UNIVERSIDAD MARIANO GALVEZ DE GUATEMALA

EVALUATION TECHNIQUES III

Licenciada: Celeste Lemus

Testing Vocabulary

Alicia Akira Lpez Hernndez

Ingrid Velsquez
Brian Lopez
Guatemala, November 15th, 2014

Carn: 5075-01-11634
5076-01-384
5079-12-5968

CONTAIN
INTRODUCTION

Why test vocabulary?

TESTING
Tests
3.1 Reliability
3.2 Validity
Criterion-related validity
3.3 Practicality, variability, interest
4. How to write tests
5. Types of tests
Diagnostic tests
Prognostic tests
5.1 Multiple choice
5.2 Cloze test
5.3 Dictation
5.4 True/false
5.5 Questions and answers (open questions)
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9

Gap-filling
Transformation
Rewriting
Matching

CONCLUSION

Appendix
E-GRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

When we learn to speak a new language, we know the vocabulary plays an

important role in this process, we use the vocabulary ti communicate and
express what we mean, also the size of our vocabulary is linked with how
much do we comprehend, and in many cases we will be judged base on
our vocabulary, therefore it is very important not only to learn the
vocabulary but in this case, as teachers, we need to know about how to
evaluate the vocabulary our students learn and here you will find some
examples and some tips to Evaluate Vocabulary.

Why test vocabulary?

Why test anything? Thornbury explains that similarly we could ask
about anything. The main reason for testing is that it gives us information
about how well our students proceed in their learning of English. It gives a
useful feedback to both teachers and students. In addition, when the
teacher announces her students that a vocabulary test is coming in a
period of time, they will probably start to study the vocabulary harder than
before, so it will have a positive effect (129). In general, testing helps to
recycle vocabulary as well as to consolidate it.
However, vocabulary testing does not have to be always marked, we can
prepare a test on vocabulary which will only revise words. The ideal model
is to revise vocabulary from the previous lesson at the beginning of another
lesson. Thornbury calls it informal testing (130).
Tests of vocabulary are often connected with reading skills, here we can
test everything together such as passive and active vocabulary,
collocations etc. (Heaton 79).
Testing vocabulary also occurs in placement tests or diagnostic tests to
find out students level of knowledge or in achievement tests at the end of
the school year (Thornbury 130).
It would be easy to prepare and to correct but also inventive and raising
students interests in learning vocabulary.
In the thesis I will sometimes use the word teacher which is replaced by
the pronoun she as there are more women than men teachers.

TESTING
1. Basic division of tests Standardized and non-standardized tests
Standardized tests are those tests which were prepared by a team
of professionals which means that they are highly reliable.
Non-standardized tests are those prepared by an individual
teacher according to what she wants to cover in class. This means
that the tests are not as reliable as standardized tests but still they
play an important role in lessons (Berka, Vov 10).

Reasons for testing There are many reasons for testing which authors of
different methodological books present and they divide them according to
various criteria.
The most common reason is that tests show a kind of ability. We need
tests to find out the level of some knowledge of something. According to
Hughes it is difficult to imagine British and American universities
accepting students from overseas without some knowledge of their
proficiency in English. The same is true for organizations hiring
interpreters or translators. They certainly need dependable measures of
language ability (4).
We cannot avoid testing almost anywhere, Mcnamara says that language
tests play a powerful role in many people s lives, acting as gateways at
important transitional moments in education, in employment, and in
moving from one country to another (4).
For teachers the reason for testing is clear as they need to find out about
their students progress (Hughes 4). Although tests are not very popular
among students they need to be taken regularly because teachers must
learn if their students understand a language matter or not and in that
case, it should be a signal for some revision of those pieces of language
which were not understood well . Moreover, at most Czech schools
tests have to be done so that students could be marked according to them.
To be more specific, students have to be examined several times a
semester. The way of examination depends on every school management or
even on the teacher of a particular subject. However, the usual way of
assessment is done through written tests or oral examinations which are
the main criteria for the final marks.
Heaton divides teacher s reasons for testing into several categories:
Finding out about progress
Encouraging students
Finding out about learning difficulties
Finding out about achievement
Placing students
Selecting students
Finding out about proficiency (9-17).
In the following part the categories of reasons will be described in more
detail.
Finding out about progress This is done through so called progress tests
which look back at what students have achieved ... and are the most
important kinds of tests for teachers (Heaton 9). The author also claims
that in progress tests student s results should be very good, most of
them should have about 80% or even 90% of correct answers, otherwise
the subject of the test was not mastered and the teachers should find the

