Performance skills involve the receiving or sending of messages in the second language. Approximately one half of each test should involve testing each student's ability to go from thought to language or vice versa. The student should be aware from the beginning of the course that he will be expected to demonstrate on each test an answer to the question, "What can you do with what you have learned in this unit?" Accomplishment of communicative competence is a must in any second-language class. (This statement is not meant to deny the value of second-language classes taught in the first language, a common practice in some schools at present. However, their value lies in areas other than language study per se.)
As is true when testing for competence, ideas for the format and content of performance skills tests should come directly from the classroom activities. (Examples of performance skills activities are given in each of the skill chapters and in the chapter on lesson planning.) Whatever second-language activities the students have been doing in class they should be expected to do on the test. These activities should be practically the same as those practiced in the "real" language portions of the class hour. The students should be able to-talk about material in the text and be able to relate the content to their own lives. For example, the students have just had a unit dealing with the future tense in which they had opportunities to use real language skills dealing with their future career plans. For the test, they should be prepared to listen to and give a summary (in the first language) of a conversation on tape in which a similar topic is discussed; to read similar material; to tell or write about their plans; or to carry on a conversation with someone else about future hopes, dreams, and plans. The objectives being tested in this portion of the test are a combination of cognitive, behavioral, and affective-social. One suggestion for encouraging student input and for focusing the students' attention during the course of the unit is to invite them to assist in the selection of topics to be used in class activities, and subsequently to be a part of the examination over the unit.
For the most part, items testing for competence will be discrete. Tests of
Evaluation 505
performance skills may contain both discrete and global items, but items requiring sustained reception or production of language will, of necessity, be global. Although some teachers shy away from the use of global items because they are more time-consuming to grade and less objective, the qualities inherent in the communication process mandate that such items be included in tests of productive performance skills. At this stage of testing, objectivity, which has been maintained in testing for competence and in other lower-level performance skills, is less important than the necessity of demonstrating to the student that the ability to use the language in a "real" language situation is an important goal. The preceding statement is not meant to imply that the teacher should not strive to maintain as much objectivity as possible in grading speaking tests and essays, but to stress the need for such items, whatever their shortcomings. For example, as a means of maintaining objectivity, many teachers have used oral multiple-choice items to test listening comprehension, yet even native speakers have trouble with such items. Answering an oral multiple-choice question demands extreme concentration and a high ability to abstract. A more practical approach would be to read the students a narrative or a conversation and let them summarize (in the first language) the main points of what they understood. Scoring can be accomplished by counting a set number of points for each piece of information the student mentions, with comprehension being the basic criterion.
One of the problems associated with global items is establishing a fair grading system. One system is to determine the characteristics of the speaking or writing to be assessed. For example, the teacher may decide to grade pronunciation, grammar usage, vocabulary usage, and general fluency in speaking and the latter three in writing. He can then establish criteria such as the following:
(5) expresses himself well with practically no errors
(3) communicates fairly well but with noticeable errors
(1) practically incomprehensible
(0) no response
The resultant score can be converted into any number of points allotted to the item by multiplying.
Another problem with regard to global items is the amount of time required to grade student answers. A practical solution is to divide this portion of the test into two parts: one fourth for a receptive skill and one fourth for a productive skill. The particular skills being tested can be rotated so that the teacher does not have quite so much work to do on any given test. For example, he might give a listening comprehension test and a writing test over one unit. The next unit test would contain a reading and a speaking test. This procedure permits the teacher to test all four language skills periodically without making the work load too burdensome. The ideal, of course, is to test
Part Two: Practice
all four language skills on each examination; and if the teacher has the time and energy, he should do so.
In this author's opinion, one way to improve testing is to permit as much individual variation as possible. With regard to sounds and grammar the system is finite, so each student must of necessity learn as much of the system as her ability allows. However, vocabulary is an almost infinite system, and it is a personal system as well. No two people have the same vocabulary or the same preference for words commonly used. It would seem that each student might well be given the prerogative of learning those words, within agreed- upon guidelines, that she feels would be most useful to her. One way to accomplish such a goal and to relieve the students of the burden of attempting to memorize each and every word in the unit is to grant the students the privilege of choosing which vocabulary items they want to answer. The same is true for the four language skills. Each is an infinite system, and we should permit each student the right to express herself in her own unique way. By focusing on the ability to communicate with regard to the topics of the unit rather than on specific grammar and vocabulary to be used to talk about the topic, the teacher recognizes that the conversion of thought to language is a personal, creative process that will be different for each second-language learner.