Language Testing: Matching Assessment Procedures with Language Knowledge

Language testing is concerned with the measurement of language knowledge. Language knowledge is the trait and how we go about measuring it is the method. Trait involves the ‘what’, i.e., the domain of language knowledge, and method involves the ‘how’, the appropriate procedures for measuring language knowledge. It is the complexity of the language trait that creates a need for a special discipline called language testing, for there is still no full understanding of what is involved in knowing a language. In constructing language tests, it is essential therefore to have a defined curriculum or set body of knowledge from which testers determine what to test. At the same time it is important to apply appropriate psychometric criteria to assure that tests constructed from such definitions are test-proof, that is, reliable and valid. Most of the work in language testing theory focuses on these two areas - the definitions of what it means to know a language and the appropriate procedures for measuring it. Thus, language testers have devoted much time and effort to defining the construct of language knowledge, as according to Spolsky (1968) “Fundamental to the preparation of valid tests of language proficiency is the theoretical question of what does it mean to know a language” (p. 79). A clear definition and identification of the structure of language enable language testers to design testing procedures that will match such descriptions as these will have direct consequences on the construct validity of language tests.

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