mistake which may be in the content of the test or in the bad method of
teaching . The author adds that the best progress test is one which
students do not recognize as a test but see as simply an enjoyable and
meaningful activity (Heaton 9).
Encouraging students Tests can also be useful in terms of showing
students how they improve Consequently, students, encouraged by their
improvements, have new motivation for future studying. The author
highlights that people are always motivated by good results in everything
they do not just exams while bad results mostly discourage them (Heaton
10). This claim is very true and valid also for learning English, therefore
students with excellent test results like learning English while the weaker
students do not. Moreover, test can enable students to experience success.
According to BBC: ...in the 1970 s students in an intensive EFL program
were taught in an unstructured conversation course. They complained
that though they had a lot of time to practice communicating, they felt as if
they had not learned anything. Not long after words a testing system was
introduced and helped to give them a sense of satisfaction that they were
accomplishing things (Frost, Testing and Assessment).
Finding out about learning difficulties Teachers can learn about students
problems with the language through tests.
Such tests are called diagnostic tests and are used mainly for finding out
student s difficulties. The test must be well-prepared so that it could really
find out what students do not know. The best time for such a test is at the
beginning of a course or a school year (Heaton 11-12).
Finding out about achievement For this we use so called achievement
tests which are tests covering a large amount of curriculum, for example,
they may test whole year or even several years of study. For teachers at
elementary or secondary schools these kinds of tests are very difficult to
prepare, because of the big amount of curriculum covered through whole
year or several years and teachers do not know what to put into the test
and what not to as everything seems important to them.
Heaton advises to work with other colleagues on that to be more objective
(Heaton 13-14).
Placing students So called placement tests are used to divide students
into groups according to their level of knowledge. The tests must not focus
only on one part of English such as present simple but on the knowledge
in broad term because we want to have an objective picture of student s
present level of English . These tests should include various types such as
blank-filling , dictation or multiple choice (Heaton 15).

Selecting students Tests for selecting students - we can come across such
tests when we look for a job. The main aim of these tests is to find the best
candidate for a position which means that we do not measure their
performance according to some criteria but we compare the
candidates with one another and try to choose best one. Heaton talks
about norm-referenced testing.
That is, we compare the performance of an individual with the other
individuals in the group (i.e. the norm) (Heaton 16).
In the Czech Republic children sometimes have to to pass an entrance
examination when they want to attend a secondary school. The
examination is mostly a written test containing the main subject of the
discipline which the child wants to study.
For example, a child who wants to study a technical school will probably
take the entrance exam from mathematics, however, the requirements
may vary from school to schools.
In connection with these selection tests Heaton talks about so called
Washback effect , which is quite a familiar term in methodology expressing
how testing influences learners, what impact it has on learning and
teaching. This means that the test can have either positive or negative
effect on our teaching.
If the examination is well-prepared then both students and their teacher
will profit from it but if the test is bad, it will have a negative effect on
them (16-17).
Hughes explains that a test can influence people either positively or
negatively.
Negative washback happens when all the work in the class starts to
comfort to the demands of the test. For example, the test we are going to
write with our students contains only gap-filling activities, so the teachers
practice only similar exercises so that her students were successful but
generally it is harmful because students will be good only at one area. So
to reach a positive washback, the test should provoke improvement of all
students skills and preferably arise student s taste for learning (1).
Finding out about proficiency Mcnamara says that whereas achievement
tests relate to the past in that they measure what language that students
have learned as a result of teaching, proficiency.

Tests
look to the future situation of language use without necessarily any
reference to the previous process of teaching (Mcnamara 7). To be
specific, proficiency tests are focused on English used in a concrete area,
mostly in an occupation. It implies that these tests must contain tasks
which the candidate will use in her/his future job. Heaton gives an

example of a clerk taking such a test. The test should concentrate on

assessing the ability to write letters, to translate documents and possibly
to read and write technical reports in English rather than an ability to
write imaginative essays or hold conversations in English (Heaton 17-18).
Besides the reasons for testing described above, Ur suggests another three.
The first one is similar to the achievement test but the amount of
curriculum is smaller, for instance, when the teacher has finished a unit
from a textbook then there is time to verify how well her students mastered
a particular piece of language. The second reason is to make students
study harder and the last reason and very true is to use tests to
quieten a noisy class and make them concentrate (Ur 34). This is rather a
double sword as this reason may be easily misused by the teacher and she
can flood her students by a heap of tests just because the students are too
noisy and she does not know how to cope with them. This may produce an
impression that tests are only for punishment and may be perceived only
negatively.
3. Principles of tests If you think that taking tests is difficult then you
should try writing them )(Frost, Test Writing).
Every test should fulfil some criteria to be useful and full-value, the basic
ones are validity and reliability.
. In this part I am going to describe these two principles in more detail.

