Test and Essay Items
Test items in ESL are concerned primarily with practice, the same way we as babies and adolescence learn to talk and walk. Even as we begin to form new words, and recognize their relevance in proper sentence structure, we are continuously adding to our vocabulary. What I have always found fascinating is the grand array of words, each just as unique as the souls who use them, available for our use to twist and turn, create awareness, and expose humor and sorrow, all while communicating and lifting our status as a loving communal species, capable of improvement.
One advantage to ESL education is the default setting, which is, we are able to incorporate actual learning variables that we know, and have been taught, work. We are not constrained to the “standard”, or the “time”. We are set apart and granted immunity in order to provide a catch-up, to place students handicapped by their grand awakening, the use of a new tool in their learning; English.
Words are like a night sky full of stars, each with a light that exposes the darkness for what it is, emptiness. Words are endless, they identify, and convey, they sooth and mystify, they are free for all, yet come with a price, best of all they are a freedom.
The text spells out a vast panorama, an ocean, of criteria for testing, from construction of the test to the procedure and grading. Key to the success of any test is the understanding of what is being tested, the awareness that the teacher has limitations, the fact that all students are unique in their learning capabilities, and mostly that testing is a series of events, not an end all for the labeling of a child as “competent”, “average”, or “genius”.
“Standardized achievement tests are constructed by test construction specialists, usually with the assistance of curriculum experts, teachers, and school administrators.” (text). When they are used to compare, they’re called standardized norm-referenced tests, when they are used to judge performance, they’re called standardized criterion-referenced tests. Whatever we call them and whatever we use them for, the fact is we are interpreting the usefulness of people, as partners, workers, social performers, academic redeemers, cultural carriers, and ethical guiders.
Acceptance is conditional in the life and times of life on rocket Earth, we are too busy to cradle in the joy of flirting, to know one another, so we outsource the job to experts who can evaluate, run experiments, compare and judge. We rely on these measurements, trust them, and press the “easy” button to save time and energy. I can’t say this is a bad thing, only a sad thing, when we are too busy to touch, to listen, to stare into eyes, too busy to care; our culture.
Without encouragement the student should evaluate meanings on their own. It’s the salt in the corral diaspora where-in the horse is led to water of their own accord. The text makes the point that the essay should be complex and produce higher level thinking, with multiple goals. Students should be encouraged to think, to reach, to search for the abstract and decode the hidden messages and mostly to muster the mysteries each mind has of every topic. As the essay unfolds the necessity of organizing information to solve and analyze through cognitive skills becomes apparent and natural. The essay assignment begins with the topic itself, not all topics are essay friendly; the item we assume to be in essay form is dependent on the topic. My primary objection to the essay assessment is the license of the grader to apply untaught skills; communication, vocabulary, writing style, argumentative attachments, and finally, the acquisition of spelling and sentence structure which is today the purview of the Microsoft program. The essay is a test of the student’s ability to solve through information, or innovation; reliability and validity. These are attributes sequestered from the tools used to form and develop, not for the accumulation of points to add towards some abstract grade. The tools we have to meld into the essay, including the accumulated wealth of a lifetime of education, for better or worse, is the cultural attunement, the common abstraction we contrive to lay bare the inner workings of the mind as applies to this topic.
Reference: The text for our class; Educational Testing and Measurement.
