Testing as a method of motivation of pupils in teaching English language

Introduction 

    Every teacher wants to give his pupils the best knowledge, which they will use every time, anywhere where it is necessary. But how to achieve this aim? Of course he must be qualified teacher, he must teach them letters, new words, phonetic, grammar, and etc., but also he must rightly evaluate pupils’ knowledge and makes them do it without any fear and with ease. Because pupils should improve their skills and knowledge in foreign language.

    There are many methods and ways to evaluate children’s knowledge. One of them is test. Sometimes this word usually makes the students shudder. There is hardly a person who would claim that she/he favours tests and finds them very motivating. However, tests cannot be avoided completely, for they are inevitable elements of learning process. They are included into curriculum at schools and are to check the students’ level of knowledge and what they are able to do; they could be accomplished at the beginning of the study year and at the end of it; the students could be tested after working on new topics and acquiring new vocabulary. Moreover, the students are to face the tests in order to enter any foreign university or reveal the level of their English language skills for themselves. Although tests are used for measuring the achievement of the objective in language learning, they fulfill educational function as well, namely, each test makes pupil concentrate their attention to certain language material and language skill and thereby mastering it successfully. Since testing is accompanied by the evaluation of the achievement of every pupil this stimulates pupils’ desire to learn.

    Thus, the aim of my course work is to tell about varieties of test and how it can motivate pupils to study English language.

    The next tasks must be solved in order to achieve this aim:

• To consider the origin of testing methods
• To present a classification of tests and describe their advantages and disadvantages
• To show some exercises, where tests are used and how they motivate pupils to study English language

    The object of the paper is testing methods

    This theme is topical because there are a lot of educational establishments which use tests in order to evaluate pupils, students’ knowledge. Of course, tests should be correct, because it will not give good results, if it is made in wrong way.

    Also, test seems more interesting for pupils. It is interesting to choose right answer, to fill gaps, to find synonyms and etc. That is why it makes pupils, students desire to learn, because they like it and it seems them easy.

        The paper consists of introduction, three chapters, each including sub-chapters, conclusion and bibliography. Chapter 1 discusses the general data about tests. Chapter 2 describes motivational characteristics of tests. Chapter 3 focuses on practical application of the given methods in the classroom of English.

I. Theoretical bases of testing

1.1 The history of testing and the meaning of testing methods 

    However, very often the tests can facilitate the students’ acquisition process, i.e.: the students are to be checked the knowledge of the irregular verbs forms. Being constantly tested by means of a small test, they can learn them successfully and transfer them to their long-term memory, as well. Although, according to Thompson tests decrease practice and instruction time. What he means is that the students are as if limited; they are exposed to practice of a new material, however, very often the time implied for it is strictly recommended and observed by a syllabus. That denotes that there will be certain requirements when to use a test. Thus, the students find themselves in definite frames that the teacher will employ. Nevertheless, there could be advantages that tests can offer: they increase learning, for the students are supposed to study harder during the preparation time before a test.  
 

1.2 Types of tests  

    Different scholars (Alderson, 1996; Heaton, 1990; Underhill, 1991) in their researches ask the similar question – why test, do the teachers really need them and for what purpose. Further, they all agree that test is not the teacher’s desire to catch the students unprepared with what they are not acquainted. In fact, the test is a request for information and possibility to learn what the teachers did not know about their students before. We can add here that the test is important for the students, too, though they are unaware of that. The test is supposed to display not only the students’ weak points, but also their strong sides. It could act as an indicator of progress the student is gradually making learning the language. Moreover, Hughes emphasises that we can check the progress, general or specific knowledge of the students, etc. This claim will directly lead us to the statement that for each of these purposes there is a special type of testing/5, 5/. According to some scholars (Thompson, 2001; Hughes, 1989; Alderson, 1996; Heaton, 1990; Underhill, 1991), there are four traditional categories or types of tests: proficiency tests, achievement tests, diagnostic tests, and placement tests. 

