1. Essay-Translation Approach
A. Characteristics and Types of Tests
i. Referred to as the pre-scientific stage
ii. No special skill or expertise in testing is required
iii. Usually consist of essay writing, translation and grammatical analysis.
iv. Heavy on literary and cultural bias.
v. Public examinations resulting from the tests sometimes have an oral component at the upper intermediate and advance level.
B. Strength
i. Easy to follow using subjective judgment
ii. Maybe use for any level of examinees.
iii. Model can be easily modified based on the essentials of the tests.
C. Weakness
i. Subjective judgment tends to be biased
ii. Heavy literary and cultural bias.
2. Structuralist Approach
A. Characteristics and Types of Tests
i. Primarily concerned with systematic acquisition of a set of habits.
ii. Involves structural linguistics which stresses the importance of constructive analysis and the need to identify and measure the learner mastery of the separate elements of the target language ?phonology, vocabulary and grammar.
iii. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are done in separate testing.
iv. Uses psychometric approach to measurement with its emphasis on reliability and objectivity.
B. Strengths
i. Objective
ii. Other forms of tests can be covered in the test in a short time
iii. Can help students find their strengths and weaknesses in every skill they study.
C. Weaknesses
i. Complicated for teachers in questionnaire preparation
ii. Measures non-integrated skills more than integrated skills.
3. Integrative Approach
A. Characteristics and Types
i. Known as language in context test and primarily concerned with total communicative effect of discourse.
ii. Concerned with global view of proficiency.
iii. Involves functional language but does not uses functional language
iv. Uses cloze test, dictation, oral interview, translation and essay writing.
B. Strength
i. Approach to meaning and the total communicative effect of discourse are very helpful to students
ii. Can view students?proficiency with a global perspective.
iii. Cloze test used in this approach measures the reader ability to decode interrupted messages by using available contextual clues.
iv. Uses dictation test to measure students?listening comprehension skills.
C. Weaknesses
This type of approach does not acknowledge the importance of measuring the individual skills based on students?need such as writing only, speaking only, etc.
4. Communicative Approach
A. Characteristics and Types
i. Concerned primarily with how language is used in communication
ii. Emphasizes on the exclusion of language usage.
iii. Measures language skills in communicative tests based on divisibility hypothesis.
iv. Content should be relevant for a particular group of examinees and the tasks set should relate to real-life situation v. Introduces qualitative modes of assessment
B. Strengths
i. Measures integrated skills of students
ii. Prepares students in real life communication problems
iii. Measures all language skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing)
iv. Detailed statements of each performance level serve to increase the reliability of the scoring by enabling the examiner to make decisions according to carefully drawn-up and well-established criteria.
C. Weaknesses
i. Does not emphasize learning structural grammar and expects examinees mastery of the grammar of a language
ii. Cultural bias affects the reliability of the tests being administered.
