以語言測試學理論為基礎對英語口語初級水平測試的剖析

摘 要：本文以語言測試學理論為基礎，從reliability， validity and fairness三個基本因素對較為典型的英語口語初級水平測試進行分析，為英語教學中口語測試題的設計提供了參考。

關鍵詞：語言測試學理論；英語口語

1. Purposes of the test

For the teachers， the overall purposes of the elementary speaking test are to help teachers to:

-understand what their students have achieved

-find out students’ strengths and weaknesses

-work out ways of helping the students

-use information from the assessment as a basis for future lesson planning (Bachman Palmer， 1996， p. 354)

2. Issues of Reliability， Validity and Fairness

2. 1 Reliability of the Speaking Test

Reliability is concerned about the “consistency of test judgement and results” (Davies， 1990， p. 21) and reliability of a test involves both that of a test itself and that of scoring of the test (Fernandez， 1996， p.114). In order to make the speaking test more reliable， the following methods will be used to achieve consistent performances from test-takers and the scorer reliability.

As for the speaking test itself， first of all， other things being equal， the more items that a test has， the more reliable that test will be. So each item in this speaking test will represent a fresh start for the test-takers， in this way， the test-takers will be given as many “fresh starts” as possible (Hughes， 2003， pp. 44-45). And clear and explicit instructions will be read clearly from a short prepared text in order to avoid introducing confusion (Luoma， 2004， pp. 168-169). Furthermore， to maximize reliability， the interview will be tightly structured to control what the interviewer can do. (Ingram Wylie， 1993， p. 224)

2. 2 Validity of the Speaking Test

Validity is also the important quality of a test which means that a test measures accurately what it intends to measure. In other words， score of the test must be a meaningful indicator of the particular individual’s ability that it intends to measure (Bachman， 1990， p. 25). To address the construct validity in this speaking test， content relevance and coverage is quite necessary which means linking the specification directly to the learning objective of the syllabus and providing a high degree of content relevance (Bachman Palmer， 1996， pp. 356-357).

2. 3 Fairness of the Speaking Test

Fairness is an important consideration in all aspects of testing and the tests must ensure that all “test takers are given comparable opportunity to demonstrate what they know and how they can perform in the area being tested.” (Joint Committee on Testing Practices， 2004， p. 2) This speaking test is fair to all the test-takers because test bias is avoided when designing this speaking test. First， all the test-takers are from the same cultural background. They are all junior middle school students in China and educated in the same educational system. Second， all the test-takers have similar background knowledge. As the structures and vocabulary in the speaking test topics are based on their textbook Go for it and the topics themselves are in familiar communication context of their daily life.

References：

1. Bachman， L. F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2. Bachman， L.F. Palmer， A.S. (1996). Language testing in practice: designing and developing useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. Davies， P. (1990). Principles of language testing. Oxford: Arnold.

4. Fernandez， A. J. (1996). A close test for advanced students. RESLA， 11， 109-115.

5. Hughes， A. (2003). Testing for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6. Ingram， D. E Wylie， E. (1993). Assessing speaking proficiency in the international English language testing system. In Douglas， D. Chapelle， C. (Eds). A new decade of language testing research: selected papers from the 1990 language testing research colloquium. Virginia: World Composition Services， Inc.， Sterling.

7. Luoma， S. (2004). Assessing speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8. Joint Committee on Testing Practices. (2004). Code of fair testing practices in education. Science Directorate， American Psychological Association.