Considerations in the Testing of Reading and Listening Proficiency

The Effectiveness of a Proposed Internet- Based Collaborative Tasks Program in Developing EFL Speaking Skills among Egyptian University Level Students

“…It needs time, effort and constant practice. It, also, involves varied sub-skills such as pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, pragmatic competence, strategic competence and sociolinguistic competence (Canale, 1984;Tarone & Yule, 1989;Scarcella & Oxford, 1992;Brown, 2007a). Hence, developing EFL speaking skills among university level learners needs innovative instructors who would use varied engaging techniques to create authentic speaking tasks that are very much likely to be enacted in real life situations (Nunan, 2004).…”

“…Compensatory strategies mean that speakers should be also able to use gestures, miming, paraphrasing or circumlocution to get their message across in case they lack the adequate vocabulary knowledge. In addition, when interlocutors encounter a problem in the course of the speech act, they should be able to interrupt politely to request for repetition and clarification to avoid any possible misunderstanding (Canale & Swain, 1980;Canale,1983;Canale, 1984, Scarcella & Oxford, 1992Hedge, 2000;Xu, 2016).…”

Testing Listening Comprehension in the Context of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines

“…In light of this understanding of current work, I turn now to a consideration of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency guidelines and suggested directions for test development in the A C T F L context, particularly Canale (1984) has suggested two overriding principles in considering the testing of reading and listening proficiency: (a) attempt to elicit the best performance from test takers by presenting tasks that are fair, and important and interesting in and of themselves; and (b) attempt to provide test tasks that can reveal to test takers and educators clear, rich, relevant, and generahzable information. More detail was provided in a synthesis produced by Canale, Child, Jones, Liskin-Gasparro, and Lowe (1984), in which the following recommendations were made:…”

“…This brief review suggests that current work in listening-comprehension test development is moving toward 1. tests that are more efficient and adaptable to individual abilities 2. tests that are both integrative (in the technical sense of testing more than one skill or ability at once) and integrated (in the sense of listening-comprehension tasks feeding and being fed by other skills) 3. tests that challenge learners to employ varying strategies to deal with varying conditions of transmission noise, text mutilation, or differing media 4. tests that are contextualized 5. tests that require students to apply understanding gained through listening to a variety of tasks involving other components of language proficiency Canale (1984) has suggested two overriding principles in considering the testing of reading and listening proficiency: (a) attempt to elicit the best performance from test takers by presenting tasks that are fair, and important and interesting in and of themselves; and (b) attempt to provide test tasks that can reveal to test takers and educators clear, rich, relevant, and generahzable information. More detail was provided in a synthesis produced by Canale, Child, Jones, Liskin-Gasparro, and Lowe (1984), in which the following recommendations were made:…”

Multidimensionality of Foreign Language Reading Proficiency: Preliminary Considerations in Assessment

“…added as a separate semantic category on the recommendation of Canale (2). Included in this category are the universal and culture-specific conventions of communication embodied in the use of various speech formulae; cg., the type of greeting or address form used, the subtleties of affect or value-related communications found in direct or implied usage of terms of endearment or dislike, or prejudice It should be emphasized that these forms are likely to be highly culture-specific, and yet are expected to exist in some form in every language Also, since the forms may be culture-specific, they are likely to correlate highly with the sociolinguistic category as well as with types of passages that tend to be more speculative.…”