3.1 Reliability
This means that a test is reliable when the results do not differ at different
times of doing. To be more specific, the result of the test should be more or
less the same no matter if students are taking it on Monday morning or
Friday afternoon. Moreover, the reliability is also guaranteed by the fair
marking of the examiner.
This could be a problem when writing, for example, an essay. Such tests
are very subjective and it is almost impossible that two or even more
people would have exactly the same view on a particular composition.
Heaton adds that examiners can be also influenced by comparing essays
with one another. For instance, he has just marked an excellent essay
and now he is correcting rather an average one,as a result, he can give it
worse mark than it really deserves (6). This disunity can be seen also at
the school where I teach when students are passing their school-leaving
exams. Sometimes teachers cannot agree on a mark because each of them
has its own scale of assessment. While one consider students s
performance very good, the other one sees it as an average performance.
This problem may be partly solved by the new school-leaving exam
because we will have rubrics with descriptors of what should a student
know when he or she wants to achieve mark one, mark two etc. However,
there can be several opinions on that again. Frost points out that in an
oral interview the examiner must not give preferential treatment to

any student, he should treat all the same, he must stay objective (Frost,
Test Writing).
Hughes suggests another causes of unreliability such as unclear
instructions, ambiguous questions, items that enable the candidate to
guess easily (4). These mistakes do not happen to the international
organizations or universities which have long-time tradition of giving
examinations all over the world, because they have enough specialists to
make the exams reliable. However, when a teacher at a school decides to
write a complete test herself, she can create unclear instructions etc.
although she wants to do her best. To avoid this I suggest to create several
versions of the test and try one in the class unofficially or discuss it with
colleagues.

3.2 Validity
A test should measure whatever it is supposed to measure and nothing
else (Heaton 7).
Every test should really test the things which are expected to be tested, for
instance, a test on listening about English literature should test only
students listening skills based on what they hear and not to test their real
knowledge of English literature (Frost, Test Writing).
Validity is quite a complicated principle of the test, there are several
aspects how to measure it.
Content validity Hughes explains that this guarantees that the test will be
relevant for a particular group of people containing particular structures:
Just what are the relevant structures will depend, of course upon the
purpose of the test.
We would not expect an achievement test for intermediate learners to
contain just the same set of structures as one for advanced learners. In
order to judge whether or not a test has content validity , we need a
specification of the skills or structures etc. that it is meant to cover. Such
a specification should be made at a very early stage in test construction. ...
A comparison of test specification and test content is the basis for
judgements as to content validity (Hughes 22).
All the things we set in the specification should be incorporated into the
test. In the specification teachers must put the things which are important
to test. Hughes points out that teachers sometimes try to avoid testing
things which are hard to test in order to simplify their job but writing the
specification should prevent it (Hughes 22-23).

Criterion-related validity
We compare our test with another test which must be independent. There
are two kinds of such a criterion-related validity. The first type is
concurrent validity.

Hughes set an example of a test where one part is an oral interview lasting
for ten minutes. In the interview the examiner should examine all the
important things which learners have studied. However, we are not sure if
it is possible to cover all curriculum in ten minutes and there is a
tendency to think that the exam should last about 45 minutes to be
0bjective and to assess the learners knowledge fairly. To find it out, we
choose some students and try to examine them in both ways - forty-five
minutes and ten minutes exams and then compare our results. If both
student s performances have similar result, then our ten-minute exam is
valid, if the results are very different, then the shorter exam is not valid or
objective (Hughes 23).
A person who is not a teacher can think that the results must be different,
because one cannot judge someone s ability in ten minutes but I suppose
that the results will be roughly the same. If the examiners or teachers have
enough experience they will detect the student s abilities quite easily. In
common lessons the teacher needs only a few moments to find out, for
example, whether her students has prepared for the lesson or not at all.
The second type of criterion-related validity is called predictive validity
Which predicts how a student will perform in future (Hughes 25)? A typical
example would be some entrance tests to universities. Their task is to
discover students who have a potential to manage a particular kind of a
study programme.
Construct and face validity The second sub-class is construct validity
which means that the test examines only the ability which it should
examine such as reading ability (Hughes 26). The last sub-type of validity
is so called face validity . A test is said to have face validity if it
looks as if it measures what it is supposed to measure (Hughes 27). For
instance, when a teacher creates a test which is supposed to test past
simple tense but half of the questions test present simple tense, then the
test is not face valid. Here comes a threat that such a test would not be
accepted by the learners, so face validity also means that learners accept
the test.

