English dictation tests for first year students of business administration faculty, hanoi foreign trade university problems & solutions

Introduction 1. Rationale English started being taught in Vietnam in secondary schools and universities about half a century ago as a potentially important foreign language. The teaching of English in Vietnam has always followed the world’s theoretical frameworks of English Language Teaching (ELT), from the grammar translation to audio-lingual methods. For many years, Vietnamese students of English have been good at grammar but could barely speak English. To meet the increased demand for English for communication in every area, Vietnamese teachers of English have been searching for a more suitable and effective method of teaching, and have come to decide on using the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT) at most levels. The belief underlying this adoption is that learning a language is more than just learning grammatical patterns and rules, and that the students need to be able to use those patterns and rules effectively and appropriately in communication. As a result, communicative in general and listening skill in particular have gained their important role in the curriculum of most English courses nowadays. Much has been said about the relevance of CLT in Vietnam’s educational setting and its effectiveness in the teaching of listening. However, little has been devoted to the issue of language testing, which is no less crucial than that of language teaching. According to Kubiszy and Botish (1999), tests are seen as “tools that can contribute importantly to the process of evaluating learners, the curriculum and teaching methods”. As Swain (1984) and Weir (1990) affirm, language testing is highly important since it aims at finding answers to two fundamental questions: (1) How well are students learning? and (2) how effectively are teachers teaching? Obviously, only good tests can fulfill those tasks. They can help improve teacher teaching and stimulate student learning. Otherwise they can be dangerous. They might turn off students or provide inaccurate results, which fail to reflect learning and teaching process. Apart from various test item types that are employed to test students of Business Administration Faculty learning English at the Hanoi Foreign Trade University (FTU) such as multiple-choice, true-false, or cloze test ..., dictation has been in use for a long time here as a testing device to assess first year students’ listening skill, vocabulary and spelling. However, this type of testing is no longer used in most secondary and tertiary institutions in Vietnam and is considered to be old-fashioned. This leads to the fact that hardly any research has been done on this kind of test, and its role in communication is still a controversial issue. In addition, the reference material for dictation is not available. Therefore, it is a matter of concern to teachers who are in charge of designing and grading dictation tests. First, teachers lack theoretical knowledge of testing in general and dictation test in particular, as well as a sufficient source of materials. This results in inappropriate and too difficult dictation tests, while students lack practice before the tests occur. Second, due to some too difficult and inappropriate dictation tests, the marking system is sometimes not consistent, i.e., there is no standard marking system. Third, so far there has been no official survey on how dictation test is carried out at the FTU, which involves designing the tests, analyzing students’ common mistakes, possible causes, marking styles and results. Therefore it seems too difficult for teachers to improve the situation. The above-mentioned reasons motivated the author to decide to do this study with the hope that the research will make a modest contribution to the improvement in the testing process especially dictation test, and more importantly, to the development of the FTU. 2. Aims of Study The purpose of this study is to examine the process of dictation testing to find out some problems that both FTU students and teachers are facing. It aims specifically to (1) investigate how the dictation tests for first year students of Business Administration Faculty last academic year were designed, (2) investigate how the teachers graded student dictation papers, (3) analyze the students’ results and common errors made by students to find out possible causes, and (4) identify how the process could be improved in the future. 3. Design of Study The thesis consists of three main parts as follows: The introduction provides the basic information such as reasons for, aims, methods, design and scope of the study. The main part of the thesis consists of three chapters. The first one covers the literature review of testing and language tests concerning the role of testing, types of language tests and test item types including dictation. Chapter two presents the detailed results of the survey including the questionnaires, direct interviews, observations and analysis of the found problems facing both teachers and students. Chapter three provides some suggestions on improvement of dictation test for first year students of Business Administration Faculty, FTU including suggestions for teacher teaching, student learning as well as designing and marking dictation tests. The conclusion deals with a review of the study and future directions. 4. Scope of Study Due to the limits of the author’s time, ability and condition, the thesis does not cover the whole achievement test for FTU students but focuses on the dictation test as part of the achievement test for FTU first year students of the Business Administration Faculty. It deals with the general theory of language testing, provides investigated and analyzed data of the tests as well as the teachers and students’ comments on this test type in order to find out some problems and finally suggests some solutions. 