Critical Reflection

Language Assessment is a subject made compulsory for all PISMP TESL

students of the January 2013 intake. This subjects main purpose is to equip
teacher trainee with in depth understanding about the mechanism of a language
assessment and the skill to put the knowledge to practice. For this subject, we
were assigned to collect a sample of KSSR level 2 test papers used in the Primary
ESL classroom and analyze the test to see how much it adheres to the four basic
principles of language assessment.
The observation and study carried out in the part of the assignment is
utilized to plan, design and carry out a test based on a particular language skills
in a learning session in the classroom. I found that the observation and analyzing
process carried out on the sample test paper played a significant role in helping
me constructing the test. One of the important things that I learned in
constructing test is to work backwards. I plan on how I want the answers to be
like first, and only then I plan the questions. In order to produce a reliable test, I
have to ensure that the test is consistent in producing results when it is rated by
more than one rater. Since the test was conducted in a classroom session where
we carried out pair teaching, I have decided to create a fixed formula on marking
the papers. The objective questions were quite convenient as I only have to list
the correct answers for it. As for the two subjective questions, I have agreed with
my partner to give marks to answers that are understandable in terms of
meaning.
Considering that the pupils level is mixed, we decided to give mark to the
answers that delivers the meaning correctly and tolerate the grammatical error
as long as it is at a controllable rate. Somehow to make the marking instruction
more clear and defined, the mark can only be given if the answer delivers an
understandable meaning, and the pupils can have at most 2 grammatical errors
only to still earn their marks. Answers that have 3 or more errors will not be
awarded any marks. The grammatical errors are tolerated at a controlled rate
here because the focused skills in this test is reading skills and not grammar, so
emphasis is given on comprehension and pupils ability to understand the topic
and know how to respond in the right context. Somehow, difficulty still arise in
marking the subjective answers as pupils tend to give answers that is very much
alike for both subjective questions. I should revise the subjective question in

greater details before allowing the pupils answer them to avoid ambiguity in the
questions.
Another aspect that help me construct this test is the validity. Face validity
is one of the aspect of validity in language tests. The questions that I have
constructed on the worksheet in a way achieved the face validity as it contains
multiple choice questions which have standard 4 choices of answers like those
that they encountered in any formal tests before. The physical look of a test
really helped the students to take the test more seriously and really put their
thoughts in answering it. On the other hand,

Siddiek (2010) addresses the

importance of content validity by saying that content validity depends on the

representativeness of items included on the test. This view helped me to
construct the questions to be closely related to the topic and the topic only. All
the questions I constructed for the test are specifically about the ants colony
which is a part of The Insect Investigators topic that I taught in the lesson that
day. In other words, I have provided enough information and practice for the
pupils to answer the questions I have prepared.
Practicality in language test covers a wide range of elements. Arsyad Abd.
Samad (2010) proposed that practicality issues consist of matters like cost, time
planning, scoring procedures and the ease of interpretation. Based on this view
on practicality, I decided to make the test cost and time effective. The test
consists of 10 questions which 8 of them being multiple choice questions ant the
other 2 are subjective questions. The 20 minutes given for the test is a sufficient
and logical amount of time to be used to answer that amount of questions for a
mixed ability class. Not to mention, I managed to keep the cost at a minimum
level as it only involves papers as worksheets.
The ease for interpretation on the hand is applied in the multiple choice
questions. The nature of the multiple choice question itself
objectivity

helps

the

pupils

to

interpret

the

questions

that is high in
without

having

misconceptions about the context. The distracters for the answers are equally
distracting and the correct answer is fairly clear as most pupils managed to
choose the correct answers. This is proven by the score of the test where the
score recorded by the pupils ranges from 6 to 10 with one correctky answered
question worth one mark. I have accomplished the objective of the test to enable
them to answer at least 6 out of 10 questions correctly.

Somehow I could improve the washback effect in the practicality aspect by

making the amount of objective and subjective questions more balanced. Instead
of making the ratio of objective question to subjective question 8 : 2, I should
change it it to 6 : 4. By increasing the number of the subjective questions, I could
also increase the positive washback effect as the written corrections in the
subjective questions are more specific and impactful to help the pupils to be
aware of the area that needs improvements.
Another aspect that needs improvement is the authenticity in the test. I
was restricted by the topic itself, which is The Insect Investigators and it results
in all the questions being focused on comprehension only. Fray, Scmidt and Allen
(2012) agree that an authentic test is the one that mirrors real world tasks and
expectations. In this case, authenticity means that the test should include
questions that imply situations that could happen in real life. I could make the
questions more authentic by altering the form of the subjective questions from
merely being a structured questions to a dialogue or something more
communicative.
In conclusion, the test that I have designed, constructed and applied
generally obeys the basic principles of language assessment. It is fairly reliable
and practical. The test that I conducted is a decent test and it can be a good one
by improving the written part of the test to make it more effective in promoting
positive washback effects and exposing pupils to more real life context
questions.