Oral language testing at tay nguyen university  (Page 13/53)

the logical evaluation of usefulness, and

procedures for collecting qualitative and quantitative evidence during the administration stage.

(Bachman&Palmer, 1996, p.133-134)

(6) Identification of resources and development of a plan for their allocation and management. The resources refer to the people, material and time involved in test development. The balance between the resources available and required for test development should be taken into account in order to provide a good plan for how to allocate and manage them.

2.3.2 operationalization stage

The Operationalization stage need to be closely examined with the purpose of helping the concerned staff of TNU to equip themselves with a thorough understanding of the stage and then to gradually improve their practices of oral testing.

As mentioned above, this stage focuses on the structure of a test – the blueprint involving the number of test tasks/parts and specifications of each test task.

Test task specifications are described as follows:

1. The purpose of the test task.

2. The definition of the construct to be measured.

3. The characteristics of the setting of the test task

4. Time allotment.

5. Instructions for responding to the task.

6. Characteristics of input, response, and relationship between input and response.

7. Scoring method.

(Bachman&Palmer, 1996, p.172-173)

These test task specifications can be interpreted in the context of oral testing as:

1. The purpose of the test task.
2. Specified components of oral ability to be tested.
3. The place where the task or language act occurs.
4. Expected duration of task performance.
5. Specified and understandable instructions.
6. Areas of linguistic, pragmatic and topical knowledge adequate.
7. Marking key

In order to well operationalize or produce test task specifications, test writers should make informed judgements of major considerations in oral test operationalization reviewed in detail in Section 2.4

2.3.3 administration stage

The administration of a test mainly involves three activities such as giving the test to a particular group of test takers, gathering test results and analyzing the results (Bachman&Palmer, 1996, p. 91). In particular, procedures for administering a test include preparing the testing environment, communicating the instructions, maintaining a supportive test taking environment, and collecting the test papers. These all aim at ‘guiding test takers through the process of taking the test in accordance with the procedures specified in the test blueprint.’

2.4 major considerations in operationalization of speaking tests

The communicative approach is considered as one of the most adequate way to measure learners’ oral language ability. In order to successfully apply this assessment approach, oral test tasks intended for specific tests must be designed in terms of difficulty degree or communicative stress fitting test takers’ language proficiency level. Operationalizing a speaking test that fits the test takers’ level of language proficiency, test writers or teachers must (1) know the exact level of the test takers, then (2) choose suitable oral test types or elicitation techniques for test tasks, and finally (3) design the method of marking each task. The following three sub-sections discuss these factors, which should be taken into sound consideration during the operationalization of speaking tests.