Testing Vocabulary

Filamer Christian University
Autonomous Status-CHED
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Roxas Avenue, Roxas City
Anamie F. De La Cruz Prof. Toni Gay Artates

Reporter Professor
Testing Vocabulary
What is Vocabulary?
• Vocabulary develops with age and is tool for communication and acquiring language
• A large vocabulary helps us to communicate and express what we mean;
• A person may be judged by others based on his or her vocabulary.
What is Testing?
• Testing is a procedure of critical evaluation, determining a quality or truth of something.
• Testing shows what level of knowledge has been acquired.
Why do we test vocabulary?
 Teachers need to know how developed their students’ vocabulary knowledge is. (why?)
 without a basic vocabulary, the potential for developing a reading problem is great.
 vocabulary knowledge is strongly related to overall reading comprehension.
 A limited vocabulary represents a limited understanding of concepts.
 Well-developed vocabulary skills and wide background knowledge help individuals

comprehend more difficult and complex material.
The most common test formats for testing vocabulary

• Multiple choice
• Cloze test
• True/false
• Questions and answers
• Gap-filling
• Matching
• Rearranging words
Writing Items:
Testing recognition ability
• Multiple choice can be recommended for this type of testing problem.

• it can be used for testing single words, words in sentence or in texts.
• This technique is simple to mark but challenging and difficult to design.
• Distractors are usually readily available
• It seems unlikely to be any serious harmful backwash effect since guessing meaning of
vocabulary items is something that we would probably wish to encourage.
Recognizing Synonyms
E.g.: which is the closest in meaning to “gleam”?
A. gather B. shine C. welcome D. clean
• Which distractors do you think are likely to be chosen?
• Whether distractors would work as intended would only discovered through trialling.
• Note that all of the options are words that the candidates are expected to know.
Recognizing Definitions
Loathe means
a) dislike intensely
b) become seriously ill
c) search carefully
d) look very angry
• Note that all of options are of about the same length.

• Test takers who are uncertain of which option is correct will tend to choose the one
which is noticeably different from the others.
• In the example above, the writer has included some notion of intensity in all of the
options.
Recognizing appropriate word for context

• Context, rather than a definition or a synonym, can be used to test knowledge of a
lexical item.
▫ E.g. The strong wind _______ the man’s efforts to put up the tent.
▫ a. disabled b. hampered c. deranged d. regaled
▫ Note that the context should not itself contain words that the candidates are
unlikely to know.
Recognizing appropriate word for context
• Since learners and language users in general normally meet vocabulary in context,
providing context in an item makes the task more authentic and perhaps result in a
more valid measure of the candidate’s ability.
• The context may help activate a memory of the word, in the same way as meeting it
when reading in a non-test situation.
• There could be some negative backwash when words are presented in isolation.
• However, when we test vocabulary by means of multiple choice, the range of possible
distractors will be wider if words are presented in isolation.
Testing Production Ability using Pictures
• The main difficulty in testing productive lexical ability is the need to limit the candidate
to the lexical item that we have in mind using only words. One way around this is to use
pictures.
• However, this method is obviously restricted to concrete nouns that can be
unambiguously drawn.
Testing Production Ability
Definitions
• May work for a range of lexical items.
• But not all items can be identified uniquely from a definition (excluding all synonyms)
• Not all words can de defined entirely in words more common or simpler than
themselves.
Testing Production Ability

Gap filling
• This can take the form of one or more sentences with a single word missing.
• Often there is an alternative word to the one we have in mind. This problem can be
solved by giving the first letter of the word (possibly more) and even an indication of the
number of letters.

Testing Vocabulary

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Filamer Christian University

Anamie F. De La Cruz Prof. Toni Gay Artates

• A large vocabulary helps us to communicate and express what we mean;

• A person may be judged by others based on his or her vocabulary.

• Testing is a procedure of critical evaluation, determining a quality or truth of something.

• Testing shows what level of knowledge has been acquired.

Why do we test vocabulary?

 vocabulary knowledge is strongly related to overall reading comprehension.

 A limited vocabulary represents a limited understanding of concepts.

 Well-developed vocabulary skills and wide background knowledge help individuals

The most common test formats for testing vocabulary

• Multiple choice can be recommended for this type of testing problem.

E.g.: which is the closest in meaning to “gleam”?

A. gather B. shine C. welcome D. clean

• Which distractors do you think are likely to be chosen?

• Note that all of options are of about the same length.

Recognizing appropriate word for context

▫ a. disabled b. hampered c. deranged d. regaled

Recognizing appropriate word for context

Testing Production Ability using Pictures

Testing Production Ability

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