Classroom assessment is the act of collecting information about students, curricula, and methodology with the aim of making decisions concerning students’ needs and teacher’s objectives. Classroom Assessment Should Help the Teachers in: Determining students’ strengths and weaknesses. Determining the learning styles of the students. Learning about students’ interests in various topics. Classifying students into groups […]
Category: Testing and Assessment
16 Tips to Prepare a Good Language Test
How to prepare a good language test? Here is a list of 16 tips to consider when you are about to prepare your test. 1- Determine the purpose of the test. 2- Define the content area to be tested. 3- Choose and prepare appropriate and relevant items. 4- Base your test on your students’ abilities. […]
Why Writing Effective Test Items is a Challenge
It is not easy to construct a good test to measure what you want. Writing good effective test items is a difficult job as it needs much practice and experience. These items must achieve many things to be considered good ones. The following are some. Functions of the Test Measuring achievement A test may be […]
How to Avoid Negative Effects of Tests on Students
Some educators argue against using tests saying that students study for tests only at the end of the semester or when the school year is about to finish while not work throughout the course and once the test has finished, students forget all that had been learned. Others added that students become focused on passing […]
Writing Effective Test Questions: The Definitive Guide. Now Released
I’d like to announce that my new eBook: “Writing Effective Test Items: The Definitive Guide” is now RELEASED. What is This eBook About? It is a practical guide to constructing effective test questions. It provides teachers with step-by-step instructions they need to go deeper, further and faster toward making a success in preparing effective classroom […]
How to Prepare Learners for ESL/EFL Exams
Most students who are studying English have to take an exam at the end of their course, others are planning to take a public examination in order to get a certificate which demonstrates their level of English. Whenever there is an exam involved, the teacher should consider doing the following things to prepare students for the exam. […]
Practical Guidelines for Developing Good EFL Test Items
Before providing you with some important guidelines for writing good EFL test items, I want to assure that you know the following terms used in testing. Test Blueprint (or Test Specifications) identifies the objectives and skills which are to be tested and the relative weight on the test given to each. Being aware of this […]
English Language Achievement VS. Proficiency Tests
Definition & Meaning “Achievement” is defined as how well students have learned or what they are expected to know. On the other hand, “proficiency” is the ability to do something very well. Take for example a driver’s test, the paper and pencil questions on the knowledge related to driving and traffic rules represent the achievement test, while a proficiency test determines […]
Top 7 Questioning Techniques in the Classroom
As a teacher, you always use questions in the classroom. There are lots of reasons for using them. You could use questions to: engage your students, check for understanding and comprehension, seek opinions, encourage creative and critical thinking, review information, help students see other ways of thinking. The techniques that you should use in questioning depends […]
12 Characteristics of a Good Language Test
A good test should be: 1- Valid: It means that it measures what it is supposed to measure. It tests what it ought to test. A good test which measures control of grammar should have no difficult lexical items. 2- Reliable: If it is taken again by ( same students, same conditions ), the score […]