ESL EFL Writing Tests

The Pragmatic Test Types

Tests which meet the pragmatic naturalness criteria

There are two closely interrelated criteria of construct validity, which need to be imposed on language tests to find out if they meet the pragmatic naturalness criteria.

The test must cause the learner to processes – either produce or comprehend or possibly to comprehend, store and recall, or some other combination – temporal sequences of elements in the language that conform to normal contextual constraints which may be linguistic constraints or extra linguistic constraints.

The test must require the learner to understand the pragmatic interrelationship of linguistic contexts and extralinguistic contexts.

Some tests which meet the pragmatic naturalness criteria are as follows:

a.         Dictation

b.         Cloze

c.         Combined Cloze and Dictation – A cloze  passage is prepared deleting single words, parts of words or sequences of words and given to the learner in the written form.  The same passage, without any deletions, is heard by the learner either live or on tape.  The learner is asked to complete the cloze passage with the help of what he hears.

d.         Oral cloze procedure – A cloze passage with deletions is dictated for the learners to copy down and complete the deleted portions with appropriate words.

e.         Dictation with interfering noise – Taped verbal material is super imposed with `white noise`.  If the linguistic context under the noise is fully meaningful and subject to the normal extralinguistic constraints, this procedure qualifies as a pragmatic testing technique.  For example, if it is a telephone conversation with one party calling from a market place, the noise superimposed will have sounds of the market place.
 

f.          Paraphrase recognition – Learners are asked to read a sentence, paragraph or longer passage and then select from several alternatives the one, which best represent the central me aning or idea of the given piece.

g.         Question answering – Four answers are given for each question. Learners listen to the question orally and select the best answer.  There may be a short dialogue followed by a question.  Four or five answers are given and learners select the best answer.  This type of test is used in TOEFL examinations.

h.         Bilingual syntax measure – A picture or cartoon is shown and learners are asked some questions based on the picture.  Burt, Dulay and Hernandez (1975) made learners answer questions based on colourful cartoon style pictures.
 

i.          Oral interview – Where learners are asked questions as would happen in a normal interview for a job or admission to a course.

j.          Composition or essay writing

k.         Narration
 

l.          Translation – Which is similar to the on taking place in a real life context.

Having discussed the nature and types of pragmatic tests in general, it would be useful to consider dictation and cloze in more detail because they meet the criteria like validity, reliability and practicality, being easy to construct, administer and score.