Language Exam Research Articles

Idegennyelv-tanítással foglalkozó szervezetek a felsőoktatásban

This study explores the situation of foreign language teaching in higher education based on managerial interviews. Organizational units offering foreign language courses in different higher education institutions operate in different organizational frameworks with different degree of independence and acceptance. The goals and content of language teaching is substantially defined by the language skills of the students entering the higher education institution. Most of the institutions primarily focus on supporting students in acquiring the language exams necessary for obtaining a diploma. All institutions offer language teaching for specific purposes, however their interpretation of it widely differs. Several organizational units teach subclasses which develop professional communication in foreign languages. The opportunities of students to access foreign language learning are good and the institutions aim to achieve multilingualism.
 In addition to language teaching, organisations carry out several activities: many of them operate language schools, provide language certification, professional translator trainings, and all organisations conduct translation and proofreading within the university. These activities increase both the prestige and the economic independence of the organisations, but at the same time they usually absorb many resources. In terms of scientific work there are large differences. Almost half of the organisations don’t have or have very few lecturers/researchers and the organisations have different approaches to this. The organisations which identify themselves more as language schools tend to be more accepting with this, but for the improvement of the up-to-date professional communication, the research-based developments are necessary.
 Organisations dealing with foreign language teaching try to serve the needs of universities, as a result, development and professional cooperation within the universities are important.

Alive and dead toys: the concept of a game in A. S. Grin’s novella "Scarlet Sails"

The relevance of the topic is determined by three factors. Firstly, Grin’s texts are regularly offered as examination material for the Basic State Exam and the Unified State Exam in the Russian language. Secondly, the "Scarlet Sails" feerie studied in secondary school is often interpreted loosely and broadly due to a superficial analysis of the language and the composition of the work. Finally, the need to teach schoolchildren not just to determine the linguistic and literary properties of a text, but to comprehend the content of an artwork holistically is consistently becoming more and more urgent. I rely on the general philological principle according to which any aspect of the analysis of the subject matter of a text is associated with understanding the meaning of this text in its entirety. The research used the methods of contextual analysis of the semantics and of comparative analysis of language structures, the statistical method, the intertextual method, motif analysis and others. In the course of the study, it has been found that the theme game and its aspects belong to the content core of the work and interact with the themes of childhood, miracle, creativity, faith, and others. The diametrically opposed evaluative connotations of the concept "Toy" are directly related to the problems addressed in the novella and the writer՚s position. The text makes extensive use of the derivational nest with the top "game". Moreover, the most frequent lexeme is the noun "toy" (17 cases out of the 38 uses of the root -game-). The elaboration of the thematic field is achieved through the multiple paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections of the thematic keywords. The concept of a game performs a structure-forming function in the system of characters and concerns not only the protagonists, but also the supporting characters. The theme of the game is further developed in the plot. It is figuratively embodied in the details that form the artistic world of the text.

Features of foreign competency formation when preparing for international language exams at the School of Foreign Languages

The article is devoted to the study of the structure of international language exams on example of the PEIC (PTE) test by “Pearson plc” which can be taken at the International Language Certification Centre of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Special attention is paid to the necessity to make appropriate changes to the current Educational Curriculum of English as the major for students of the pedagogical (philological) and translation studies departments. The methodological basis of the study includes general scientific methods, special attention is paid to the case method, because the authors have experience in organizing, compiling and training for international language exams. This paper aims at presenting a range of tasks of PEIC (PTE) and guidelines for adjusting the current Educational Curriculum as well as the process of potential implementation into the framework of the Educational Curriculum exercises that can condition success in passing international exams. The object matters of the research are peculiar tasks of the international language exam PEIC (PTE) as well as exercises from the textbooks of the School of Foreign Languages which make up the body of empirical material comprising 104 units. The subject matter of analysis was the character of these exercises. The topicality of the work is accounted for by lack of comprehensive scientific research in this area in Ukraine as it is intensified by the significant interest of senior students in obtaining an international certificate. The study found that the PEIC (PTE) exam has two main structural elements: written and oral ones. Thus, their integration into the current Educational Curriculum is proposed in this study by offering some adjustments to the aspects of "Oral Practice" and "Analytical Reading" while teaching at the School.

