1 Introduction to language testing

1.1 Testing and teaching

1.2 Why test?

1.3 What should be tested and to what standard?

1.4 Testing the language skills

Testing language areas

1.6 Language skills and language elements

1.7 Recognition and production

1.8 Problems of sampling

1.9 Avoiding traps for the students

2 Approaches to language testing

2.1 Background

2.2 The essay translation approach

2.3 The structuralist approach

2.4 The integrative approach

2.5 The communicative approach

3  Objective testing

3.1 Subjective and objective testing

Objective tests

3.3 Multiple – choice item: general 

3.4 Multiple – choice items: the stem/the correct option/ the distractors

3.5 Writing the test

4  Tests of grammar and usage

4.1 introduction

4.2 Multiple-choice grammar items: item types

4.3 Constructing multople – choice items

4.4 Contructing error recognition multiple choice items

4.5 Constructing rearrangement items

4.6 Constructing completion items

4.7 Constructing tranformation items

4.8 Construcing items involving the changing of words

4.9 Constructing ‘broken sentence’ items

4.10 Constructing pairing and matching items

4.11 Constructing combination and addition items

5 Testing vocabulary

5.1 Selection of items

5.2 Multiple choice items (A)

5.3 Multiple choice items (B)

5.5 Matching items

5.6 More objective items

5.7 Completion items

6 Listening comprehension tests

6.1 General 

6.2 Phoneme discrimination tests

6.3 Tests of stress and intonation

6.4 Statements and dialogues

6.5 Testing comprehension through visual materials

6.6 Understanding talks and lectures

7 Oral production tests

7.1 Some difficulties in testing the speaking skills

7.2. Reading aloud

7.3 Conversational exchanges

7.4 Using picture for assessimg oral production

7.5 The oral interview

7.6 Some other techniques for oral examining

8 Testing reading comprehension

8.1 The nature of the reading skills

8.2 Initial stages of reading: matching tests

8.3 Intermediate and advanced stages of reading: matching tests

8.4 True/false reading tests

8.5 Multiple – choice items (A): short texts

8.6 Multiple – choice items (B): longer texts

8.7 Completion items

8.8 Rearrangement items

8.9 Cloze procedure

8.10 Open – ended and miscellaneous items

8.11 Cursory reading

9 Testing the writing skills

9.1 The writing skills

9.2 Testing composition writing

9.3 Setting the composition

9.4 Grading the composition

9.5 Treatment of written errors

9.6 Objective tests: mechanics

9.7 Objective tests style and register

9.8 Controlled writing

10 Criteria and types of tests

10.1 Validity

10.2.Reliability

10.3 Reliability versus validity

Discrimination

10.6 Test instructions to the candidate

10.7 Backwash effects

10.8 Types of test

11 Interpreting test scores

11.1 Frequency distribution

11.2 Measures of cental tendency

11.3 Measures of dispersion

11.4 Item analysis

11.5 Moderating

11.6 Item card and banks