Diagnostic tests

         Referring to Longman Dictionary of LTAL diagnostic tests is a test that is meant to display what the student knows and what she/he does not know/12, 106/. Diagnostic tests identify students’ strengths and weaknesses. They provide the teachers with the information on what further teaching is necessary and what problems the students might have in coping with the instruction demands. /7, 9-12/

     To conclude, we can conceive that interpreting the results of diagnostic tests the teachers apart from predicting why the student has done the exercises the way she/he has, but not the other, will receive a significant information about his/her group she/he is going to work with and later use the information as a basis for the forming syllabus.  

Placement tests 

    Another type of test we are intended to discuss is a placement test. Concerning Longman Dictionary of LTAL again we can see that a placement test is a test that places the students at an appropriate level in a programme or a course/12, 279-280/. Placement tests provide information that helps to place the students at the most suitable stage of the teaching curriculum, bearing in mind their level of the language achieved so far. /7, 9-12/  

Progress test

    According to Alderson, progress test will show the teacher whether the students have learnt the recently taught material successfully. Basically, the teacher intends to check certain items, not general topics covered during the school or study year. Commonly, it is not very long and is determined to check the recent material. Progress test typically employed during the study year to check the students’ development /6, 217/. 

Achievement tests 

    Apart from a progress test the teachers employ another type – achievement test. According to Longman Dictionary of LTAL, an achievement test is a test, which measures a language someone has learned during a specific course, study or program/12, 3/. Here the progress is significant and, therefore, is the main point tested. Achievement tests are directly related to the language courses taught to the examinees. The purpose of achievement tests is to judge upon the success of individual learners or groups in achieving the objectives of the language course. /7, 9-12/ 

Proficiency tests

      The last type of test to be discussed is a proficiency test. Regarding Longman Dictionary of LTAL proficiency test is a test, which measures how much of a language a person knows or has learnt. It is not bound to any curriculum or syllabus, but is intended to check the learners’ language competence/12, 292/. Proficiency tests measure learners’ language ability regardless of the training they may have had or the vocabulary and topics they may have studied. Proficiency tests are not based on the contents of a language course but rather on the general knowledge of the target language and culture. /7, 9-12/ 

    Multiple-choice tests have a “stem” (the basic and unaltered part of the sentence) and a number of “options”, only one of which is correct. The other options are wrong in the particular context and are called “distracters”. The advantages of the multiple-choice test are that they can produce a reliable and economical scoring. A test can include a fairly long list of items and increase the reliability of procedure, thus decreasing the randomness of the results. The disadvantages of the multiple-choice test are that it checks only recognition knowledge. Guessing can have an effect on the scores. The plausible (looking correct) distracters are not always available and this makes test writers include “fool-proof” distracters. The “correct answer” can in quite a few cases be questioned. /6, 47-51/

Choose the correct answer of the multiple choice and comment on your difficulties

        Gap filling refers to tasks where the test-takers are given separate sentences with some words or phrases deleted. The task is to restore the missing words. In these tests answer keys can sometimes have more than one answer for a space. Some missing words can have a structural value for the sentence (e.g. prepositions or conjunctions). Other words can have full lexical meaning. Sometime a list of the words can be given to the test-takers to be used in filling in the gaps. In such cases the number of words in the list is usually larger than the number of gaps in the text. /8, 155/

Complete the gaps in the text and comment on your difficulties

         Close procedure involves deleting a number of words in the whole text, requiring the test-takers to restore the original words. Disadvantages of the test are that some words prove more difficult to restore than others. There could be more than one answer for any one gap. It is not always easy to say what language area (grammar, lexis, prepositions etc) or skills (receptive or productive) are actually measured by the close procedure. /7, 55-56/

Do the close procedure and comment on the difficulties that you have experienced

    Matching is a test format when students are given a list of items, which they have to match with the other list of words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs or visual images. The disadvantage of it is that once the test-takers have successfully made sufficient amount of matches, the remaining pairs can be guessed more easily and the last pair will be correct by default. /6, 51-52/

    Match the verbs in A with the structures that can follow them in B. Some verbs can be followed by more than one structure. Mark the time you needed to perform the test.  Comment on your experience in performing this test

C-Tests

    It is worth mentioning that in the 80s German school introduced an alternative to cloze test another type of testing – C-Tests. This test was based on the close test system; however, every second word there was deleted. It could seem quite a complicated type, though it is not.  According to Weir in this type every deleted word is partially preserved. Thus, the students, if they possess a fairly good knowledge of the language and can activate their schemata, or background knowledge of a topic or the world, they will succeed in completing the test/9, 47/. Such test format could look as follows:

      Cats ha…. always been surro………by superstitions. In anc……Egypt ca….were cons……. sacred, but in medi…..Europe ma….. people beli…… cats we…. witches in disgu…… A popular supers……... about ca…. is that a blac…cat, cros… your pa… from left to rig…., will bri… you bad lu…. However, in some cult….. a black ca… is thought to be a go… omen rat… than a ba… one.