The effect of the language of instruction on academic performance

Education in a language other than the mother tongue is common. This is increasingly relevant in tertiary education, due to the growing international mobility of students. While the advantages of foreign language skills on the labour market are well-studied, literature on the cost of non-native learning is still not well established. To fill this gap, we explore the impact of the language of instruction on grades by using administrative data provided by the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. We exploit the fact that students whose mother tongue is for the most part Italian or German learn and take exams in English, German, and Italian. Our results, controlling for student fixed effects, show that taking an exam in a second language leads to a loss in grade points of approximately 9.5% (or 0.22 within-student standard deviations). These results are confirmed relying on an identification strategy that leverages on course language assignments in the standard study plan, circumventing the potential non-compliance of students selecting out of languages other than the mother tongue. A high proficiency in the non-native language mitigates - but does not eliminate - the loss. Moreover, also the number of failed attempts increases.

ВРАХУВАННЯ МІЖПРЕДМЕТНИХ ЗВ’ЯЗКІВ У НАВЧАННІ КУРСАНТІВ ЕКОНОМІЧНИХ СПЕЦІАЛЬНОСТЕЙ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ

The article deals with the peculiarities of teaching cadets of economic specialties English for Specific Purposes, taking into account the interdisciplinary links. It is pointed out that teaching a foreign language to cadets at the Academy of the State Penitentiary Service must be on the basis of methodological approaches and peculiarities of unified entrance exam in a foreign language for admission to study for obtaining a master’s degree in the fields of knowledge 05 “Social and behavioral sciences”. In the article the authors analyze the latest research on teaching future specialists foreign languages on the basis of such methodological approaches as system, activity, competence, aspect, context approach and others. In the context of the study, the authors determine that mastering English communicative competence in professional communication by the cadets should take into account interdisciplinary links, especially working together with the specialized departments. The authors indicate that teaching cadets of economic specialties English for Specific Purposes should be implemented on the basis of systematic, competency-based, professionally-oriented and interdisciplinary approaches. The aim of the article is to determine the features of teaching cadets of economic specialties English for Specific Purposes on the basis of those approaches with taking into account interdisciplinary links. In the article the authors give the analysis the disciplines that the four-year cadets of economic specialties study at the Academy of the State Penitentiary Service. They state that the acquisition of professional English communicative competence is possible in case of taking into account the professional themes connected with the disciplines studied by future economists in the Academy. The requirements of the unified entrance exam in a foreign language are considered while developing the tasks and exercises to teach cadets of economic specialties English. The tasks for developing English lexical and grammatical competences and competence in reading are included.

STANAG 6001 Russian Language Exam: Holistic Approach to Assessing Speaking

Abstract This paper analyzes the STANAG 6001 Russian language exam focusing on the specifics of Speaking Proficiency evaluation. Despite the fact that the testing procedure is based on the Assessment Criteria set by the STANAG 6001, assessing speaking skills through a guided interview or a sequence of techniques seems to be one of the most challenging and hard tasks for testers. Advantages of holistic approach of assessing speaking skills are discussed and justified.

Assessing verbal interaction: towards European harmonization. Insights from the co-operation between Spanish and French language exams for Higher Education (CertAcles/CLES)

Abstract Verbal interaction has been the subject of a growing interest among language professionals in Europe since the CEFR was published in 2001; in linguistics, verbal interaction has long been studied. In the Bakhtinian approach, it is even considered “the fundamental reality of language”. All types of interaction share the fact that they are dynamically co-constructed by participants. How then can we assess or certify interactional competence on an individual basis when dynamic instability prevails? What criteria can be defined in order to deconstruct interactional competence into specific operational criteria, if interaction is intrinsically multidimensional? These are the questions that we address in this paper. To do so, this paper presents the insights gained as a result of the co-operation between two certification systems: CertAcles (Spain) and CLES (France), both belonging to NULTE (Network of University Language Testers in Europe). These certification systems have agreed to collaborate extensively, sharing their constructs and assessment routines. As a result, CertAcles is shifting towards more contextualized tasks and CLES is considering adopting descriptive assessment scales for interaction (C1 level). We hope to demonstrate that the materialization of scientific collaboration of this kind can help improve individual systems.