5- Methods of Study To achieve the objectives of the research, the author of this thesis has to carry out a theoretical and practical research into language testing and the dictation tests for first year students in the following way. First, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials on language testing, especially dictation testing have been gathered, analyzed and synthesized carefully. Second, for the practical basis, observations, questionnaires, direct interviews and discussions have been carried out with the teachers and students as well. The data collected from these sources have been carefully, systematically analyzed and synthesized for the thesis. In particular, these sources include: A survey questionnaire done on 100 FTU second year students of the Business Administration Faculty (three classes) to investigate their comments on the last dictation test. A survey questionnaire done on 20 teachers teaching first year students with a similar purpose. Two dictation tests for two semesters of academic year 2002-2003 to investigate how they were designed and graded. A statistical analysis of 100 dictation papers of the informant students on their results and common mistakes. Direct interviews with both the informant teachers and students to clarify the information mentioned in the questionnaires. With the theoretical and practical bases, some findings are drawn up and some suggestions for improvement of dictation test are provided. Chapter one: Literature Review 1.1. Language Testing 1.1.1. What is language testing? Language testing is one of the main and complex aspects of methodology. It involves the elements from many different subjects such as linguistics, psychometrics.... Therefore, what to test can be quite complex and diverse. There have been a lot of books written about this subject and in these books, a number of definitions of testing have been given. However, most of them only present a single concept of testing relating to the linguistic field they study. Only few of them mention all the aspects of testing. It is really challenging to give a widely acceptable and consistent definition of the term “test”. According to Allen (1974: 313), “A test is a measuring device which we use when we want to compare an individual with other individuals who belong to the same group”. In this definition, the author has just focused on the competition among the members in one group of students but does not show how well their performance is and under which conditions a test can take place. As for Broughton and Brumfit (1978), the word “test” can be understood in three distinctive ways. A test means a well prepared measuring instrument which is used as “the whole panoply of statistical techniques” to educational measurement after it is tried out on a sample of students and then well refined in the appropriation to its objectives. This kind of tests may serve as a means of an “on-going assessment” of the student’s learning. Besides its two important meanings, a test can be a small part in a large test, a “part of a test battery” or “a question in an examination”. In Cohen’s point of view (1980: 139), a test can be considered as “a formal measure of skill”. Here, his much attention is paid to the students’ communicative competence in the target language. He also mentions that a test must be announced in advance and done in a fixed amount of time. Cohen’s seems to be wider and more detailed than the above definitions. Another definition of test can be seen in “Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching” by Grounlund (1985: 5). He comes to the conclusion that “a test is an instrument or systematic procedure for measuring a sample of behavior” after assessing the role of testing in language teaching. But what is “a sample of behavior”? In his opinion, in order to measure it, tests have to help to answer the question “How well does the individual perform – either in comparison with others or in comparison with a domain of performance tasks?” Heaton (1988: 05) also expresses his specific opinion about tests. He considers tests first as “means of assessing the students’ performance” and then as devices “to motivate the students”. He gears tests to a way of exciting study. As tests are usually taken at the end of a semester, students will be encouraged to review their lessons in order to achieve the course and test objectives. Moreover, he discovers and pays attention to the relationship between testing and teaching. Tests affect teaching and vice-versa. To my mind, Heaton’s idea can be worth noting in the most widely acceptable definition of language tests. In short, from the above definitions, a test is an effective means of measuring and assessing students’ language knowledge and skills. Moreover, it helps teachers check whether their teaching materials, method and techniques are suitable or not to their learners. 1.1.2. Relationship between testing and teaching The relationship between testing and teaching has been a controversial problem for many decades. In the past almost all tests and public examinations had the tendency to separate testing from the teaching-learning process. Testing was only considered a hateful activity. Mathews and his co-writers, Spratt and Dangerfield (1985: 192) explain this tendency by pointing out two reasons. First, testing means competition rather than co-operation. When doing tests, all the co-operative activities like pair-work or group-work are blamed for cheating. Second, because of the competitiveness in testing, there will be “winners” and “losers”. Therefore, it cannot strengthen the co-operation in the teaching-learning process among students. These two reasons help to explain why testing was unpopular a long time ago. However, thanks to the steady change in the approaches to language testing, with a remarkable shift of emphasis from discrete-point items to integrative and communicative tests, testing, teaching and learning become more and more interrelated. Nobody can deny the fact that testing plays a very important role in the teaching and learning process. They are inseparable parts here. They are so closely related that it is virtually impossible to work in either field without being constantly concerned with the other. Teaching and learning provide a really great source of language materials for testing to exploit. In return, testing reinforces, encourages and perfects the teaching-learning process. This interaction, which matters most in all kinds of tests at the moment, is confirmed by different applied linguists. According to Heaton (1988: 05), testing can have a close relationship with teaching as “devices” to reinforce learning and to encourage students whereas teaching relates to testing through the assessment of teaching outcome in tests. Moreover, in “Testing for Language Teachers”, Hughes (1990: 01) points out the effect of testing on teaching and learning as “backwash”. He highly appreciates the role of the backwash in the teaching-learning process. The backwash can be really harmful if the test content does not go with the objectives of the course. It leads to the problem of teaching in one way and testing in other way. In short, from the above analysis, obviously there is a dialectical interrelationship between testing and the teaching-learning process. They are the indispensable parts in the success of each activity. 