constructs and models in language testing

1. CONSTRUCTS AND MODELS
Fulcher and Davidson

2. MODELS, FRAMEWORKS AND
CONSTRUCTS
Models: abstract theoretical descriptions of the ability to communicate in a second
language.
Frameworks: selection of skills and abilities from a model that are relevant to a
specific assessment context.
Construct: generative blueprints or plans for a specific test which comprise the
components of a model.

3. SPECIFICATIONS OF MODELS
McNamara argues that all models of language ability have three dimensions
1. Model of knowledge: what it means to know a language.
2. Model of performance: all the factors that influence our ability to communicate.
3. Actual language use: use language in real-world situations.

4. THREE MODELS OF
COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
1. Canale and Swain`s Model of Communicative Competence
2. Bachman`s Model
3. Celce-Murcia`et al.`s Model

5. CANALE AND SWAIN`S
MODEL

6. COMPONENTS
1. Communicative Competence:
Grammatical competence: knowledge of formal features of language.
Sociolinguistic knowledge: the knowledge of the sociocultural rules of language use and rules of discourse.
Strategic competence: the knowledge of how to overcome problems when faced with difficulties in communication.
2. Actual communication:
the demonstration of knowledge in actual language performance

7. CANALE AND SWAIN`S MODEL
AND TESTING
Inadequacy of paper and pencil tests to indicate language proficiency so tests
should contain both actual performance tasks as well as knowledge items.
Discrete point tests were seen as useful for some purposes as communicative
competence was viewed as knowledge.
Criteria could be developed for the evaluation of language performance at different
levels of proficiency.

8. CANALE`S REVISED
MODEL

9. THE COMPONENTS OF
REVISED MODEL
1. Grammatical competence: remain unchanged from the definition provided by
Canale and Swain.
2. Sociolinguistic competence: refers to sociocultural rules and is the appropriateness
of meaning and form thus incorporating pragmatics. It also incorporates
proxemics and non-verbal behavior.
3. Strategic competence: it is expanded in this model to include strategies that
“enhance the effectiveness of communication.”
4. Discourse competence: the ability to produce a unified spoken and written text in
different genres using cohesion in form and coherence in meaning.

10. BACHMAN`S MODEL OF
COMMUNICATIVE
LANGUAGE ABILITY

11. SPECIFICATIONS
Bachman`s model is different from earlier models in two ways:
1. It clearly distinguishes between what constitutes knowledge and what constitutes
a skill(left unclear in Canale`s).
2. It explicitly attempts to characterize the processes by which the various
components interact with each other and with the context in which language use
occurs.

12. THE COMPONENTS
1. Language competence: formal knowledge of language
2. Strategic competence: the capacity for implementing the components of language
competence in contextualized communicative language use. It is affected by the
world knowledge of the language user.
3. Psychophysiological mechanisms: which enable the actual execution of language
as a physical phenomenon.

13. THE COMPONENTS OF THE
KNOWLEDGE
COMPETENCE

14. 1-PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE
Acceptability of utterances within specific contexts and rules of successful language
use. It has two components:
1. Illocutionary competence including:
Ideational functions
Manipulative functions
Heuristic functions
Imaginative functions
2. Speech acts.

15. 2- SOCIOLINGUISTIC
COMPETENCE
Sensitivity to or control of the conventions of language use that are determined by
the features of the specific language use context.
It enables us to perform language functions in ways that are appropriate to that
context.
Relevant components are:
a) Sensitivity to dialect or variety
b) Sensitivity to differences in register,
c) Sensitivity to naturalness
d) Cultural references and figures of speech

16. COMPONENTS OF THE
ABILITY COMPETENCE

17. It is driven by the strategic competence which is a psycholinguistic model of speech
production, made up of three components:
1. assessment component:
Identify information needed for realizing a communicative goal in a particular
context.
Decide which language components we have to achieve the goal.
Decide which abilities and knowledge we share with our interlocutor.
Evaluate the extent to which communication is successful

18. 2. Planning component:
Retrieve information from language competence.
Select modality or channel
Assemble an utterance.
3. Execution component:
Use psychological mechanisms to realize the utterance.

19. BACHMAN AND PALMER`S
1996 AMENDMENTS
The model was amended by Bachman and Palmer (1996) by:
The introduction of affective(non-cognitive) factors in language use.
Re-labelling knowledge structures as topical knowledge.
Reconceptualizing strategic competence as a set of metacognitive strategies.

20. CELCE-MURCIA, DORNYEI
AND THURRELL`S MODEL
OF COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE.

21. IMPETUS FOR A NEW MODEL
The inadequacy of previous models to generate detailed content specifications for
CLT
Criticisms of Bachman (1990) and Bachman and Palmer (1996) model as relating
only to the context of language testing.
Being critical of the type of content specifications that have been developed on an
ad hoc basis for syllabus design, because they were not built on a model of
communicative competence.
Attempt to produce a detailed description of what communicative competence
entails in order to use the sub-components as a content base in syllabus design.

22. COMPONENTS OF CELECE-
MURCIA ET. AL.`S MODEL
It has five components as follows:
1. Discourse competence: remains a separate component as defined by Canale 1983
and reunites cohesion and coheernce.
2. Actional competence: knowledge required to understand communicative intent by
performing and interpreting speech acts and speech sets.
3. Sociocultural competence: knowledge related to the context that impacts upon
what is said and how it is said. Sociolinguistic competence is relabelled
sociocultural to better distinguish it from actional competence.
4. Linguistic competence: grammatical competence
5. Strategic competence: (unchanged) a set of skills for overcoming communication
problems or deficiencies in other competences.

23. INTERACTIONAL
COMPETENCE
The notion of interactional competence minimally subsumes the following parts of
the model:
The conversational structure component of discourse competence.
Non-verbal communicative factors component of sociocultural competence.
All of the components of strategic competence.

24. THANKS YOU