LANGUAGE PORTFOLIO AS AN INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

The article deals with the benefits of using the language portfolio as an integration of digital technologies in the English language assessment.The research is devoted to the use of digital technologies, describes the structure of the language portfolio and analyzes the positive aspects of e-portfolio.Prior to the transition to a more communicative approach in language learning, formal language exams were very narrow, which could not take into account all communicative skills. Teachers are trying to evaluate a wider range of communicative skills with the help of the new portfolio in order to make the current process more relevant, as well as to involve students in self-improvement and reflection on their own learning.Though many teachers do not try to integrate digital technology into their assessment system, the language portfolio is one of the most modern means of providing assessment based on modern experience in the field of language learning.The author explores the potential use of an e-portfolio that can be quickly distributed and even adapted. But most teachers have never used an e-portfolio or have only begun to incorporate some of its elements into their teaching and learning. The use of an electronic portfolio contains a number of advantages, among which we would like to highlight the opportunity for the younger generation to gather a large amount of evidence of their communicative competence and provide a comprehensive assessment of the student’s language skills. In the portfolio students include videos, audio recordings, examples of mind maps, wiki entries, examples of articles read, tests on the Internet, etc., which can be found in the central repository.
 Keywords: information and communication technologies; Internet; feedback; Internet resources; English language; language portfolio; digital technologies; assessment; communicative language teaching.

Peningkatan Performa Klasifikasi Machine Learning Melalui Perbandingan Metode Machine Learning dan Peningkatan Dataset

Classification using machine learning is an alternative that is widely used to classify data. There are various classification methods or also known as machine learning classification algorithms that can be used. However, to get the best classification results, we need a classifier that fits the dataset type to provide the best classification performance. In addition, the quality and quantity of data contained in a dataset also has an influence on the classification performance. In this study, several attempts were made to improve the classification performance of the dataset of Indonesian language exam questions at the elementary school level based on the category of difficulty level. The efforts made consist of improving the quality of the dataset and using the StringToWordVector filter algorithm to manage textual data, as well as the use of several classification algorithms such as the nave Bayes algorithm, Random Forest, and REPTree. Classification is done by using WEKA Tools. The results of the experiments carried out showed the highest performance increase of 15% after improving the quality of the dataset and using the right classification method.

Teacher-made tests on Bahasa Indonesia subject for school examinations in public vocational high school of Bengkulu province

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the use of operational verbs based on Anderson’s taxonomic cognitive domain on test items of Indonesian language exams in the public vocational high school in Bengkulu, Indonesia. This is qualitative in nature employing descriptive method as the research design. The data were obtained from test items of Indonesian language school examinations in a public senior vocational school which delivered to twelve graders in the academic year of 2019 with 45 questions in total. The data were documented and analyzed qualitatively. This turned out that operational verbs of the cognitive realm based on Anderson’s taxonomy are two items of remembering, two items of classifying, an item of summarizing, four items of inferring, an item of predicting, three items of interpreting, an item of executing, six items of analyzing, twenty items of selecting, two items of assessing, an item of checking, and two items of formulating which accounted for 24 verbs in total. However, the shows that only 12 verbs on the 12 test items are considered high-level thinking skills which resulted in suggestions to consider

Underrepresentation of the construct in Spanish standardized foreign language exams: a computer assisted exam proposal

