Reconceptualizing language teaching: an in-service teacher education course in uzbekistan

Types of Assessment. Below are types of assessment and the descrip-
tion of their main purposes: 
Table 12. Types of Assessments.
Assessment 
types
Main purpose
Placement test
places students at an appropriate level of instructions 
within a program
Diagnostic test
identifies students’ strengths and weaknesses 
Progress test
provides information about mastery or difficulty that 
learners have with course materials 
Achievement test Provides information about students’ attainment of learn-
ing outcomes at the end of a course
Aptitude test
measures a general ability to learn a foreign language
Proficiency test
measures global competence in a language
REFLECTION
Which of the above are the most common types of tests in your 
teaching context? Which have you never used? Why?
Test Specifications. Before designing any kind of assessment, a test 
developer must prepare test specifications which contain all the infor-
mation about the test to be constructed. This blueprint is an informative 
document and also is also kept for preparing further variants of the same 
kinds of test in the future. Developed once, test specifications can serve 
for a long time and be revised when needed (Similar to the design and 
implementation of classroom lesson plans.) Another important feature 
of test specifications is that they provide instructions to other specialists 
who will use them. It means they should be as clear and detailed as pos-
sible so that anyone other than the developer can use it for test creation. 
In essence, test specifications can be different in content and form, as 
different developers prefer to focus on different aspects; however, this is 
not an issue as long as the document provides sufficient information you 
need to know about the test. There are seven specific questions all test 
specifications should answer:

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CHAPTER THREE: LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT/TESTING
1) What is the purpose of the test? 
2) What sort of learners will be taking the test? 
3) What language skills should be tested (reading, writing, speaking 
and/or listening)?
4) What language elements should be tested (grammar, vocabulary, 
pronunciation, speech acts, etc.)?
5) What target language situation is envisaged for the test, and is this 
to be simulated in some way in the test content and method? (e.g., is this 
a test of academic French? Of English for international TAs? Of Japanese for 
hotel workers?)
6) What text types should be chosen as stimulus materials -- written 
and/or spoken?
7) What sort of tasks are required -- discrete point, integrative, simulat-
ed ‘authentic’, objectively assessable? (That is, what will the test-takers do?)