TUTORIAL 1

Presented by: Chan Yi Jia Joanne Tan Yi Wen Muhammad Hafiz bin Masron Noor Atikah binti Shaari Nurul Aiminadiah binti Ab Mubim Lecturer: Dr. Rafiah bt. Abd Rahman

Different perspective of theorists

Contributing Factors of Language Assessment Trend Changing

The need of educational system

Different perspective of theorists

During the 1960s and 1970s, language testing techniques were heavily influenced by structural linguistics (Chew, 2005).
o Behaviourist approaches (e.g. Skinner): Tests were designed to assess learners' mastery of different areas of the linguistic system in isolation [e.g. grammatical knowledge, vocabulary,
pronunciation etc.]

o Chomsky's linguistic theory (1965): Proposed an underlying rule-based knowledge system. [Child learns language with limited stimuli.]

o Communicative theories (1970s): Focus on

o Dell Hymes Communicative Competence (1972): The social context of language was considered essential and appropriateness was viewed as important as grammatical correctness.
o A theory of communicative competence was developed further by Canale and Swain (1980). They also raised two controversial issues related to second language teaching and testing which will be explored later: whether communicative competence and linguistic competence are mutually inclusive or separate, whether one can usually distinguish

All of these trends significantly influenced the methods of language teaching and roles of language testing, although it is highly possible to assume that some social changes induced new theories at first, and then the theories might be modified to support practice more closely.

The need of educational system

Since the 1970s, language testers have been seeking more pragmatic and integrative questions for assessment, such as cloze tests and dictations. Oller (1979) - Unitary Competence Hypothesis: performance on a whole range of tests depends on the same underlying capacity in the learner - the ability to integrate grammatical, lexical, contextual, and pragmatic knowledge in test performance (McNamara 2000, p.15).

KBSR

KSSR

Clear emphasis on Multiple sources of summative evidence. assessment. Teachers will build a profile of pupils language development and assess them individually. A combination of formative and

References
http://jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/2200assessment-and-language-teacher-trends-andtransitions http://jalt.org/test/yos_1.htm http://education.uitm.edu.my/v1/images/stories /publication/faizah/article7.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/~tylers/notes/emotion/ Hymes_1972_reading_notes_Schnoebelen.pdf http://ehess.tessitures.org/vivavoce/enonciatio n/langue-et-parole/communicativecompetence-hymes.html http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Lang/LangLiu2. htm http://www.laureatelearning.com/pdfs/langlinks