Standardized tests are a reality in a globalized world and, consequently, in the Spanish system. Language test developers have already claimed that the current model of assessment has little to do with real language use, as factors such as the shift from paper to computer, information search and other uses of language or multimodal communication are not being considered (García Laborda & Fernández Álvarez, 2021). This theoretical paper proposes (1) a novel construct for testing that incorporates new functionalities which have been shown able to test appropriately language performance in academic settings; and (2) the proposal and design of an online multimodal exam that adapts to the new needs for language assessment in the University Entrance Examination. It begins with an analysis of current research to show the need for a change in the construct, and concludes by proposing a model for this high-stakes exam, based on a new construct of language proficiency and multimodal interaction for computer-based exams. The paper concludes that this model can change the way we understand technology-based exams and could be applicable to most current exams.

Learning English as one of the factors of formation of the athlete's personality

Relevance. Passing the unified state exam in the Russian language is the first really important test of the effectiveness of students' knowledge under the strict guidance of a teacher. Having considered many different methodological manuals, books, magazines on preparasion that each teacher builds his own methodology for organizing preparation for the exam.Purpose. To increase the efficiency of preparation for the Russian language exam for 1st-year students of a physical education college.Methodology and organization of the research. Analysis of the test results within the framework of the Unified State Exam tasks showed the most problematic areas in the development of the secondary general education program in the Russian language. Next, we have analyzed the main tasks of writing an essay, the features of this genre of writing, as well as the purpose of its use in teaching the Russian language. After that, work was carried out with the students aimed at eliminating the identified errors and clarifying the features of the essayreasoning as a genre of written work.The results of the research. For half a year, I conducted a study in which I identified the benefits of writing a reasoning essay for 1st-year students who study at the College of Physical Culture in the direction of "Skiing". When writing the first essay of judgment on a free topic, students identified certain types of errors.Conclusions. Solving training tasks, analyzing tasks that cause difficulties in solving - this is the right way to successful completion and good scores. The test tasks are selected in accordance with the sections of the Russian language. Each student had an improved dynamic of writing the reasoning, at least in one of the points.

Повышение интереса к современной русской литературе и литературному языку как элемент формирования гражданской позиции: анализ региональной практики

he article is devoted to the role of the Russian literary language as the state language of the Russian Federation in the formation of civil position, education of youth in the Far East. The author draws special attention to the importance of increasing interest in the modern Russian literature and the literary language as elements of familiarity with the culture of the country and region in the process of training managerial personnel. On the example of a brief analysis of results of the unified state exam in the Russian language, the author shows the problems of insufficient acquaintance of students with the exemplary literary texts demonstrating the wealth of the Russian language; emphasis was placed on the need to increase attention to the education of sense of the native language and high-quality Russian speech, including by increasing attention to the works of the best regional authors. The author of the article pays special attention to contribution of the Far-Eastern poets and writers to development of the modern literary language. Relying on the regional practice, the value of a number of the Far-Eastern literary journals and competitions for formation of positive image of the region is shown in this article. Example of the project of the Khabarovsk Tsaryovsk readings «Tsaryov. Khabarovsk. Russia» is presented, within which on the example of research of creativity of the specific author it is shown that attention to a native word, to culture help to bring up the youth and future heads of the region.

Оценка и развитие профессионализма преподавателей высшего педагогического образования: изменения концепции и технологии

