Abstract
Language influences human thought. Language plays a unique role in capturing the breadth of human thought and endeavour. The function of language is to enable people to communicate with each other in speech and writing. It involves numerous process to learn and teach the language. This paper illustrates the different methods of teaching and learning of English language. It mainly involves testing and evaluating the language using various tools and techniques.
Keywords: evaluation, good test, kinds of evaluation, types, measurement, tools of evaluation, values of evaluation
Art is something expressive, creative, original and usually, personal. English is an art subject in which imagination and personal taste are important. Skill is an acquired ability that is mechanical, exact and impersonal. English language skills — listening, speaking, reading, and writing are not independent. They do interact closely hence, language teaching should show concern for both skills and arts.
Several practices are involved in teaching and learning of English. A teacher should know what his instructional task is and what he is trying to achieve by teaching English. The teacher must be aware of different testing techniques, because they give useful information to both the teacher and the students.
Types of Tests
Based on these types, the tests are categorized as follows:
I. Objective Tests
Objective test items are useful for measuring many specific skills and items of knowledge. It does not attempt to test the student’s self-progression. They attempt to test student’s recognition or comprehension. Types include recall items, completion items, true or false, multiple choice type, and matching type.
II. Short Answer Type
These types of tests play a major role in evaluation in English. The students have to answer the question in few sentences. It has advantages of both objective type tests and essay type tests.
III. Essay Type
Essay type tests are the most common tests in our schools. This type of questions are very useful to test the power of expression of the pupil. They also tests the pupil’s originality, have the ability to organize his material and to present in his own words and style.
IV. Oral Type Tests
Oral tests focus on speaking skills of the students. There are two main ways of testing student’s speaking ability: continuous assessment and short oral tests.
Kinds of Tests
- Diagnostic tests: This type of test aim to find out what a student still has to learn in a language.
- Achievement tests: Achievement tests determine how much of a particular course of study has been mastered.
- Prognostic tests: Prognostic tests try to predict how well a student will succeed in learning English as a second language.
Measurement and Evaluation
Measurement
Measurement is a process of assigning numerical value to a quantity or a variable. It is a method of obtaining quantitative information of a student.
Evaluation
Evaluation includes measurement in it. It is a whole process of making judgments & taking decisions. The judgement is made based on the measurements made referring to a pre-established standard or norms.
Characteristics of a Good Test
A good test synchronizes evaluation with the objectives of teaching English. It should be highly reliable, valid, and should cater for weak, average and bright students.
Conclusion
The function of a language is to enable people to communicate with each other in speech and writing. The language is highly organized and intensively structured. Effective learning of a language depends on the effective teaching of it. However, effective teaching, in turn, depends on the application of general principles of language teaching. An English teacher may have the knowledge of several methods and approaches for teaching the language; hence, the effective way of incorporating in his/her teaching is vital for any fruitful learning.
Works Cited
- Yule, George. The Study of Language. 4th edition. Cambridge University Press. 2010.