be even impractical. It means that if the teacher wants to check the students' knowledge of Present simple, s/he will require a great deal of examples for the students to choose from. It will demand a tiresome work from the teacher to compose such type of the test, and may even confuse the learners. The students immediately felt free and set to work. Later when analysing and summarizing the results the teacher realized that the students' knowledge was purely good. Certainly, there were the place the students required more practice; therefore during the next class the students were offered remedial activities on the points they had encountered any difficulties. Moreover, that was the case when the students were particularly interested in their marks.
Huba mentions yet another type of test which stays rather unnoticed by other test experts and that is aptitude test. Function of such tests is "to assess aptitude for learning a language" [1]. That is to say, they are constructed to measure the candidates' probable performance in a language which they have not started to learn yet. Since aptitude for languages consists of many factors, for example age, intelligence, motivation, memory, sensitivity to grammatical and phonological patterning, it is impossible to take all these factors in account when constructing this type of test. One way to a better designing of aptitude tests is, according to Suskie [3], focusing on various aspects according to the specific tasks for which a candidate is being trained. To conclude, we can conceive that interpreting the results of diagnostic tests the teachers apart from predicting why the student has done the exercises the way s/he has, but not the other, will receive a significant information about his/her group s/he is going to work with and later use the information as a basis for the forming syllabus.
References
1. Huba M. and Freed J. (2000). Learner-Centered Assesment on College Campuses. Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning. Allyn and Bacon (Available in the Institutional Assessment Program).
2. Maki P. (2004). Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution. Stylus, Sterling, Virginia (Available in the Institutional Assesment Program).
3. Suskie L. (2004). Assessing Student Learning. A Common Sense Guide. Anker Publishing Co. (Available in the Institutional Assessment Program).
