A Project Report on Online Resources of Language Testing for Selfassessment

1、a project report on online resources of language testing for self-assessmentpart i literature reviewit is not an overstatement to say that the internet has transformed english language teaching and testing. more and more teachers and learners have access to the internet, which has been described as

2、a repository of a near-infinite number of authentic materials. the web offers exciting opportunities by employing hyper-texts, audio, and even video-clips into language courses. the interactivity of websites also makes the language testing attractive, efficient and effective. language learners can d

3、o language exercises and tests online, play language games to test and use the language, and much more. the computer mediated communication (cmc) makes the interaction between teachers and students synchronous by the online collaborative environment. following this trends, this project just touches

4、one aspect of online resources, namely, the resources for self-assessment in language testing.1.1 terminology related to self-assessmentthe literal meaning of self-assessment is an assessment done by someone themselves. to be more specific, it is the process that the learners themselves evaluate the

5、ir own performance, using clear criteria and weighting systems agreed on beforehand (ur, p., 2000: 245). however, there are still some characteristics need to be clarified according to the literature resources on this topic.self-assessment is also known as self-evaluation, self-rating, self-testing

6、and self-appraisal (davies, et al. 2002: 177). it is an approach to assessment which involves learner in making judgements about their own level and/or progress. moral reasons (e.g. the sharing of power between teacher and learner) as well as motivational ones (e.g. the excitement of self-discovery)

7、 are often used to justify self-assessment practices against the accusation of lack of reliability which this report will deal with in part three.it seems that there are little differences amongst self-assessment, self-evaluation, and self-rating. instead, there are some distinctions according to ot

8、her professionals as follows (richards, schmidt, kendrick & kim, 2005: 611612).self-evaluation (also self-assessment) checking ones own performance on a language learning task after it has been completed or checking ones own success in using a language. self-evaluation is an example of a metacogniti

9、ve strategy in language learning.self-instruction (in education) approaches to learning in which a learner works alone or with other learners, without the control of a teacher. the use of self-instructional activities in language teaching helps to give learners a greater degree of control over their

10、 own learning. it is based on the belief that learning is sometimes more effective if learners can make choices about the kinds things they wish to learn, the strategies they use, and the amount of time they can spend on a learning task.self-rating (also, self-report in testing) is an individuals ow

11、n evaluation of their language ability, generally according to how good they are at particular language skills (e.g. reading, speaking), how well they are able to use the language in different domains or situations (e.g. at the office, at school) or how well they can use different styles of the lang

12、uage (e.g. a formal style or an informal style). self-ratings are a way of obtaining indirect information about a persons proficiency in a language.for the sake of convenience, there is no difference made amongst these items in this report.1.2 positive effects of self-assessmentonline assessment can

13、 help students to monitor their achieving of the learning objectives, to identify their difficulties. even the self-assessment method calls for some teachers instruction, it is student-centered and, therefore, contributes to student involvement in the assessment and progressive process. as genesee a

14、nd upshur (2001: 105) point out the many methods of assessment treat students as objects of evaluation and place the responsibility and task of assessment in the hands of teachers or other adults. bu employing the self-assessment, the authority has been transferred into students own hands. the posit

15、ive effects can be summarized, based on some literatures, as follows:1.2.1 enhance the individualized learning planstudentscan make use of information contained in the syllabus for their own purposes. by comparing syllabus plans with their own skills and resources before they take a course, students

16、 can judge whether they have adequate resources, such as time, to meet the demands of the course and then decide whether to take the course (genesee & upshur, 2001: 25).1.2.2 provide better learning environmenteffective learning environment provides many opportunities for students to assess their ow

17、n goals, accomplishments, and ways of studying so that they can make decisions that will advance their second language learning (genesee & upshur, 2001: 40). 1.2.3 increase learners involvementself-assessment can increase learners involvement in and responsibility for their own learning and, thereby

18、, ultimately promoting second language achievement (genesee & upshur, 2001: 45).part ii description of the projectthe use of self-assessment is particularly relevant when instructional objectives and based on the performance of tasks normally found outside school settings (genesee & upshur, 2001: 46

19、). the testing objectives of selected websites are based on the self-assessment toward reading, communicative and vocabulary. this part of the project report describes the aims and procedures of the project.2.1 aims of the projectit is argued that the online resources can help learners develop their

20、 language systems. online testing is becoming more and more popular along with the development of internet technology and language testing theory and practice. even teachers, who only teach face to face, may integrate the web in some way into their courses. however, under the social situation and en

21、vironment of language testing in china, teachers seldom employ the online testing system in evaluating students language proficiency, let alone the introducing it into classroom.the aims of this project can be categorized into the following aspects:(1) find some useful websites including online reso

22、urces for self-assessment;(2) instruct students to do online learning;(3) promote students self-assessment skills and, hopefully, online learning strategies;(4) integrate the self-assessment into classroom-based evaluation.2.2 procedures of the project(1) searching for the literature for the terms r

23、elated to self-assessment;(2) establishing criteria of selecting website, like layout of the webpage, net speed, functions of the sites, authoritativeness, and testing procedures which provided by the websites;(3) selecting the relevant and effective websites;(4) selecting 3-5 websites and doing the

24、 self-assessment;(5) getting feedback from the websites after using;(6) evaluating the websites and recommending to students;(7) re-evaluating the websites and stating a conclusion that setting up a comprehensive and effective language testing website.part iii investigation of online resources for s