3.3 Practicality, variability, interest

Thornbury considers practicality another principle which is important for a
good test. He suggests that every test should be easy to mark and evaluate
for the teacher (142). In my view, correcting and assessing a test should be
as simple as possible, in addition, there should not be much space for
several variants of a task because it takes so much time when a teacher
has to think about every item individually.
Frost suggests two useful things that a good test should have. Firstly, the
test must be variable.

. The more types of exercises it has the longer and better the students
will concentrate on it because this prevents from decreasing their
attention. Secondly, the teacher should also bear in mind that an
interesting test is always better than a boring one, so students definitely
appreciate if the test has some interesting articles or sentences. It can also
be a bit funny, if the teacher does not lack the sense of humor (Frost, Test
Writing)

4. How to write tests

Should we create our own test?
I depends mainly on the teacher which alternative she prefers. In shops
you can buy many books with tests but according to my experience, you
often cannot use them straight away, you have to adapt them somehow for
your students. They can, for example, contain vocabulary that your
students do not know and students would definitely protest. However,
these tests are a big source of inspiration and therefore very useful to have
in your school.
The other possibility is to use tests which are added to nearly every
textbook. I teach my student according to Headway textbooks and after
every unit I give them a test from the textbook tests all the important
things from the covered unit. However, these tests have to be sometimes
slightly modified or even erased as some types of exercises would cause big
problems to my students. But on the whole, these tests help me to be
objective and they ease my job a lot.
The next alternative is to create your own test, Heaton claims that ...the
best tests for the classroom are those tests which you write yourself
(Heaton 23). In my view, creating our own tests where every sentence and
word would be our original job are not realistic because it would take so
much time. But if we do not take it literally, then it is true. The teacher
can combine several sources and create a prefect test or she can use just
some parts and create the rest herself. Writing our own test enables the
teacher, for example, to focus on those things with which her students had
problems and check if they have understood it.
Techniques to create a test Ur suggests to focus on these things when
creating a test:

Validity
. Check that your items really do test what they are meant to.

Clarity
. Make sure that instructions for each item are clear.

Do-ability
. The test should be quote do-able: not too difficult, with no trick
questions.

Marking
. Decide exactly how you will assess each section of the test and how
weighting (percentage of the total grade) you will give it.

Interest
. Try to go for interesting content and tasks, in order to make the
test more motivating for the learners.

Heterogeneity
. The test should be such that lower-level students can feel that they
are able to do a substantial part of the test, while the higher-level
ones have a chance to show what they know (Ur 42).
These are rather theoretical things which the teacher should think about
when creating a test. They all seem logical, but in my view, it is not so easy
to find out before you try the test in a real class. No matter how much we
try to make our test perfect, we sometimes do not avoid some
imperfections. For example, although the teacher can think that her
instructions are very clear, students may not understand them very well.
Or we may think that the test we have created is very easy, however, most
of our students fail it. These things and many others are improving by
getting experience in teaching.
Heaton presents different attitude to test writing. He points out that it is
very difficult to to write a language test because there are not facts like in
history or geography. He suggests a practical thing -to prepare a test
framework, a kind of a syllabus, where teachers note all the important key
elements, moreover, it helps teachers to prevent omitting something
important. Heaton explains in several steps how to write a test. According
to his strategy I have tried to prepare a test framework covering one unit
from Headway Elementary:

Grammar:
there is/are
prepositions of places

 some/any + countable nouns

Vocabulary:
things in the house
places, food and drink
The other step is to give percentages to each item. I decided to devote
60% to grammar and 40% to vocabulary, then I divided them this
way.

