Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

Suggestions for further reading
From a theoretical point of view:
S.P.Corder, Introducing Applied Linguistics, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1973, chapter II.
S.P.Corder, ‘Learner language and teacher talk’, AVLJ 16, 1, 1978,
pp. 5–13.

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Errors, Correction and Remedial Work
144
J.A.Norrish, Language Learners and their Errors, Macmillan, 1983.
J.C.Richards (ed.), Error Analysis, Longman, 1974.
At practical level, there is much good advice in:
J.A.Bright and G.P.McGregor, Teaching English as a Second Language,
Longman, 1970.
M.K.Burt and C.Kiparsny, The Gooficon, A Repair Manual for English,
Newbury House, 1972.
P.Hubbard et al., A Training Course for TEFL, Oxford University
Press, chapter 4.

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145
Chapter 10
Assessment
and Examinations
Basic terms
A great deal of the language teacher’s time and attention is
devoted to assessing the progress pupils make or preparing
them for public examinations. One of the problems in
discussing this area of English language teaching is that the
words used to describe these activities are used in a number
of different ways. First of all, the term examination usually
refers to a formal set-piece kind of assessment. Typically one
or more three-hour papers have to be worked. Pupils are
isolated from one another and usually have no access to
textbooks, notes or dictionaries. An examination of this kind
may be set by the teachers or head of department in a school,
or by some central examining body like the Ministry of
Education in various countries or the Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate—to mention only the best known of
the British examining bodies. This usage of the word
examination is fairly consistent in the literature on the
subject and presents few difficulties.
The word test is much more complicated. It has at least
three quite distinct meanings. One of them refers to a carefully
prepared measuring instrument, which has been tried out on a
sample of people like those who will be assessed by it, which
has been corrected and made as efficient and accurate as
possible using the whole panoply of statistical techniques
appropriate to educational measurement. The preparation of

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Assessment and Examinations
146
such tests is time-consuming, expensive and requires expertise
in statistical techniques as well as in devising suitable tasks for
the linguistic assessment to be based on.
The second meaning of test refers to what is usually a
short, quick teacher-devised activity carried out in the
classroom, and used by the teacher as the basis of an on-
going assessment. It may be more or less formal, more or less
carefully prepared, ranging from a carefully devised
multiplechoice test of reading comprehension which has
been used several times with pupils at about the same stage
and of the same ability, so that it has been possible to revise
the test, eliminate poor distractors and build up norms which
might almost be accepted as statistically valid, to a quick
check of whether pupils have grasped the basic concept
behind a new linguistic item, by using a scatter of oral
questions round the class. It is because of the wide range of
interpretation that is put on this second meaning of test that
confusions and controversy often arise. The important
question to ask is always ‘What kind of test do you mean?’
and it is for this reason that there is perhaps some advantage
in talking about assessment rather than testing.
The third meaning which is sometimes given to test is that
of an item within a larger test, part of a test battery, or even
sometimes what is often called a question in an examination.
Sometimes when one paper in an examination series is
devised to be marked objectively it is called a test, and once
again it is important to be careful in interpreting just what is
meant.