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Testing Proficiency in Writing a Foreign Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016
Extract
Discussions of the testing of proficiency to write a foreign language are usually limited to techniques; and without a rationale or set criteria of what is to be tested, the result is confusion. Partly as a consequence of the lack of a rationale we are faced with a dearth of techniques in use. Essentially we find only two: objective short answer tests, which are distrusted, and composition tests, which are frustrating because of problems of scoring and the time involved.
Superficial clichés are freely applied to these two techniques. Judgments are made on outward appearances — face validity — without reference to linguistic content or to empirically tested validity. On the basis of appearance, objective tests are criticized because presumably (1) they do not force the student to think, (2) they do not require that the student organize and present information, (3) they are only recognition, multiple choice tests, (4) they are considered elementary in comparison with the business of writing a free composition in the foreign language.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Spring 1960 , pp. 21 - 28
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1960
References
1 Chauncey, Henry, “The Plight of the English Teacher”, in Ther Atlantic Monthly 204, 5 (1959): 123.Google Scholar