Grammar:
there is/are 25%
prepositions of places 20%
some/any + countable nouns 15%

Vocabulary:

things in the house 20%

places, food and drink 20%
Then he recommends to put numbers of items to each point like
there is/are 5 8items etc. Last step is to specify the functions we want to
examine, for example, giving directions (here I use there is / are and
prepositions of places ) or describing rooms in the house (concerning
things in the house ) etc. (Heaton 25-28, Soars 3-4).
Here is another way of writing a test.
1) Choose the type of the test you want to make such as progress
test or placement test.
2) Write down what you want to put into the test, for example
simple tense etc.
3) Decide about the length, format.
4) Prepare some suitable exercises or texts.
5) Give appropriate weight to the individual parts of the test.
6) Create the test.
7) Focus on the instructions and sample answers.
8) Think about the marking scale.
9) Write a key to the exercises.
10) Write a more detailed key for those tasks where more options are
possible.
11) Write the test with your students.
12) Interpret the test results and decide what was good and bad
about the test (Frost, test writing).

5. Types of tests
Frost distinguishes between types of tests and types of tasks . He presents
four types of tests which are a proficiency test, an achievement test, a
diagnostic test and prognostic test.
The first two types have already been discussed in the chapter Reasons
for testing.

Diagnostic tests
Analyse what the learners are good at and bad at. In compliance with
this information, the teacher adapts her teaching strategy (Hughes 13).

Prognostic tests
Discover how a learner will be successful in a course or if he or she is
able to attend such a course.(Frost, Test Question Types)
There is a review of types of tasks which will be specified later on:
multiple choice
matching
cloze test
error correction
dictation
essay
true/false
translation
questions and answers
rearranging words
gap-filling
Information transfer
transformation
rewriting
I am going to describe these techniques in more detail and try to analyze
their positive and negative aspects.

5.1 Multiple choice

This is a question which consists of a so called Stem and four options from
which only one is correct. The examinee has to choose the right answer (Ur
38). The form of the multiple choice can also vary, here are three possible
forms:
He accused me of ...... lies.
a. speaking
b. saying
c. telling
d. talking
Everything we wanted was to hand.
a. under control
b. within reach

c. well cared for

d. being prepared
According to the writer, what did Tom immediately do?
a. He ran home.
b. He met Bob.
c. He began to shout.
d. He phoned the police (Multiplechoice).
The biggest advantage of this kind of testing is that we do not have to
worry about subjectivity because only one answer should be correct.
Secondly, it is very easy and quick for the examiner to correct this test
because he or she just puts ticks or crosses. On the other hand, Hughes
proves that it does not show the real level of someone s abilities because
the examiner or the teacher cannot discover the knowledge of grammar, for
instance, because we do not know if the examinee can use it in writing
or speaking. He explains that in multiple choice the chance for guess the
right answer is about 33 percent which means that from 100 questions
someone is able to guess about 33. The result is that the teacher cannot
be really sure if the student has mastered the curriculum (Hughes 60).
The other difficulty with multiple choice is that we have to find three
Distracters which are items that would distract or confuse the examinee.
Therefore, it is hard to create a good multiple choice test. This causes
problems with more correct answers or even no correct answer. This all
means that it is very difficult and time-demanding to write such a test
(Hughes 61).
Next disadvantage is that these tests also enable cheating because if a
potential cheater looks at someone s paper which is near, he or she can
easily recognize what the person has answered as there can be seen circles
A, B, C, or D (Hughes 62). In my view, it can be prevented by giving several
versions of tests and I always do it because with one version the test would
not be valid.

5.2 Cloze test

Cloze test is test based on a text with gaps which are put there regularly
after every seventh, eighth or ninth word. The examinee has to complete
the gaps with appropriate words. Mostly more than one option is possible.
The first three or more lines of the text are without gaps (Scrivener 261).
Example of a cloze test:
Seventy years ago no one ______ ever heard the word robot. It ______ first
used by a Czechoslovakian writer, Karel Capek ______ the 1920 s. He
wrote a play about a scientist ______ invents machines which he ______

robots, from the Czech word robota, meaning slave-like work... (O Connell
193).

The advantage of cloze tests is that it is quite easy to create them.

