Reading

¡Leemos!

Arthur Hughes, Testing for Language Teachers

"The basic problem is that the exercise of receptive skills does not necessarily, or usually,
manifest itself directly in overt behavior."

"¿Entienden? Y'all got that?"

*Blank stares*

We've all been there. We know that feeling.

What we don't know is if students truly don't understand or they just aren't responding. Assessing interpretation of text, speech, visuals, etc. is challenging because of this reason. The lack of explicit demonstration of understanding prompts educators to go to great extents to assess if students understand.

When do you assess interpretation in your classroom?

What tasks do you give your students to complete?

Let's say that in your Spanish classroom, you and your class have been discussing the treatment of chickens in Spanish-speaking places outside of the United States. On your unit test, you would like to include a reading assessment that incorporates this theme of culture. Check out the following passage from the Secretaría de Agricultura de México.

"Hoy hablaremos de la avicultura, esta actividad se encarga de la producción de pollos y pavos bajo rigurosos procesos de cuidado y alimentación para mantener la calidad que caracteriza a México. Esta industria genera alrededor de un millón de empleos directos e indirectos y beneficia al comercio nacional e internacional.

Las aves de mayor consumo son los pollos y las gallinas, de estas últimas existen diversas razas que cubren necesidades específicas, por ejemplo, las gallinas ligeras producen huevo, para consumo de carne están las gallinas pesadas y las gallinas semipesadas que son con doble propósito (carne y huevo); los pollos son aquellas aves que en su mayoría se ocupan para consumo de carne y es conocido como pollo de engorda y se obtiene de las gallinas pesadas.

Dentro de la avicultura también encontramos la producción de guajolote, como se le conoce en México desde la época prehispánica, o pavo, como también se le conoce por la influencia española, es una de las aves domésticas de mayor tamaño, pudiendo alcanzar entre 14 y 18 kilogramos de peso a los 6 meses de edad; el consumo de esta ave en México es mucho menor ya que, en su mayoría se prepara para festividades navideñas, los guajolotes que son utilizados para consumo humano son los denominados como pavo de corral.

En 2014, México produjo casi 3 millones de toneladas de pollo para consumo y más de 2 millones de toneladas de huevo, cabe mencionar que el estado con mayor producción de carne de pollo es Aguascalientes y jalisco en producción de huevo."

- La Secretaría de Agricultura de México, junio del 2015

What a big reading task! Let's imagine you want to use it to assess reading in your classroom.

1) First, state your purpose. Why are you testing and who are you testing? If you are testing for reading and testing beginning learners, we must create the assessment task around this purpose.

2) Using an authentic text, such as the article above, must be scaffolded for your students. If we are testing beginning learners, this text requires lots of accommodations to ensure your students can handle the task. Remember, we never change the authentic text to accommodate the task!

"Since the act of reading does not in itself demonstrate its successful performance, we need to set tasks that will involve candidates in providing evidence of successful reading" (Hughes 143). There are many techniques for writing reading test items. Since most assessments opt for multiple choice, let's establish a quick fix to assisting you write short answer items.

1. Based on the information in the first sentence,

what animal species is referred to by avicultura? _________________

Since the first sentence includes references chickens and turkeys, we can assume that avicultura refers to birds. This tests students' comprehension of the first sentence by having them with no choice but to give the specific, correct response.

2. Around how many direct and indirect employees does the industry create? _________________

Using context from the sentence that states, "un millón de empleos directo e indirectos," students can easily search back through the paragraph to find the cognates "directos" and "indirectos." Testing the reading of students, we need to know that they understand the quantity of employees created.

"The best short answer questions are those with unique correct responses" (Hughes 144). This ensures a valid and reliable test item. We measure precisely what needs to be measured, and we can measure it similarly across contexts. Below, we will see one way to use a piece of that authentic text for a beginning Spanish class.

Now you try! Write two test items for the next paragraph.

Discuss and reflect how they create the situation to provide a unique, specific answer.

Speaking

Hungry for more?