A survey of Test papers used at secondary schools in Thai Nguyen, Vietnam

Dương Đức Minh Tạp chí KHOA HỌC & CÔNG NGHỆ 59(11): 88 - 94

Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu – Đại học Thái Nguyên http://www.Lrc-tnu.edu.vn

A SURVEY OF TEST PAPERS USED AT SECONDARY SCHOOLS

IN THAI NGUYEN, VIETNAM

Duong Duc Minh

Thai Nguyen University of Technology, TNU

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to overview teaching strategies based on the communicative

approaches to second language teaching with the focus on testing methods that are related to

communicative language teaching in order to discuss advantages and disadvantages of these

methods. The study also examined in details the contents of test papers which were randomly

collected from secondary school teachers in Thai Nguyen province to support data for the analysis.

Although communicative testing is considered to be focused not only on what the learner knows

about the second language and about how to use it but also on the learner’s ability to actually

demonstrate this knowledge in real-life situations, the fact of language testing shows what is not

like theory. As the result, the findings of the analysis will be used to make practical suggestions for

the testing procedure to ensure successful learning objectives.

Key words: Communicative approaches; Test papers designs; Language Testing.



INTRODUCTION

Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training

(MOET) issued a mandate 7984/BGDĐT￾GDTrH on 1st September 2008 with the aim

to improve the general system of education

and training. In the context of modern trends

in education in the country, apart from

experimenting with new teaching methods,

more and more secondary schools in Thai

Nguyen have found and applied new types of

tests with a view of fostering better

achievements. However, nowadays, in

secondary schools in Thai Nguyen, testing is

used as the only means to evaluate students’

language proficiency, and many problems

exist in the way the test papers are made. In

this article the techniques that are used in

designing test papers by teachers in secondary

schools in Thai Nguyen will be surveyed. The

focus of the article will be on problematic

issues of testing methods.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Communicative approaches to second

language teaching and testing.

According to Munby [10], Bachman [1] and

Richards and Rodgers [12], there exist three

main approaches to second language

teaching: (1) grammatical approach, (2)

communicative approach, and (3) situational

 Duong Duc Minh, Tel: 0280-375-0061,

Email: [email protected]

approach. However, since there seems to be

a sufficient overlap in objectives between

situational approaches and communicative

approaches, in this study these two

approaches will be subsumed under the

communicative approach.

To discuss the terms “competence” and

“performance”, Berns *2+ defines

“competence” and “performance” as follows:

“competence is the speaker-hearer’s

knowledge of his language and performance

is the actual use of language in concrete

situation. In fact, it (performance) obviously

could not directly reflect competence”.

Hymes [9] and Celce-Murcia [5], in their

studies, propose a broader notion of

competence, namely communicative

competence. Communicative competence

should be distinguished from communicative

performance, which is the realization of

these competences and their interactions in

the actual production and comprehension of

utterances. It is important to take into

account differences between the basic

concepts of communicative approaches in

second language teaching and testing. Canale

and Swain *4+ state that “if a communicative

approach to second language teaching is

adopted then principles of syllabus design

must integrate aspects of both grammatical

competence and sociolinguistic competence.

Furthermore, teaching methodology and