The teacher just needs to find a suitable text and delete words from it.
Nevertheless, Hughes does not consider cloze tests much reliable because
we do not know what ability (speaking, writing, reading etc.) of the
examinee it shows. Moreover, the regular interval of every ninth word does
not work very well because some deleted words a are very difficult to
determine (Hughes 62-67).
This is a kind of cloze test but with initial letters of words that are omitted.
Example of a C-Test:
There are usually five men in the crew of a fire engine. One o_____them
dri_____ the
eng_____. The lea_____ sits bes_____ the dri_____. The ot_____ firemen
s_____
inside t_____ cab o_____ the f_____ engine.T_____ leader h_____ usually
be_____ in t_____ Fire Ser_____ for ma_____ years... (Hughes 71).
This test is more advantageous for the examinee as the texts are shorter
and less difficult. On the other hand, the gaps are so close to one another
that the learner can get lost in the text (Hughes 71).

5.3 Dictation
The examiner dictates a text and students write it down. Here we examine
mainly spelling or pronunciation and also listening. Dictation is an easy
way of testing for the teacher because the preparation is minimal (Ur 40).
However, it is demanding to assess such tests, Hughes recommends that
we should consider the dictation correct as long as there is the right order
of words and that misspelled words should be accepted because
honologically it is correct (Hughes 71-72).
Another disadvantage is the difficulty of assessment. Generally, teachers
themselves determine which errors are considered serious and which are
just mild ones.
It is advisable to set the scale of assessment before we start to correct.
There is also the question of objectivity because every teacher will look the
dictations from her own perspective. To prevent this we can use an
alternative to dictation which is called paused dictation which is a text
with missing words, students fill in the missing words while the teacher
dictates (Berka, Vov 36-37). Example:

The police are __________ for a three-day-old baby-girl _________ yesterday

from the __________ ward of a London hospital. The baby was removed
form her __________ early yesterday morning. Police are anxious to find a
__________ seen __________ round the hospital __________ that night ...
(Berka, Vov 39).

5.4 True/false
According to a text or listening the teacher prepares a set of statements
and students have to circle true or false. This type of testing is typically
used for testing reading or listening abilities, however, it can have much
wider usage. We can test also synonyms, antonyms, grammatical forms
etc. Berka, Vov offer several variations of true/false method. In the
following example, the student has to find all true answers not just one,
the number of correct answers is not given:
Anglick synonyma eskho slovesa dostat jsou:
to give
S
N
to receive
S
N
to get
S
N
to become
S
N (Berka, Vov 19).
Another variation is so called correction form where students has to first
decide if the sentence given is correct or not. If not, he or she has to
correct it:
Urete, obsahuje-li vta I was ill since last Sunday mluvnickou
chybu. Pokud je vta sprvn, oznate ji psmenem S, pokud nen
vyznate psmeno N a napit sprvn tvar na k tomu uren dek.
een: S
N
....... have been .......(Berka, Vov 19).
In the following example the sentence contains mistakes, testee has to
decide which word is not correct:
A friend of me used saying: Better late then never .
A B C D
E
F G
H
I
(Berka, Vov 19).

True/false technique is quite easy and economical to do as well as to

correct (Ur 38-39). On the other hand if the exercise is based on simple
true/false principle, there is a danger that the student will guess the right
answer as the percentage of successfulness is 50%. Berka, Vov suggest
to give three possible answers to prevent this: true, false
and not mentioned in the given text (20).

5.5 Questions and answers (open questions)

This type of exercise can be based on a text or a listening but it does not
have to be based on anything as well. Ur advises not to enable too many
options of the answers so as not to make it difficult to correct (Ur 38-39).
Example of questions and answers:
Answer the following questions.
What was the relationship between Jane Eyre and Mrs. Reed?
What was Mr. Rochester like?

5.6 Gap-filling
This method is often mixed up with cloze test but it is a completely
different type. This type can be used for various purposes, it can test, for
example, irregular verbs or prepositions (Scrivener 183). The teacher
creates some sentences with gaps and the tested has to complete them but
we have to avoid more that one possible answers (Ur 38).
Example of gap-filling with there is/there are:
______ a little dog in the park; ______ also a big cat. In this house ______
eight little rooms and a big kitchen. ______ two lamps on the wall but
______ only one lamp on that wall (Rosset 8).

5.7 Transformation
In this type students are given sentences which they have to put into
another form, for example, to put sentences in past simple tense into past
perfect tense (Ur 38).They are not difficult either to create or to correct.
Example of transformation:
Put the following sentences into past simple tense:
She likes her job.
Jane wears jeans.
They clean the windows.

