Business Language Test: Reading and Writing

The topic is about designing a business English test to test business related language abilities to those candidates who want to become a member of the company. All the candidates already have IELTS 6 or CEFR B2 level before entering into the program. The test only has two sessions each year. One in the spring one in the winter. If candidates successfully passed the prevocational test, they will be formally and successfully admitted and they will become a member of the export company.
Based on the information provided above, please write an essay following the structure carefully listed as follows:
Present and give a rationale for a new language assessment you have designed, including some sample test materials for that assessment. Your presentation and rationale should be 3,000-3,500 words. The sample test materials should represent the equivalent of around 500-1,000 words, so that the whole assignment is the equivalent of around 4,000 words.
Notes
• This document is a “draft template”. It’s presented in Week 5 of the course so that learners know what’s expected for the assignment. The “final template” will be presented toward the end of the course and all learners notified. The final template may have minor additions/amendments, compared to this draft template.
• Before writing your assignment, make sure you have consulted the information on Moodle in the sections ‘General course information’ and ‘Resource list’.
• The phrase “equivalent of” above means that your whole assignment should represent a similar amount of work to that which goes into a normal 4,000-word assignment. For example, if you write 3,500 words for the presentation/rationale of your assessment, the sample test materials you present should then represent around the same amount of work as used to write 500 words in a normal assignment. Note that sample test materials representing the equivalent of 500 words of work may themselves contain far FEWER than 500 words (e.g. a sample SR item may only contain 20 words but have taken a very long time to create), or far MORE than 500 words (e.g. a sample reading text may have been only minimally adapted from an online news story).
• While you have worked on test design in groups during the semester, as usual it is required that your writing should NOT include any text which is the same as text in other students’ assignments, including the assgnments of students in your group. This requirement applies BOTH to the written presentation/rationale AND to the sample test materials.
• If you wish to present sample test materials which are designed to be in a non-English language (e.g. pre-assessment instructions written in Chinese), please also present a translation into English.
• It isexpected that the sample test materials are generally integrated into the writing of the assignment. (So it is expected that you do NOT insert all the sample test materials into an Appendix.)
• Before submission, I suggest you check your writing in Microsoft Word (for obvious spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors) and Academic Marking Mate (for obvious problems with academic style).
• Your assignment will be scored using the same “Marking Criteria Matrix – for Postgraduate Taught Courses” document used for scoring most MA courses in the School of Education and English.
Word count NOT including references, NOT including words contained within sample test materials
[The instructions in red on this template are provided to help guide you through writing the assignment. DELETE ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS IN RED BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR ASSIGNMENT.]
Purpose of the assessment [Begin with this section. No Introduction is needed in this assignment.]
[This section should include the construct, features of the expected test-taker population, decisions which will be made using the scores, and any other relevant features.]
[As discussed in the course, your assessment must test AT LEAST TWO of the traditional skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking). Your assessment must also test AT LEAST ONE RECEPTIVE SKILL (listening and/or reading) and AT LEAST ONE PRODUCTIVE SKILL (speaking and/or writing). Integrated items are acceptable.]
[This assignment is primarily practical and applied; but validity is one theoretical concept which everyone should define, since it is so important but often misinterpreted. So when describing the purpose of your assessment, GIVE A DEFINITION OF VALIDITY.]
Assessment process [Present the design of the assessment, and also give a rationale for the design, based on the three major evaluative criteria for assessments. I imagine that combining presentation and rationale will be most efficient. But if you find it more intuitive to first present the assessment design in each section, and then give a rationale for it, feel free to do this. The sub-headings used below are mostly taken from Mislevy’s ECD framework, which has been used throughout the course, and is explained further at Almond, Steinberg and Mislevy (2002).]
• Pre-assessment information communicated to test-takers and other relevant stakeholders [e.g. what information is communicated about the assessment before the assessment takes place, who is it communicated to, when is it communicated, what formal teaching if any takes place that is relevant to the assessment, …]
• Assessment presentation materials [e.g. reading/listening texts; items, including both selected-response and constructed-response; instructions given to test-takers; how have texts and items been developed or selected; ….]
[You must include AT LEAST TWO selected-response items in your sample test materials, which have been created by yourself. You must include AT LEAST ONE excerpt from a reading or listening text.]
• Assessment presentation process [e.g. use of technology; features of physical environment; number of times a listening text is played; sequencing of texts and items; times allowed for texts and items; location of test; ….
• Expected test-taker work products [e.g. what writing, speaking, or other responses will the test-taker produce; how long will they be; …]
• Evidence rules [e.g. what documents will be used to score the test-taker work products; how have those documents been developed or selected; …]
• Response processing [e.g. who will score the test-takers’ work product; what training or guidance will they be given; what efforts will be made to assure their reliability; how much time will they have; …]
• Summary scoring process [e.g. how will the response processing from the different items be combined to determine an overall score/overall scores for the assessment; …]
• Summary feedback [e.g. what score or scores will be reported; what other feedback is reported; who will it be reported to; …]
Conclusion [Probably just 1 paragraph]
References [It is expected that most of your references come from:
• the sources on the ‘Resource list’ on Moodle
• sources which are cited by sources on the resource list on Moodle
• sources which can be found in www(dot)scopus(dot)com or www(dot)webofscience(dot)com Web of Science Core Collection
It is also expected that you cite at least one set of external standards, such as CEFR or China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE).
You’re a Masters student, so of course please use your judgment when identifying other sources which you think are relevant and of a high quality. You should NOT cite random journal articles, books, and student dissertations/theses which you happen to find through searches on Google Scholar, Google, Baidu, etc.]
• [Format your references in a consistent style. If you’re unsure how to cite a particular kind of sources, check https://apastyle(dot)apa(dot)org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples.]
• The class audio recordings and the PowerPoint will be uploaded in the following website, and you need to download them.
The quizzes questions and answers will also be uploaded to the website.
Please listen to the audio lecture five + Seminar five, particularly in 44mintes 32seconds first, to get an overall idea of how this assignment is going to write
pay attention to the fact that Knock (2021) ‘Assessing writing’, which is pages 236-248 in Fulcher & Harding (2021) Routledge Handbook of Language testin
The LTA draft assignment template that you must use throughout your writing your final paper to guide your writing. The marking criteria is the document that you need to consider how to do a distinction level final essay and follow the criteria for distinction. The third document is the most essential screenshots of the most important information in this assignment, and thus you must take a look at them carefully. Lastly, I tried my best to collect the key readings as much as I can. Almost all the key readings have already been included in the last zip file for your reference. Please, depending on the construct of the test, try your best to cite and put in the references list as much as you can using the materials in the last zip file.
The files sent in this email contain quizzes, readings for quizzes, powerpoints for classes as well as the course recordings for the first six weeks except week three. The powerpoints are actually situated in the file called:"LTA FIRST SIX WEEKS READING TO ACCOMPANY QUIZZES"