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Date Posted: 13:12:46 08/06/03 Wed
Author: José Miguel Teixeira de Carvalho
Subject: Task # 14

Task 14: Say how we can test communicative competence.

J.B. Heaton, in his book "Classroom Testing", says right in the introduction that "the most useful tests for use in the classroom are those tests which you write yourself. Only you know your students, the work you have done with your class, your students' strenghts and weaknesses, and the skills and areas of language you wish to emphasize both in your teaching and in your testing. As a result, even the best book of tests will not be as suitable for your class as the tests you write specially for your purpose".

Kathleen & Kitao, in their essay "Testing Communicative Competence", states that "communicative language tests are intended to be a measure of how the testees are able to use language in real life situations". That is the punchline of their argument. Throughout the whole text they keep emphasizing the necessity of testing students (or, as they call it, testees) having a realistical life background backing up such a test. And, when it comes down to evaluation, they acknowledge there is a "necessarily subjective element [attached] to the evaluation" of the students. This means that, a priori, there is no difference between a right or a wrong answer that students may provide in a communicative test, as long as the answer communicates something, anything.

Nonetheless, the authors mention one basic principle a test should have: reliability. Since they do not mention which is the other basic principle it should have, I am forced to quote Mr. Heaton one more time: "every test should also be VALID. A test should measure whatever it is supposed to measure and nothing else. A composition test which requires students to write about modern methods of transport may not be valid since it will measure not only an ability to write in English but also an interest in, or a knowledge of, modern transport. When students are given an oral interview, is it only their language abilities that are being assessed or are such assessments influenced by the students' personalities?"

So, bearing in mind Heaton's words I can say now that, in order to test students' communicative competence, brazilian EFL students, anything would do. Validity is not important here. Kathleen & Kitao gave me the impression that, whether the test is a multi-modal (speaking/listening, reading/writing etc) kind of test or not, what really counts is the "communicability" it should contains. As they put it, "communicative language tests are those which make an effort to test language in a way that reflects the way that language is used in real communication". Since real communication have no clear-cut boundaries that would allow us, foreigners, to distinguish what is right or wrong in an utterance (whatever locus such utterance takes place) anything would do as an answer to whatever the question may be. Appropriateness vanishes. What is important is to communicate... more or less like that Patropi character, du'knowwhatImean?

Hooray to nonsense! Long live Humpty Dumpty, who once said, in rather a scornful tone: when I choose a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more, nor less. While taking a communicative test a student may choose a word and it may mean just what he chooses it to mean. Providing that it communicates something, everything is fine. If it is appropriate or not it doesn't matter, for EFL students do not experience real life situations in English, not while living in Brazil.

Besides, appropriate or not, who can deny Patropi and Humpty Dumpty are both communicatively competent? Nonsensical as they can be, they convey the message, right?

Sources:

1) http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kitao-Testing.html
2) Heaton, J.B. Classroom Testing - Longman keys to language teaching, UK, 1991.
3) http://www.wordspy.com/words/HumptyDumptylanguage.asp

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