(First certificate Star, Luke Prodromou, p.134)

True/False items

    This test format is familiar for all the teachers and students. Each reading task will always be followed with true/false activities that will intend to check the students’ comprehension of a text. /9, 48/. The students will be offered a set of statements some of which are true and some are wrong, e.g.: 
 

People went to see ‘Cats’ because of the story. T F

Lloyd Webber’s father helped his career. T F

Lloyd Webber comes from a musical family. T F  

( Famous Britons, Michael Dean)  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

II. Theoretical aspects of testing as a method of motivation

2.1 Motivation in language teaching 

            Learners' motivation varies because of numerous endogenous (i.e., internal or inner inspiration) and exogenous (i.e., external to human personality) factors, such as socio-cultural circumstances, professional needs, and language requirements for international education. Endogenous factors bring pleasure and satisfaction to a student, and exogenous factors relate to the tangible benefits attached to an activity /11, 23-34/. A number of studies over the past couple of decades have analyzed patterns of motivation in language classrooms in a variety of situations. These studies have established a consistently strong relationship between motivation and second language success. There are two main challenges in teaching—motivating learners and sustaining their motivation, and learners' motivation as a vital element in language teaching.

    Teacher should create a safe atmosphere for learners in the class. She/he should try to create a safe as well as supportive environment in which learners can learn and practice the language comfortably. This positive environment is maintained through good teacher–student working relationships. It means that between them would be understanding. First of all teacher should give texts, audiovisual materials, tasks, and class activities which are related to students' interests and all tasks must be properly organized. Second, the teacher should always give learners choices in assigning a task, and learners' preferences should get priority. Third, an extracurricular component in the course is a very desirable feature so that elements such as music and humor can be incorporated in teaching, thus increasing learning opportunities beyond regular lessons. These extracurricular activities can be simple speaking and writing acts such as sharing a cultural object from one's country/region, giving a musical or dramatic performance, and having poster competitions. These activities are successful in enhancing and maintaining learners' motivation /10, 297/. 
 

2.2 Testing as a method of motivation of pupils in teaching English language 

    Maybe majority of us disagree with this statement and don’t understand, how testing can motivate pupils to study English language.

    Everything has its advantages and disadvantages, and test is not exception. Speaking about the students at school, we can declare that there is hardly a student who will truly enjoy tests and their procedure. Usually, what we will see just sore faces when a test is being mentioned. Moreover, too much of testing could be disastrous. It can entirely change the students’ attitude towards learning the language, especially if the results are usually dissatisfying and decrease their motivation towards learning and the subject in general.

    Furthermore, as Alderson assumes, we should not forget that the tests when administered receive less support from the teacher as it is usually during the exercises in a usual language classroom. The students have to cope themselves; they cannot rely on the help of the teacher if they are in doubt /6,212/.  During a usual procedure when doing various activities the students know they can encounter the teacher’s help if they require it. They know the teacher is always near and ready to assist, therefore, no one is afraid to make a mistake and try to take a chance to do the exercises. However, when writing a test and being left alone to deal with the test activities, the students panic and forget everything they knew before. In this situation the first what the teacher should do is to teach the students to overcome their fear of tests and secondly, help them acquire the ability to work independently believing in their own knowledge. The students should be given confidence. Another question that may emerge here is how to reach the goal described above, how to encourage the students. Thus, at this point we can speak about positive results. In fact, our success motivates us to study further, encourages us to proceed even if it is rather difficult and we are about to lose confidence in ourselves. Therefore, we can speak about the tests as a tool to increase motivation. However, having failed for considerable number of times, the student would definitely oppose the previous statement. Hence, we can speak about assessment and evaluation as means for increasing the students’ motivation.

