LANGUAGE LEARNING PRINCIPLE

 

LANGUAGE LEARNING PRINCIPLE

by : Abdullah Farih, M.Pd

The principles of language learning are very important of English assessment. According to brown (2010) there are five kinds of language learning principles they are: (a) Practically; (b) Reliability; (c) Validity; (d) Authenticity; and (e) Washback.

Practically

Practically means easy to make or operate. An effective test is practical. We should design our assessment as practically as possible. Why should we make our assessment become practically? Because to design a good assessment we should to design a practically assessment. We get some benefit from design a practically assessment. The benefit can come from the time or the cost while we design a practically assessment.

Practically can be simply defined as the relationship between available resources for the test, i.e. human resources, material resources, time, etc. And resources which will be required in the design, development, and use of the test (Bachman & Palmer, 1996:35-36)

Practically = available resource

                                                                       required resource

if practically ≥ 1, the test development and use is practical

if practically ≤1, the test development and use is not practical

 

There are some kinds of principle of language assessment. Practically is kind of principle of language assessment. An effective test is practical. So, how can we design of practically test? Brown (2004:19) defines practicality in term of:

1. Cost

We can measure our assessment is practically or not by look at the cost using these criteria :

a.       The test should not be too expensive to conduct. A test that is prohibitively expensive is impractical. We should to manage the test’s cost.

b.      The cost for the test has to stay within the budget

c.       Avoid conducting a test that requires excessive budget

 

What do you think if a teacher conduct an “ulangan harian“ for one class consisting 30 students in SMP level that spends IDR 500.000 for every student? Is it practical in term of cost?

The students will hard to pay the test’ cost. And it may cause a negative thinking to the teacher or administrative staff who made the test. So, it more effective if we manage our cost for test as minimum as possible as its necessary.

2.       Time

We should consider the time too. Though the time of test or the time we design the test. The time should manage as necessary as possible. Not less of time nor more of time but enough. We can measure if the time of test is practical or not by these criteria:

a. The test should stay within appropriate time constraints.

b. the test should not be too long or too short. The too long time of test will make the student fell bored. Or if the time is too short, the student will hard to finished the test,

 

What do you think if a teacher wants to conduct a test of language proficiency that it will takes a student ten hours to complete? Is that practical in term of time?

3.       Administration

We should organize the test as well. To design a good administration can we look by these criteria:

a.       The test should not be too complicated or complex to conduct

b.      The test should be quite simple to administer

What do you think if a teacher in remote area whit his/her student know nothing about computer conducts a test which requires the test- takers to at least know how to interact with the computer in order to be able to complete the teat? Is it practical in term of administration?

4.       Scoring/Evaluation

a.       The scoring/ evaluation process should fits into the time allocation

b.      A test should be accompanied with scoring rubrics, key answer, and so on make it easy to score/ evaluate

What do you think if a teacher conducts a test that it will take students a couple minutes to complete and take the teacher several hours to score/ evaluate. Is it practical in term of scoring/ evaluation?

Reliability

 

Validity

Authenticity

Washback 

In conclusion, there are five principles of language assessment, they are (1) practically: cost, time, administration, and scoring/evaluation; (2) reliability, (3) validity, (4) authenticity, and (5) washback: positive or negative effect.