Formal and informal assessment: objective testing techniques.

Classroom tests allow teachers to assess students’ knowledge or abilities, usually in relation to
content covered in the class, and to assign grades to students. Tests and test items (questions on a
test) can take many forms: multiple choice, fill in the blanks, cloze exercises, and short answers
and essays, to name a few. Other types of alternative classroom assessment include portfolios,
interviews, and surveys. These tests extend beyond the boundaries of the individual classroom.

Low-level and close-ended activities

These activities are effective for introducing the test item, but they are also appropriate for lower
level students who need to focus on the basic skills required for global and local listening. The
activities focus on the first two objectives listed above identifying the main idea and points of a
short academic talk after one listening. The second and third activities here can be done with
either listening or reading texts, and if reading texts are used, the applicable objectives are
Objectives 5 and 6 identifying the main idea and points of a short, written summary.

Activity 1: Identifying the topic

To help students practice global listening skills, the teacher plays a short listening text and
students identify the topic. This activity can be expanded by giving students paragraphs from
different academic texts (with different topics) and playing the first few seconds of a lecture.
Students then choose which text is on the same topic as the lecture. Because the focus of this
activity is on understanding the topic or main idea rather than details, texts can be beyond the
students’ current language level. This activity also gives students practice in juggling two tasks
(reading and listening) at the same time a skill they will need to develop for tests and for
universities.

Activity 2: Matching illustrations

Another way to practice global listening skills is to present students with a series of drawings or
photos that illustrate different procedures, from baking cakes to changing tires to performing a
science experiment. Students then listen to a short talk describing one procedure, and they must
choose the series that illustrates the procedure described. Google Images is a good source for
finding illustrations of different procedures.

Activity 3: Matching subtopics

To practice local listening or listening for details, the teacher tells students that they will listen to a
short lecture on a particular topic (e.g., pollution, minimum wage) and gives them a list of related
subtopics. Students listen to the lecture and circle the subtopics they hear being discussed. A
variation of this activity that develops note-taking skills or memory is to have students listen to the
recording first, then give them the list of subtopics.

Activity 4: Providing missing details

To practice their local listening skills, students receive a text where key details are either missing
or presented with two or three options for certain words. The students listen to a recording of the
text and either fill in the missing information or circle the word they hear. While on the surface
this is a standard listening activity, it becomes especially valuable when the speakers are non-
native English speakers or have accents that students might not have received much exposure to
previously. The activity then helps refine students’ ability to distinguish between similar sounding
words that often cause problems (e.g., can and can’t, or nineteen and ninety). Listening texts such
as weather reports, traffic reports, horoscopes, or even advertisements are appropriate for this
activity, and they are easy to find on the Internet with a variety of accents.

Taking it to the next level

The following activities, while not completely open-ended, require higher-order skills such as
organizing and rephrasing. They require students to do more with the information they are given,
and there is more interac - tion between the student and the task.

Activity 1: Rewriting sentences

This activity improves students’ ability to understand the original text and see how the wording
can be changed to mean the same thing. Test-prep material for the FCE’s Rewriting Sentence item
lets students practice transforming sentence vocabulary and structure while retaining the meaning
of the sentence. This is a particularly effective exercise for giving students practice with modals
and the passive voice. Example sentence: “I tried to ask him, but he couldn’t speak English.” Use
able to rewrite the sentence. “I tried to ask him, but he ___________ speak English.” A variation of
this would be to give students two sentences and ask if they mean the same thing. This is an
excellent way to target com - monly confused structures and vocabulary, such as “I am used to”
and “I used to,” or “actually” and “right now.” Both variations target Objectives 5, 6, and 7 listed
above.

Activity 2: Using graphic organizers

This activity utilizes graphic organizers to help students understand the structure of a text as they
listen to an academic talk. Each student uses a graphic organizer to summarize the talk and then
compares it with the summaries produced by others to see whose is the closest to the original. As
a variation, students form groups, and each one listens to a talk that is on the same topic but that
varies from the others in slight details. Students then work together to write a summary of the
talk. When they are finished, the teacher collects the summaries and, on another day, gives
students copies of them, plays one of the talks for the class, and has the students choose which
summary goes with the talk. This activity targets all objectives except the fourth one, and teachers
can use talks from speakers with different accents to work toward that objective.

Activity 3: Identifying differences

An activity that focuses on meeting the first three objectives (and possibly the fourth) is to divide
students into pairs, then have one student from each pair leave the room while the remaining
students listen to a short recorded text. The students outside the class - room return to their
partners, who recount the text they heard while the students who had been outside take notes.
The entire class then listens to the text again, and the students note any differences or omissions
between what their partners told them and what they hear on the recording.

Higher-order skills: Making judgments and supporting opinions

Although the Highlight Correct Summary test section requires students to respond in basic ways,
it can be used as a starting point for activities that push students to develop higher-order skills.
These higher-order skills include the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information (King,
Goodson, and Rohani 1998). By using test items as springboards, teachers help students develop a
greater sense of control over their performance in addition to preparing them for university
classes.

Activity 1: Selecting and defending options

One way to do this is to have students first complete one or more test items before looking at a
transcript and the related summaries. Students then deliberate about whether each option is an
accurate summary. Students must pay attention to language, make judgments, and present and
support an opinion.

Activity 2: Composing written arguments and staging debates

Students can also respond to the topics in the talks by composing written responses or
counterarguments or by staging debates. These types of activities are best organized as part of a
unit rather than a response to an individual item. For example, a unit on impressionist art teaches
students academic level vocabulary related to art and includes many item types to give students
the opportunity to practice their new terms and respond to actual test items. The unit might also
contain activities that culminate in an activity that is not based on a test item but on a task that
students might encounter in an academic setting, such as writing a paper, responding to a
painting, or giving a presentation. By structuring a class in this way, teachers provide test-
preparation work that supports actual learning and not the other way around. Both the NorthStar
and Academic Connections series are structured to allow students to learn the English necessary
for academic English exams while at the same time developing study skills and critical thinking.

Additional test-preparation activity: Self-assessment

Inviting students to assess their performance helps them develop a sense of where they are in
terms of test preparation, where they want to go, and what they need to do to improve. Students
discuss or write about their strengths and weaknesses, which aspects of an item tend to give them
problems, and what they can do to address their problems and improve their performance. This
type of self-assessment helps students see the value in developing their language skills by linking
their skills and abilities to their performance. It also contributes to their growth as independent
learners and shows them how they can take initiative and guide their own learning.