Customer Reviews

Testing in Language Programs: A Comprehensive Guide to English Language Assessement

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"Testing in Language Programs" is an ideal book for teachers who want to learn how to make good tests, analyses and interpret the results, and how to improve such tests so that grades or placement decisions can have meaning and be fair to one's students. I liked this book because it is very thorough in basics. You will learn about the different types and uses of language tests such as norm-referenced tests (eg; the TOEFL), which can be used to ascertain general proficiency or for making placement decisions, and criterion-referenced tests (eg; your end-of-term test), which can inform you to what extent students are learning and meeting previously set and well-defined objectives. You will learn how to describe the distribution of your test results in terms of central tendency (average, median, mode) or spread (range, standard deviation), and when to favor one form of presentation over another, and you will also learn the various ways of improving your tests by scrutinizing test items. After you have understood this, you will then be able to understand reliability and error of measurement, and how this can help you in making decisions about grades. Finally, the chapter on validity will help you focus on what you are really measuring in a test and how you can make your tests accountable with respect to language constructs or other well-established tests. If you are a language teacher because of a congenital fear of all-things-math (a myth I used to believe and propagate as a thoroughly obnoxious pupil), then this book may take some time to digest. If not, (or perhaps even if) then this book is well worth buying.

I recently read 7 books for a paper that I was writting on testing in English language programs, and I found this book to be the easiest to read. Most of the other books on testing expect you to have some background in statistics, but this one gives easy explanations for the statistical procedures which are demonstrated. Another thing that I like about this book is that it looks at test development from the classroom teacher's perspective. A lot of the other books are actually discussing the creation and analysis of standardized tests. In other words, large scale tests. In this book, you can apply the method of test development to any class size. I really recommend this book if you are looking for a book on testing for your classroom practice.

The guy writes a good book. Extremely accessible and informative.
If you've any interest in Language Teaching it's worth a quick read through.
Lots of practical information.