    Concerning Hicks, we often perceive these two terms – evaluating and assessment – as two similar notions, though they are entirely different. She states that when we assess our students we commonly are interested in “how and how much our students have learnt”, but when we evaluate them we are concerned with “how the learning process is developing” /2,162/. These both aspects are of great importance for the teacher and the students and should be correlated in order to make evaluation and assessment “go hand in hand”. However, very frequently, the teachers assess the students without taking the aspect of evaluation into account. According to Hicks, this assessment is typically applied when dealing with examinations that take place either at the end of the course or school year. Such assessment is known as achievement test. With the help of these tests the teacher receives a clear picture of what his/her students have learnt and which level they are comparing with the rest of the class. The achievement tests are very essential for comparing how the students’ knowledge has changed during the course. Thus, evaluation of the learning process is not of the major importance here. We can speak about evaluation when we deal with “small” tests the teachers use during the course or studying year. It is a well-known fact that these tests are employed in order to check how the learning process is going on, where the students are, what difficulties they encounter and what they are good at. These tests are also called “diagnostic” tests; they could be of a great help for the teacher: judging from the results of the test, analysing them the teacher will be able to improve or alter the course and even introduce various innovations/13, 274/.

    It will give them an opportunity to visage how they are going to be tested, to be aware of and wait for, and the most important, it will reduce fear the students might face. Moreover, at the end of each test the students could be asked their reflections: if there was a multiple choice, what helped them guess correctly, what they used for that – their schemata or just pure guessing; if there was a close test - did they use guessing from the context or some other skills, etc. Furthermore, Hicks emphasises that such analysis will display the students the way they are tested and establish an appropriate test for each student. Likewise, evaluation will benefit the teacher as well. She/he not only will be able to discover the students’ preferences, but also find out why the students have failed a particular type of activity or even the whole test. The evaluation will determine what is really wrong with the structure or design of the test itself. Finally, the students should be taught to evaluate the results of the test. They should be asked to spot the places they have failed and together with the teacher attempt to find out what has particularly caused the difficulties. This will lead to consolidation of the material and may be even to comprehension of it/14, 76/.

     Also, such kinds of tests, as Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or First Certificate (FCE) or IELTS make pupils and students study English language and motivate them to do it. Mostly this concerns the students or pupils who have their own special needs, such as going abroad to study or work. This again supports the idea that motivation factor plays a significant role in the learning process/15, 12/. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

III. Use of testing in English language classroom

    The lesson “At Home”

The aim: to improve pupils’ knowledge and creative skills with

the help of testing.

Tasks:      to consolidate lexical and grammatical materials;

                 to make pupils objective evaluate their achievements;

                 to support their interest in English language;

                 to improve creative skills.

Equipments: pupils’ pictures “The House of my dream”;

two pictures of little houses, which are cut into pieces;

materials for tasks.

    Course of the lesson (game)

        This lesson is conducted after the theme “House. Flat”.

Class is divided into two groups, which are equal by strength

and number of pupils.

         In the capacity of home task children were given to draw

the picture of house of their dream. These pictures are hung

on a blackboard of the classroom. The pictures are used as a

design and also pupils will describe them at the end of the lesson.

        Organization of the lesson

    Two groups are taking part in the game. There will be different group and individual tasks. Groups will take a piece of picture “Little house”, if they rightly answer the questions and do the tasks. (numbers of pieces of pictures equal to numbers of tasks).

    Competitive tasks

    Phonetic competition

“Which word is sounded?”

    Each group takes a list of words. Presenter reads the words in Russian language in definite order. Pupils must find the right equivalents and put ordinal numbers next to words. Then they exchange the lists and with the presenter check

each other.

“Who is more…?”

Groups say the words, which connected with the theme “House” by turns. There must be [d] and [t] sounds in these words. Who says the last word, will take one extra point. 

       Lexical competition

“What is odd?”

Groups must find “odd” words in every line and underline it.

1. bedroom, flat, living room, bathroom, guest room
2. table, bed, bookshelf, wall, chair
3. a poster, a picture, an armchair, a carpet, a table
4. window, shelves, car, door, carpet

This task also is checked with the presenter. Such kind of test defines level of vocabulary, which was taught before and assists its consolidation.    

