Oral language testing at tay nguyen university  (Page 21/53)

Moreover, the specific types and amounts of resources required may differ according to the design of a specific test, and available resources may vary from one situation to another. Test practicality thus can only be determined for a specific testing situation. Obviously, to determine the practicality of a given test, test developers must take into account of the resources required to develop a test, and the management and allocation of the resources available.

2.6 summary

Chapter 2 has considered the main features of oral testing, particularly spoken language and considerations on how to elicit students’ overall speaking ability. Production of spoken language is examined in a continuum of the language functions and a success of meaning negotiation. Next, the communicative approach to assessing production of spoken language is considered one of the best ones. And Bachman&Palmer’s theoretical framework for test development is reviewed as the basis for description and evaluation of current oral testing practices at TNU. Also, this framework is used as the main foundation on which suggestions for improvement of TNU oral testing problems are based. In addition, major considerations in operationalizing speaking tests include a level scale, selection of test types, elicitation techniques, and a marking key. Finally, for a test to be valid, it must also be reliable and practical. Validity is associated with accuracy of measurement, and reliability refers to the consistency of measurement. Practicality, more or less important, concerns the ways in which the test will be implemented in a given situation, or whether the test will be used at all.

Chapter 3: methodology

Chapter 2 has reviewed major issues in oral language testing in order to provide an adequate understanding of its theory, which serves as the basis for investigation of the current practices at TNU. In particular, the discussion of Bachman and Palmer’s theoretical framework for developing tests presents the basis for the evaluation of oral testing practices at TNU, and for suggestions for improving its drawbacks. In order to investigate TNU current oral testing practices, the researcher (1) analysed the present process of oral test development at this institution, and (2) surveyed the staff’s perceptions of oral language testing. This chapter consists of three sections. The two research questions are first raised. The second sub-section respectively presents the data collection instruments used to carry out (1)&(2). The other sub-section describes the procedure for conducting the study.

3.1 research questions

The study aims at answering the two following questions.

1. What are strengths and weaknesses of the oral test development procedure at TNU?

2. What are the English teaching staff’s perceptions of oral language testing?

3.2 data collection instruments

In order to answer the two research questions, the researcher collected information from two sources: (1) a situation analysis and (2) a questionnaire. Firstly, the situation analysis was carried out with a checklist based on Bachman and Palmer’s framework for test development. To ensure the reliability of the information from the situation analysis, one end-of-term speaking test was observed and tape-recorded. Secondly, the questionnaire was developed to elicit the staff’s perceptions of oral language testing. Therefore, this sub-section respectively describes these three instruments