5.8 Rewriting
This is similar to transformation but here students have to transform a
sentence in the way that it means the same as the first one (Frost). In my
view, these sentences are quite troublesome to form, therefore I would use
these borrow these exercises from real specialists.
Example of rewriting:
The last time I played tennis was ten years ago.

I ...Would you like me to give you a lift?

I ll ... (O Connell 194).

5.9 Matching
There are two groups of words mostly in two columns, the student has to
make pairs from these words which make sense somehow. They are
especially good for practicing vocabulary such as adjectives of opposite
meaning. Berka and Vov add that matching is especially good for
testing definitions, events and relations (28). Ur claims that the items are
demanding to create, but often they emerge from the context
(Ur 38-40). This is an example of matching exercise focused on idioms:
G Vude dobe, doma nejlpe.
I Sejde z o, sejde z mysli.
C Kdo se smje naposled, ten se smje nejlpe.
H Vrna k vrn sed.
E Kuj elezo, dokud je hav.
D Lep vrabec v hrsti, ne holub na stee.
A Dvakrt m, jednou e.
A Look before you leap.
B As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.
C He laughs best who laughs last.
D A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
E Make hay while the sun shines.
F An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
G East, west, home best.
H Birds of a feather flock together.
I Out of sight, out of mind.
J My house, my castle (Berka, Vov 28)

CONCLUSION

We were the first people that learned some tips and the aspects to consider
when testing vocabulary. For example the fact that tests are a main
motivation for students to study, which tell us, that it is important to pay
attention on the way and content we are evaluating.
As we were researching about testing vocabulary we found out that, there
are some questions we need to consider, in order to evaluate vocabulary,
and in this research we will find the answers. The questions are:
How should I test vocabulary?
Which format should I use?
How many items should I include?

Appendix
PRETEST VOCABULARY
NAME __________________________________ ID _________________
INSTRUCTIONS: Work with a blue or black pen, don`t use a liquid, work clean and clear.
SERIE I

Write the letter of the definition inside the square of the word.

Word

Definition

altogether

a. to behave in an attention
getting way

2.

brag

b. a face seen from the side

3.

even out

c. without paying attention

4.

hold out for

d. to tell about your own achievements

5.

lame

e. useless facts

6.

marvel

f. to insist on something

7.

negligence

g. to come into balance

8.

profile

h. carelessness

9.

rut

i. to be amazed

1.

10.

show off

j. pattern of though or behavior

11.

absently

k. to pull hard

12.

squabble

l. completely

13.

stray

m. to argue

14.

trivia

n. to get lost

15.

SERIE II

o. stupid and boring

yank

Choose the correct answer and write it on the space.

1. Come to my desk and _________________ me your book, please.

Take

Get

Bring

Carry

2. Can I help you ______________ your homework?

Work
Do
Make
Turn
3. ;y mother is a very good ______________.
Cooking
Cook
Cookery

Cooler

4. This maths problem is too __________________ for me.

Hard
Heavy
Noisy
Empty
5. My father`s brother is my ____________________.
Aunt
Uncle
Cousin
Nephew
6. Could you tell me the ______________ to Piccadily Circus, please ?
Way

Road

Street

Path

7. We must _____________ the football match on TV this evening.

Look
See
Listen
Watch
8. We had a very good football _______________ last night.
Game
Kick
Time
Play
9. I stopped gardening when the rain started. I didn`t want to get
_____________.
Warm

Windy

Wet

Dry

10.
The shortest month of the year is __________.
February
January
July
December

SERIE III: Write as many words as you can in the Alphaboxes 1 minute for
each box.

SERIE IV: Write one word and complete the organizador vocabulary.

Own the Word

My Definition:

Part of Speech:
My Sentence:

Word:
Synonyms:

Antonyms:

A Picture to remind me of this word:

E-GRAPHY
http://is.muni.cz/th/152699/pedf_m/Testing_vocabulary.pdf
Multiplechoice. Pearsonlongman.com . 15 Sep 2008. Pearson Education.
25 November 2008
<http://www.pearsonlongman.com/exams/teachers/multichoice.html
Frost, Richard.
Test writing . Teaching English . 20 Sep 2008. British Council/BBC. 20
February 2009 <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/testwriting>.
Frost, Richard. Test Question Types. Teaching English. 9 Sep 2008.
British Council/BBC. 10 March 2009
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/
test-question-types>.Frost, Richard.
Testing and Assessment. Teaching English . 20 Sep 2008. British
Council/BBC. 25 February 2009
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/testing-ssessment>