        Grammatical competition

“Broken sentences”

         The teacher made up the sentences, which are written on the cards, one word-one card. Then they are mixed and pupil should arrange these cards in right order.

For example:

1. vase         is         table        there       this      on      beautiful       the 

2. near       chairs       there         piano        the            are             four

This task examines pupils’ knowledge in English grammar.

This method with the cards is very interesting for children. It helps them to consolidate their grammatical skills.

        Task for the memory

“Is it true or false”

    The teacher shows pupils a picture of inside of house. Then they must memorize where are the furniture situated, what colors are they and etc. After that they must prove is the sentence true or false.

1. This is a kitchen.                                     T/F
2. There are two little beds in the room.     T/F
3. Window is opened.                                 T/F
4. There is a TV-set on the table.               T/F
5. There is a red blanket on the bed.           T/F
6. The bookshelf is hung above the bed.     T/F

    The advantage of such test is found in its applicability and suitability. One can write more true/false statements for a test and use them to check the students’ progress or achievement. Furthermore, the current sort of testing could be more motivating for the students than a multiple-choice test. It will not make the students confused offering just one possibility than a multiple-choice test, which typically proposes more than one option to choose from. Moreover, it is easy to answer for the students and check for the teachers.

    Creative competition

    Competition of pictures

    The pictures, which they drew in advance, are hung on the blackboard. The owner of the best picture will be the winner.

    Summarizing

    In the end the pupils finish gathering the pieces of the picture in the whole picture of the house. The group which gathers all the pieces will be the winner of the whole game. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Conclusion 

    So, according to this research we can say, that testing is essential method in teaching English language. It helps to evaluate pupils’ knowledge, to consolidate old and new materials and motivate them to study English language.

    There are many different types of tests, which should be used in teaching process at school. It does not mean, that we must use testing all the time, but do not forget about its help in teaching process.

    The research has achieved the initially set goal and objectives. It dealt with the basic data about testing, where we had displayed the ideas what was the essence of tests, why the students should be tested, what consequences could tests produce and whom they would mostly influence. Afterwards, the reasons for testing were discussed, where we had gradually showed why tests were significant in the process of learning and the role of testing in the teaching process. After the basic data had been discussed, we came directly to types of testing. There were presented the definitions of the types of tests offered in Longman dictionary of LTAL and then had compared them with the definitions given by various authors. Here we had broadly and explicitly discussed and analyzed the types of tests, such as multiple-choice tests, false/true items, close tests, gap-filling tests, etc. We had focused on their application and skills for which they are used.

    Also, we said about motivation in language teaching and influences of testing on our desire to learn English language.

    There was also described the working out of the lesson in the practical part of the paper. There are different tests, which not only evaluate children’s knowledge, but also assist to consolidation of this knowledge and motivate them to study English language.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bibliography

1. Щукин А.Н. Обучение иностранным языкам: Теория и практика: Учебное пособие для преподавателей и студентов. 2-е изд., испр. и доп. – М.:Филоматис, 2006.
2. Hicks, D. Littlejohn, A. 1998. Cambridge English for Schools (CES). Teacher’s Book. Level Two. Cambridge University Press.
3. Heaton, J. 1990. Classroom Testing. Longman
4. Thompson, M. 2001. Putting students to the test. Issue Twenty. Forum. July
5. Hughes, A. 1989. Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge University Press
6. Alderson, Ch.,. C. Clapham and D. Wall. 1996. Language Test Construction and Evaluation. CUP
7. Hughes, A., 1996. Testing for Language Teachers. CUP
8. Millrood, R., 2001.Testing in Teaching English. Modular Course in ELT Methodology
9. Weir, C.1990. Communicative Language Testing. Prentice Hall
10. Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An integrative approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
11. Noels, K. A., Clement, R., & Pelletier, L. G. (1999). Perceptions of teachers' communicative style and students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Modern Language Journal, 83
12. Longman Dictionary of LTAL
13. Rogova G.V. “Methods of teaching English” (1975)
14. Hughes, A. 1989 Testing for Language Teachers Cambridge : CUP.
15. www.ets.org./TOEFL/