Job Discussion Forums

[dragonpiwo]

Hi all,

I need a decent placement test. PM me if you have one and I'll send you my email address, so you can send it as an attachment. All my stuff disappeared when leaving Libya in a hurry.

Cheers in advance.

[buravirgil]

[scot47]

A free lunch ? These things are available in the market place !

[toteach]

Take a look at "Teachers Pay Teachers" and enter your criteria, such as "assessment" and grade level and subject matter of ESL. You'll find dozens of assessments, some of which are free. None are "placement," as you'll have to determine that yourself from the results...

[Sashadroogie]

You can find Oxford Or Cambridge paper-based placement tests to DL if you search around a bit.

[dragonpiwo]

Cheers for the positive comments.

We lost all our luggage at Mitiga getting evacuated. My flash drives were in my case. We landed but the luggage didn't. I don't fancy returning to Libya to get the stuff, so no facetious remarks are necessary.

I had some generic ones for Arab learners which were very accurate. We used the Oxford Placement Tests when I taught at uni but I really thought the listening section was odd. I'm not really interested in grammar tests. I'm also not interested in level tests or progress tests.

I might bite the bullet and just go and buy some.

Don't need any lectures on terminology, Needs Analysis or how to place students as I've been doing it for 20 years as a qualified teacher.

[buravirgil]

__Specific Problems of Arabic Speakers__

“All aspects of writing in English cause major problems for Arabic speakers, and they should not be expected to cope with reading and writing at the same level or pace as European students who are at a similar level of proficiency in oral English.”
Swan and Smith in Learner English

Arabic spelling follows a simple system and is virtually phonetic. One sound equals one letter. Arabic has 32 consonants and 8 vowels (including diphthongs), so a lot fewer vowel sounds than English and the short ones are almost allophonic. Meaning is carried by consonants and long vowels only. Arabic words never start with a vowel. In fact vowels are often not shown in Arabic writing (except for example in the Koran and in books for children). When they are shown this is by means of small marks above or below the word. For this reason Arabic speakers tend to confuse or gloss over short vowel sounds and as a consequence have problems writing them.

The most common confusions are between
/I/ and /e/ (bit and bet),
/Q / and /O: / (cot and caught) ,
/eI/ and /e/ (laid and led) and
/@U / and /Q / (hope and hop).
If students cannot distinguish between these sounds orally and aurally they are unlikely to be able to write them. As far as consonants are concerned /p/ and /b/ are allophonic as are /v/ and /f/. /g/ and /k/ are often confused
and /T/ and /D/ (thin and that) may cause problems. In some dialects there is no /tS / ‘ch’ sound. In Arabic the /r/ is pronounced much more strongly so they may not hear it in English and therefore not write it. Some initial consonant clusters such as 'spr', 'str' do not occur in Arabic and students may insert a short vowel letter.
They also have the challenge of reading from left to right and when writing they may transpose two or more letters e.g. 'tow' for ‘two’ or 'waht' for ‘what’. In addition, students often experience problems keeping their writing on the line, which makes it more difficult to recognise if the word is the correct shape.
The aspects of spelling that the Arab students I interviewed said they found particularly difficult were:
§ all vowel sounds,
§ /p/ and /b/,
§ double/single letters,
§ digraphs (eg ­ch, ­ph “in my language c is c and h is h!”), § silent letters,
§ the letters g, c and k.

http://www.elgweb.net/spelling_article.html#_edn1

[Shroob]

[dragonpiwo]

I don't think so. By facetious I meant flippant not contentious, schismatic, conflicting or discordant.

And generic as in broad or all-encompassing and that is specific to the context in which 'our' tests were used with a very large student body over many years. They were the best I've seen in the 4 Arab countries I've worked in and were certainly all-encompassing re the 4 skills. Some of the more traditional 'placement' tests give very bad results for the purpose of placement testing when Arab learners are involved.

No-one likes a smart-____ .

Remember, you're never too old to be told.

[scot47]

Problem with placements for Arab students where I was working - other factors always came into play. Admin wanted to meddle in who was placed where and when.

[buravirgil]

[litterascriptor]

[dragonpiwo]

Yawn. Just checking my bothered pocket. Nope, it's empty.

[scot47]

Sasha can tell you about websites where you can download lots of stuff. Ruskies are experts in this sort of dubious activity.

[dragonpiwo]

I'm sorted Glad I've got friends in this game. I now have a superb test thanks to Facebook, not this forum . It's one used by a tertiary institution, which should satisfy the haughty buggers on this site.