Assignment 1: Online Forum

Length: 1000 words

Due Date: 20 September

Weight: 25%

You, the participant, will drive this Forum. However, your Lecturer/Tutor will also interact and monitor your postings. Each week (from Weeks 3-7 inclusive) you will participate a minimum of one-two times in the Online Forum, by posting on the Topic of that week - sharing, interacting and exchanging thoughts about the themes discussed in the lectures and subject readings and/or the next assignment for which you will be preparing.

You are especially encouraged to raise questions as well respond to the comments and queries posted by your peers. You can recommend further readings or post useful links.

Postings need to reflect critical thinking as appropriate to the topic under discussion. 

Assignment Two: Essay: Literature Review

Length: 2500 words                                                             

Due Date: 30 September

Weight: 35%

Choose one of the four communication skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) and prepare a Literature Review on the challenges of testing this skill. The challenge may be related to different aspects of assessing the skill from the construct definition (how the skill is defined), using appropriate test materials, setting criteria for assessment (e.g. rating scales) to the scoring and interpretation of performance. You may choose to focus on one of these themes or a combination of them, but please be advised that the main focus of the assignment is on “challenges” as perceived by test developers or test score users.

Your lectures, readings and the online discussion forum should provide you with enough structure and content to write the review paper; however, you will need to conduct and refer to further specific research, as well as add create a coherent argument to enhance your review paper. Summarise and evaluate the most relevant and current literature relating to your topic, while identifying the most significant challenges. The structure of the review paper will follow an introduction, body and conclusion as elaborated below.

Introduction

Introduce the topic and its significance both theoretically and practically (you may cite selective but significant sources to support your argument) as well as personally (how the chosen topic is important to you and your career etc.). Explain the structure and the scope of your paper (what aspects, problems, challenges will be discussed in the paper).

Body

Present and discuss the main arguments under headings and sub-headings in this part. The headings and sub-headings correspond to the aspects, problems, challenges you referred to in the introduction. Remember, you should not simply provide “annotations”of your researched readings; rather, you need to synthesise the sources you have read in order to present a coherent and effective discussion of each heading or sub-heading and to support your argument. Therefore, your headings and sub-headings will show your line of argument (your “voice”).

Conclusion

Conclude your paper by highlighting the main arguments you presented in the body of your paper. Try to end your paper by making some general conclusions and suggestions based on the arguments you presented in the body of your paper.

Assignment Three: Test review                                          

Due Date: 18 November

Length: 2500 words                                                              

Weight: 40%

Goals:  The goals of this assignment are to provide you with an opportunity to:

• demonstrate your understanding of the relationship between theory and practice in language testing
• evaluate a language test relevant to your own professional context

This is an extension of Assignment 2 and involves an applied evaluative commentary on a language test of your choice. You may wish to look at a well-known public language proficiency test (such as the IELTS, TOEFL or Pearson) or you may want to examine a test that is used in the context in which you work.

You may choose to evaluate either the whole test or a single component of it, such as the reading or the speaking module. If you choose to evaluate a large-scale test you will probably find that the latter option is more manageable. Use the six categories in Bachman and Palmer (1996, Chapter 2) of test usefulness framework (authenticity, reliability, validity, practicality, interactiveness, and impact) as a way of organizing your evaluation of the test or its component. You may choose to include all the six features or you may choose some of them depending on the scope and focus of your evaluation.

You will need to search for the related literature (evaluation of the tests or their components), read them carefully and include relevant resources in your evaluative commentary.