14.1.1
Purposes of language testing

Activity 1
Decide which of the following statements apply to your department:

In my department, testing is used……
Yes
No
Not sure
  1. as a selection process.
      
  1. to help the students learn material more effectively.
      
  1. to increase motivation.
      
  1. to help the tutor discover what the students do not know or cannot do.
      
  1. to show students what they can do.
     
  1. to provide evidence of whether students have progressed.
     

Language testing can be carried out for a variety of purposes, and while in higher education we are only likely to be interested in three or four of them, the following summary is included to help clarify precisely why we are assessing our students and what is involved in each case.

 
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