The problem of assessing the quality of education today is relevant. There are many problematic questions: What should the technologies for implementing the links between school teachers and schoolchildren’s learning outcomes be? How to identify these connections and work with them? Is it possible to establish multidimensional relationships between the activities of a teacher, the results of students, between the competencies of a teacher and the quality of their professional training at the university? In Tomsk Oblast, the research is being carried out in two areas: (1) development and testing of a technology that makes it possible to analyze the learning outcomes of schoolchildren and establish the relationship between these results and the level of teachers’ professionalism, (2) establishment of a relationship between the identified deficits in the subject and methodological competencies of teachers and the quality of their professional training at a pedagogical university. In the first direction of work, the results of research on assessing the level of school teachers’ competence were summarized. The study used machine learning methods. The data obtained in educational institutions of Tomsk Oblast for the period from 2015 to 2019 (unified state exam in mathematics, physics, Russian language, and social studies) were processed. This work made it possible to identify learning difficulties among schoolchildren, and then to connect these difficulties with a lack of competencies in the professional activities of their teachers. In the second direction of the research, the goal is set: the development of a new concept for the assessment and development of the professionalism of teachers in the system of higher pedagogical education. The object of study is the system of continuous professional development of teachers in the system of teacher education. The study uses the methods of theoretical analysis, structural analysis, analysis of products of activity, focus group, method of expert assessments, educational design. The types of interdependence of professional and educational deficits of different subjects of educational activities are described. These types of connections are important for achieving the integrity of the assessment system, developing the professionalism of professors of teacher education and structuring managerial actions to ensure the quality of general and teacher education in the logic of their relationship. The following conclusions are made. (1) The proposed concept of assessing and developing the professionalism of professors of a pedagogical university is an element of a system for achieving the quality of school and university pedagogical education in the “school student – teacher – university teacher” logic. (2) An assessment of the level of teachers’ professional competences shows deficits that need to be addressed. (3) Changes in the preparation of students can be based on the analysis of professional deficits of teachers, which makes it possible to change the preparation of students, including ensuring the prevention of deficits.

Quality of language exams in evaluation of professional communicative competence

Quality of language exams in evaluation of professional communicative competence

Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language: Theories and Practices

Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language: Theories and Practices

Ways to organize work in the Russian language. Essay reasoning

Relevance. Passing the unified state exam in the Russian language is the first really important test of the effectiveness of students' knowledge under the strict guidance of a teacher. Having considered many different methodological manuals, books, magazines on preparation for the Unified State Exam, I came to the conclusion that each teacher builds his own methodology for organizing preparation for the exam.Purpose. To increase the efficiency of preparation for the Russian language exam for 1st-year students of a physical education college.Methodology and organization of the research. Analysis of the test results within the framework of the Unified State Exam tasks showed the most problematic areas in the development of the secondary general education program in the Russian language. Next, we have analyzed the main tasks of writing an essay, the features of this genre of writing, as well as the purpose of its use in teaching the Russian language. After that, work was carried out with the students aimed at eliminating the identified errors and clarifying the features of the essay-reasoning as a genre of written work.The results of the research. For half a year, I conducted a study in which I identified the benefits of writing a reasoning essay for 1st-year students who study at the College of Physical Culture in the direction of "Skiing". When writing the first essay of judgment on a free topic, students identified certain types of errors.Conclusions. Solving training tasks, analyzing tasks that cause difficulties in solving - this is the right way to successful completion and good scores. The test tasks are selected in accordance with the sections of the Russian language. Each student had an improved dynamic of writing the reasoning, at least in one of the points.

Õppetegevuste haaravus, aktiivsus ja jõukohasus eesti keele kui teise keele täiskasvanute kursustel: õpetajate arvamuste analüüs