1.1.3. Purposes of language testing Testing as mentioned above has a very close relationship with the teaching-learning process. The tests designed by teachers can serve different purposes in their teaching process as well as their students’ learning one. The first and foremost purpose of language tests is to evaluate students’ knowledge and skills of using the target language. They are generally designed to be difficult for at least some students. They are intended to discriminate between those who have the ability, and those who do not. Although most tests start with a few easy items to encourage the weaker students, the items usually progress in difficulty so that even fairly good students will be challenged by the later items and the weakest students will find many somewhat frustrating. With the result of the test, the teachers can classify them into different levels in order to award them or send them to higher levels. The second purpose of tests is “to provide the teacher with information on how effective his teaching has been” (Read, 1983: 03). According to Adrian Doff (1988), testing is an essential part in both teachers’ teaching activities and students’ learning ones. He highlights that besides the formal kinds of tests which are given to students at the end of different stages of teaching, teachers should use more regular informal tests to measure the students’ progress. Thanks to their success in performing these tests, the teachers can know how well the students are learning or have mastered the materials, how well the teachers have put across the materials or just how well the item was written. In other words, the teachers can self-evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching methods, the appropriateness of the course objectives, and the usefulness of the course book. Such feedback to the teachers can suggest the areas for instruction or review to adjust them to their own teaching activities. Correspondingly, students can also benefit from tests, especially tests, in some ways. They have an opportunity to see how well they are able to perform what they have learnt in the test and in communication. This in itself is feedback. Ideally, they learn something about the areas of their strength and about the areas of their weakness and could stand to review (Rivers, 1968). Thus, a test, according to Read (1983: 03) “can help both teachers and learners to clarify what the learners really need to know”. Another purpose of tests is to promote the incentive to the students’ study. Whenever the test is announced, the students will pay much attention to the taught materials which are central to the course objectives. They will revise the lessons, learn harder and do more exercises. In a nutshell, preparation for a test will stimulate learners’ thought about the material. Moreover, researches by Madsen (1983), Heaton (1988) and Valette (1988) point out that a good classroom test can be effectively used to motivate the students as it furnishes a chance for them to perform well in the target language, thus giving them a sense of accomplishment. One further outcome of tests can be beneficial both to teachers and to students. Unless the test is very limited in scope, for example, based on just one unit in the course book or a week’s lessons, it is not possible to include everything covered in the period leading up to the test. It means that the teacher needs to be selective in preparing the test material, so that it includes the main points in the course. Thus, a test can help both teachers and students to clarify what the students really need to know, assuming that it is unrealistic to expect them to master everything they are presented with during a particular course. It can also assist in defining the expected level of achievement: how well the students are expected to be able to perform the skills they have been acquiring. In conclusion, it is needless to say but testing can be used to achieve a lot of different purposes in the teaching-learning process. A test is primarily designed to evaluate the students’ progress in the target language but its result can be used as the basis for the improvements of both the teaching and learning activities. 1.1.4. What should be tested? A great deal of the language teacher’s time and attention is devoted to designing tests or public examinations to assess the students’ progress and achievement. One of the problems in this area is what should be tested in a language test. Such a difficult question is always raised on the test content and the test area. The first thing which testers have to pay much attention to is the test content. In general, the test content is mainly influenced by test purposes. Therefore, before the test is constructed, it is important for the testers to define its exact purposes. Moreover, it is clear that what one tests is crucially affected by what one is teaching. As mentioned above, it is very difficult to negate the interrelation between teaching and testing. Hence, what needs to be taught needs to be tested. There is no reason why such topics that the students have already learnt could not be adapted to form test items. Similarly, any kinds of exercises familiar with the students in class can also be used for testing purposes. In short, the test content, especially of the achievement one, should be closely related to the teaching content. The testers’ concern is also drawn to the test area. It is obvious that a language is always taught and learnt in two aspects: language elements and language skills. Language elements consist of grammar, vocabulary and phonology. Meanwhile, there are four major language skills defined as listening, speaking, reading and writing in communication. Along with these language elements and skills, there are their corresponding tests. Therefore, the testers have to clarify which language skill or element they need to test though there are different opinions about this matter. According to Heaton (1988: 08), “there would be no rigid distinction drawn between the four different skills”. He also notes that the test is intended to measure as much of the testee’s knowledge and skills of the target language as possible. This drives him to the idea of an integrated test. A test on reading skill may provide the teacher with the information of students’ writing or speaking skill and vice versa. Moreover, he claims that “it is important for the test writer to concentrate on the types of test items which appear directly relevant to the ability to use language for real-life communication, especially in oral interaction”. In hi