Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

Discrete item tests
If language is seen as a kind of code, a means by which ‘ideas’
may be expressed as easily by one set of symbols as by
another, then it is likely that the bilingual dictionary and the
grammar will be seen as the code books by means of which
the cypher may be broken. Knowing a language will be seen
as the ability to operate the code so assessment will be in
terms of knowledge of the rules—the grammar—and facility
in transferring from one set of symbols to another—
translation. It would seem that the great majority of foreign
language examinations in Britain today still reflect this as
their underlying theory. The typical rubric of an assessment
of language seen in this way is ‘Translate the following into
English’ or ‘Give the second person plural of the preterite of
the following verbs.’
If language is seen as an aggregate of ‘skills’ of various
kinds, then assessment is likely to be in terms of a
classification of ‘skills’. So there might be tests of the ability
to hear, to discriminate between sounds or perceive tone
patterns or comprehend intellectually what is spoken; tests of
the ability to speak, to produce the noises of the language
correctly, to utter accurately, fluently and coherently, tests of
the ability to understand the written form of the language, to
read quickly, accurately and efficiently, to skim, to look up
information; tests of the ability to use the graphic symbol
system and its associated conventions, or to generate
accurate, fluent and coherent language in the written
medium; tests of the ability to interrelate media, to read
aloud, to take dictation; and so on. Virtually all theoretical
approaches to language take a skills dimension into account
and in the examples which occur later in this chapter it will
be observed that part of the specification of the type of test
being illustrated relates to the skills involved.
If language is seen as a structured system by means of which
the members of a speech community interact, transmitting and
receiving messages, then assessment will be seen in terms of
structure and system, of transmission and reception. Robert
Lado’s substantial work Language Testing: The Construction
and Use of Foreign Language Tests is full of examples of the
kind of test item this view engenders. Since language is seen as

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Assessment and Examinations
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a number of systems, there will be items to test knowledge of
both the production and reception of the sound segment
system, of the stress system, the intonation system, and
morphemic system, the grammatical system, the lexical system
and so on. The tendency is to give prominence to discrete items
of language and relatively little attention to the way language
functions globally. There is a tendency, too, for assessments
made with this theoretical background to have a behavioural
dimension and to be designed to be marked objectively. Some
examples of the kind of thing involved follow:
Recognition of sound segments. Oral presentation/
written response. Group.
The examiner will read one of the sentences in each of the
following groups of sentences. Write the letter of the
sentence you heard in the space provided on the right hand
side of the page.
(i) A. I saw a big sheep over there.
B. I saw a big ship over there.
etc.
Recognition of correct grammatical structure. Written
presentation/written response. Group.
Each item below contains a group of sentences. Only one
sentence in each group is correct. In the blank space at the
right of each group of sentences write the letter indicating
the correct sentence.
(i) A. What wants that man?
B. What does want that man?
C. What does that man want?
D. What that man does want?
(ii) A. I have finished my work, and so did Paul.
B. I have finished my work, and so has Paul.
C. I have finished my work, and so Paul has.
D. I have finished my work, and so Paul did.
etc.
Production of correct vocabulary. Oral presentation/
response. Individual.
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Examiner asks the question. The candidate must respond
with the correct lexical item. Only the specified item may
be accepted as correct.
(i) Q. What do you call a man who makes bread?
A. A baker,
(ii) Q. The opposite of concave is…
A. Convex,
etc.
Clearly discrete item tests of this kind have certain
disadvantages. Testing ability to operate various parts of the
system does not test the interrelated complex that is a system
of systems—an important implication of the underlying
theory—and the need for global tests which do interrelate the
various systems apparent. Using discrete item tests is a bit like
testing whether a potential car driver can move the gear lever
into the correct positions, depress the accelerator smoothly,
release the clutch gently and turn the steering wheel to and fro.
He may be able to do all of these correctly and yet not be able
to drive the car. It is the skill which combines all the sub-skills,
control of the system which integrates the systems so that the
speaker conveys what he wishes to by the means he wishes to
that constitutes ‘knowing a language’ in this sense, just as it
constitutes ‘driving a car’. Attempts were therefore made to
devise types of global tests which could be marked objectively.
Two of these appear to have achieved some success, these are
dictation and cloze tests.