ELT Journal Volume 59/1 January 2005 © Oxford University Press
Point and counterpoint |
Testing to learn: a personal view of language testing
Brian Tomlinson is Reader in Language Learning and Teaching at Leeds Metropolitan University. He has taught and tested students in Japan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, Vanuatu, and Zambia, and has also worked as a teacher trainer, curriculum developer, and university lecturer. He is the Founder and President of MATSDA (the Materials DevelopmentAssociation) and has published many articles and books, e.g. (with Rod Bolitho) Discover English (Macmillan), Materials Development in Language Teaching (Cambridge University Press), Developing Materials for Language Teaching (Continuum Press); (with Hitomi Masuhara) Materials Development (RELC), and Openings (Penguin). Email: B.Tomlinson{at}lmu.ac.uk
This article advocates making the provision of opportunities for learning the main objective of language testing. It recognizes the need for tests to be fair, valid, and reliable, but asserts the priority of what it calls ‘learning validity’, in order to prevent time being wasted on language courses on tests, and the preparation for them. The article lists what can be learnt from tests with learning validity, and then discusses why such benefits are rare. It surveys the literature on testing in an attempt to find support, and then provides examples of ways of testing which could help language learners to learn from being tested. In particular, it looks at how learners could really bene.t from their preparation for tests, from taking tests, and from constructive feedback whilst and after taking them.
Received June 2003.