25、elf-assessment3.1 ascertain evaluation criteria for self-assessment materialswith the regards of the nature and characteristics of self-assessment, several criteria of selecting the materials should be established first. they are:(1) testing reliability. use the self-assessment part of the website f

26、or different times. after compare the results of several self-assessment, we can get a clearer idea about the reliability.(2) testing validity. this is very important because it means the self-assessment is not something which can in future be marginalized or bargained away. in other words, if the s

27、elf-assessment are to be adopted in the overall students education, it is not something it would be nice to have but something which is both imperative and necessary to deploy.(3) feedback. we choose one specific website or programme to do the language testing not because there is no better place to

28、 go online, which is impossible for the huge amount of learning resources available today, but for the results we got are fuller and richer. no one would deny the importance of feedback, either in classroom-based or net-based teaching and learning.3.2 basic consideration in data usesthe information

29、garnered from self-assessment should always be used in conjunction with data from other assessment methods (genesee & upshur, 2001: 46). the information we get from a self-assessment should be used wisely and integrate with the other sources of assessment, such as teacher assessment, pair-assessment

30、, and even parent-assessment. furthermore, in order to use the information, we need to design percentage rate and calculation method to integrate the information gathered from all above mentioned aspects.3.3 exploring the language testing websites for self-assessment3.3.1 wall street englishbefore y

31、ou use the online tests, you need to register first by providing some of your personal information. after registration, you can see the categories of english testing, such as career english, daily english, holiday english, communicating english and shopping english and so on. you can log into any of

32、 these modules to begin your testing. a testing item from the communication english is like this:(2) you want to start the meeting.a. i suggest we start the meeting; b. start!; c. talk now.after finishing all the test items, you will get a report like this: congratulations. you have completed the on

33、line english test in the * category and correctly answered *% of the questions. and an analysis of the wall street english online test is available with the details of all the items you have been answered.3.3.2 livemochalivemocha offers 11 kinds of language courses, and after your registration, you

34、can log into your personal homepage and set up a community with many foreigners. the format and layout is fun and interesting. the login name is liveinchina, and the password is beijingccsc.the language test it involves at present are exercises related to toefl and reading materials.3.3.3 chitu engl

35、ish its functions are mainly following the other websites, you need to register first. then you can choose different categories and levels of testing paper which are mainly cet 4 or cet 6, which is better than other websites. after you finish the test, you can organize your information and check the

36、 right answer. there are two scores you can check, one is the score of this test, and another is your best scores. in addition to that, you can manage your tested papers by deleting and adding.the login name is chitulearner, and the password is chitulearner.3.3.4 iciba online testing systemyou do no

37、t need to register to use the online testing, which is better than the above mentioned websites and easy to use. however, the items are so randomly arranged that some of them are too complicated for the specific users.for instance, after clicking on the junior english, we have a testing item like th

38、is: 1. 進(jìn)一步擴(kuò)大雙方在經(jīng)貿(mào)、科技、文化、教育、衛(wèi)生 等各個領(lǐng)域的合作 a. strategic partnership of cooperation;b. chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity;c. one china, two systems;d. to deepen cooperation in science and technology, culture, education and health sectors;2. 朝鮮半島核問題a. korean peninsula nuclear issue;b. to deepen

39、cooperation in science and technology, culture, education and health sectors;c. growth enterprise market;d. prudent fiscal policy; 3.3.5 super yshj online testingthis website provides with two options, you can choose to register or not to begin your test. the test items are all about your recognitio

40、n of vocabulary. though it is only restricted in the area of vocabulary, it is still great that this online testing system can give the feedback immediately after you finish all the 80 items. actually, you can choose to stop at the items 20, 40, and 60.however, the validity of this online testing is

41、 decreased by the following factors.(1) all of the items are testing the meaning of isolated word between chinese-english. it is too simple to relate the english word with chinese characters, let alone some of the meaning is difficult to distinguish. for instance, the chinese characters the website

42、provide to match with the english word “mingle” is 摻和 and 混合。by doing this online testing for 3 times, i got 3 different results, which also proves that the reliability is not as good as we thought.(2) the test takers cannot go back to review and choose another answer when he/she changes their mind.

43、(3) the testing form is only multiple choices, which allow the test takers to guess some of the answers. that will definitely influence the validity.(4) after you try the testing for several times, it is easy to find out that some of the testing items are repeated. the content of items bank is very

44、limited, which reduces the validity too.(5) according to the testing experience, it has no restriction about time limit, which means the test takers can check any paper or electronic dictionary to get the correct answer, which put the reliability into questionable too. the considerate and thoughtful

45、 design about the feedback is that the website provides a report like this:您本次總共做了80題。其中對了58題，錯了22題，正確率為72.5%。至今為止共有572427人次參加了本測試，您的成績排名為第32341名。感覺成績差？不能反映自己的真實(shí)水平？點(diǎn)擊重新測試！there is no introduction about the theoretical rationale behind the calculation of results. therefore, its validity again is doub

46、tful.part iv conclusion and recommendation4.1 expectations for online language testingbased on the research of online language testing for self-assessment purpose, we can get some basic understanding about the online testing system design in china. there is still large room to develop, especially to increase the issues related to language testing like validity, reliability and practicality. therefore, our goal towards the online