Artiklis vaadeldakse eesti keele kui teise keele õpetajate (n = 59) vastuseid küsitlusele täiskasvanute kursustel kasutatavate õppetegevuste, õppetöös esinevate probleemide ning heade kogemuste kohta. Õppetegevuste tõhusust analüüsitakse haaravuse, aktiivsuse ja jõukohasuse seisukohalt. Analüüsi põhjal tehakse ettepanekuid õppetegevuste arendamiseks. *** Engagement, activity and affordability of learning activities in Estonian as a second language courses for adult learners. Analysis of teachers’ opinions Estonian as a second language is mostly taught to adults in language courses. The courses are very popular among the target group, but the effectiveness of the courses is not always very high: a large part of those who have passed the course are unable to take the necessary language exam or use Estonian outside the classroom. The effectiveness of learning a second language depends on many factors, one of which is the teaching methodology used. Today, it is considered that there is no universal methodology, but effectiveness is ensured by the engagement, activity and affordability of learning activities for the target group (Dörnyei 1994; Richards 2006; Brophy 2016; Tomlinson 2010, 2012; Kitsnik 2020). The methodology used in teaching Estonian as a second language for adult learners has not been scientifically researched so far . This article focuses on teachers’ assessment of the teaching activities used in their lessons. In order to obtain survey data, a survey was conducted among training companies approved by Keeleamet (the Language Board), Estonian language houses and teachers of the adaptation program. 59 teachers responded to the survey, 61% of whom have more than 10 years of teaching experience. The survey consisted of 35 questions (both multiple-choice and open-ended) on learning activities, problems and good practices used to develop listening, reading, speaking, writing, vocabulary and grammar skills. In their opinion, teachers use quite authentic teaching materials, and different learning activities (Larsen-Freeman 2007). According to teachers, almost all of them who responded to the survey at least sometimes use gamification. The main problems were students’ fear of speaking Estonian (mentioned by 46% of respondents) and poor memorization of new words by students (also 46% of respondents). In addition the common problems were a shortage of good teaching texts (especially listening texts), the ambiguity of the volume of teaching grammar, the students’ insufficient learning habits and learning strategies, and the lack of language practice outside of lessons. The descriptions of good practices highlighted the importance of the interest and informativeness of the study texts and the usefulness of the activity, creativity, diversity and systematic nature of the tasks. The problems that have emerged point to the need to develop teaching methods for adult Estonian language courses. As follows, there would be a need for lesson surveys, student surveys and testing to obtain more detailed information on the impact of the content and format of learning activities from sources other than teachers. It would then be worthwhile experimenting with interventions in mainstream learning activities through a systematic curriculum based on modern language learning principles and successful experiences to date, focusing on finding solutions to the main problems that have arisen.

Curriculum and assessment mismatch: Examining the role of images in literacy assessments

In light of the shift towards incorporating multimodality in the curriculum, it is of interest and value to examine the extent to which multimodal literacy is assessed in national and international literacy tests. This is so as to surface any misalignment between the two and highlight gaps which curriculum planners and assessment designers can address. Given the significant influence that the nature of assessment has in shaping classroom practices and teaching priorities, it is imperative that assessment is aligned with curriculum goals. Our paper examines the assessment items in the visual text comprehension in Singapore’s national examinations, the Graduate Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE O’ Level) and the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), for the English Language exam, as well as the literacy components of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) reading items. We adopt the approach of an earlier study by Unsworth et al. (2019) and position our work as a replication study, extended to a new context. In adopting a common approach, we hope to offer an independent verification of the framework, analyses and findings from the earlier study and contribute towards consolidating and building up proven practices in the analysis of text-image relations within the field of multimodal studies. Our results similarly show an overall low proportion of test items that deal with images and image-language relations in the Singapore and international assessments. While the proportion of questions where the image is essential or supports answering the question is higher for the Singapore GCE O’ Level exams, the role of images in the PSLE and international assessments is limited, which suggests a greater focus on assessing multimodal literacy is required. As curriculum reforms to incorporate multimodality in education become more commonplace around the world, we argue that attention on assessment must be the next frontier of change.

An Evaluation of the National English Language Exam in Jordan for Postgraduate Studies: Validity and Reliability

This paper aims to evaluate the validity and reliability of the National English Language Exam (NELE) in Jordan for postgraduate studies. According to reviewing the most related studies using the review method, it was found that the NELE is valid and reliable depending on the evaluation of the Commission for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (CAQA) in Jordan. However, it was indicated that no studies discussed the validity and reliability of the NELE in Jordan. Otherwise, few studies evaluated the English language courses like Action Pack and Petra used by the Ministry of Education in Jordan to teach English as a foreign language. These studies found that these courses are valid and reliable. As well as, it was concluded that an enormous shortage in the literature that discussed the validity and reliability of the NELE in more depth and details. Therefore, this paper recommends more studies to evaluation the reliability and validity of the NELE in Jordan.