STUDENTS’ ESP PROFICIENCY MONITORING STUDENTS’ ESP PROFICIENCY MONITORING ON THE BASIS OF E-TEST ON THE BASIS OF E-TEST “ON ECONOMICS“ON ECONOMICS”

Zoya Konnova Zoya Konnova Doctorate,Doctorate, Professor, Professor, Director ofDirector of Foreign LanguagesForeign Languages

DepartmentDepartmentTula State University,Tula State University,92, Lenin av., Tula, RF92, Lenin av., Tula, RF

300600300600konnova-zoja@mail.ru konnova-zoja@mail.ru

Olga GladkovaOlga GladkovaPhD, PhD, Associate Professor,Associate Professor, Foreign LanguagesForeign Languages DepartmentDepartment

Tula State University,Tula State University,

92, Lenin av., Tula, 92, Lenin av., Tula, RF, RF,

300600300600

glad9246@yahoo.comglad9246@yahoo.com

THE NECESSITY OF THE NEW ESP PROFICIENCY MONITORING TOOLS IN THE CONDITIONS OF

EDUCATION INFORMATIZATION

The pedagogical term “monitoring”“monitoring” means “diagnostics, estimating and forecasting of the pedagogical process condition: its present and future development and results tracing.” Students’ ESPESP ((English for Specific Purposes) English for Specific Purposes) proficiency monitoring provides the graduates with such a level of proficiency that fully meets the requirements of the state educational standards, the society and the individual in the real conditions of the pedagogical process realization. Thus, the abovementioned factors (graduate’s proficiency level and conditions of the pedagogical process realization) determine the way students’ ESP proficiency monitoring should be organized within a higher educational institution. Since these factors have a clear tendency to change in the course of time, the process of ESP proficiency monitoring should be being changed respectively.

Nowadays among the acute factors, that determine the process of teaching, one can find education informatization and cognitive approach to foreign language teaching (as this approach gives the chance to model the principles of natural and artificial systems organization and functioning, e.g., the system of students’ ESP proficiency monitoring at all educational stages.

We can state it as a fact that at the present moment we can witness not only the unprecedented alteration of the cyberspace itself but also the integrated informatization of the higher education. Moreover, it should be stressed that according to some prominent scientists cultural, psychological and professional preconditions of the information society development spring exactly from the education.

The implementation of IT into the educational process at the higher educational institution (which is aimed at Russian education informatization) is the logical result of the civilization development where the forming core is information. The term “education informatization” is understood by us here as a “complex of socio-pedagogical reforms connected with the implementation of IT (information products, pedagogical technologies based on IT, etc.) into the educational systems”. Students’ ESP proficiency monitoring is nothing but the process of deliberate and non-stop tracing, control and diagnostics of the students’ ESP proficiency, in other words, it is the process of information gathering and analyzing. The prior means of information gathering and keeping in the form of bulky archives and databases stayed in the previous century. Nowadays the search for information in the cyberspace causes no difficulties and takes a split second. Monitoring is work with information; it needs an information basis provided by IT.

One of the aims of monitoring in higher educational institution is the development of e-tests which can diagnose students’ proficiency in any subject on the basis of inner independent assessment of students’ success. The specific character of the pedagogical measurements and surveys which are done in the frames of monitoring result from the assigned aim – the assessment of degree of conformity between students’ proficiency level and state educational standard requirements.

In the conditions of modern education it is necessary to trace any divergence between the existing and the required levels of students’ ESP proficiency monitoring and eliminate this divergence, so as it could be possible to provide such kind of monitoring support which is necessary in current conditions of education informatization. To achieve this practical goal, in our opinion, there should be organized the special process of the non-stop e-monitoring of students’ ESP proficiency.

““ELECTRONIC” MONITORING ADVANTAGESELECTRONIC” MONITORING ADVANTAGES

“Electronic” presentation, processing and storing of controlling and measuring recourses satisfy not only the requirements of education informatization process. The benefit for the teachers and the educational institution itself is also evident.

For example, html-format allows introducing the audio-visual method of information presentation; this fact gives the teacher the opportunity to make the process of test preparation and testing easier, reducing the quantity of the instructional technologies in use to only one – a personal computer.

Moreover it is possible to save not only consumables but also teacher’s time spent on test results verification and analyzing; it is also possible to register test results data in a separate file in Department’s info media database.

The concentration of data in one place and in one storage medium helps solve the problem of individual and group diagnostics of the students’ language skills quality more effectively and gives the opportunity to prognosticate students’ language skills development, ways of improvement and further monitoring.

TEST “ON ECONOMICS” DEVELOPMENTTEST “ON ECONOMICS” DEVELOPMENT

The mass introduction of testing into the educational process in higher educational institutions (and into the process of foreign language teaching, in particular) raised a number of questions, connected with its methodological and organizational sides: objective character of assessment, standardization of assessment system, etc. The attempt to solve this difficult task in the conditions of higher educational institution shows that such a complex and complicated job cannot be done without the appropriate theoretical basis, without definite methodological and technical support.

To begin with, it’s necessary to mention the fact that the development of the test is a long and difficult process which requires the joint effort of highly-qualified teachers and programming specialists. The researches from the Association Association of Language Testing Europe (ALTE)of Language Testing Europe (ALTE) offer a certain model of test development and writing. This model is a process of cyclic This model is a process of cyclic character with certain phases which are obligatory to be gone character with certain phases which are obligatory to be gone through from the moment when the need for a new test is through from the moment when the need for a new test is realized up to the final result, i.e. the real test itself. There are realized up to the final result, i.e. the real test itself. There are five phases: five phases:

1)1)planning phase; planning phase;

2)2)designing phase; designing phase;

3)3)development phase; development phase;

4)4)usage phase; usage phase;

5)5)check phase.check phase.

The need for a new test gives rise to the planning phaseplanning phase. During this phase the data about the requirements to the test are gathered by means of target interviews and surveys and consultations with the specialists.

At the designing phase designing phase the potential users are defined and there appears the initial version of the test. Here the content aspects are discussed; the decisions about the appropriate volume of each test part and the type of the test item are taken, etc.

At the development phase development phase the materials for the test are checked according to a number of parameters in the conditions close to those of a real examination. The shortcomings are searched for and eliminated, the rating scale is developed.

As soon as the initial phase is over, there starts a process of administration and assessment of the ready test. The test is sent to the educational institution where its effectiveness is checked and estimated.

The development of e-tests aimed at students’ ESP proficiency monitoring was preceded by a long preparatory stage. At this stage we analyzed the informational and cognitive potential of Foreign Languages Department (Tula State University, Russia) in order to detect the linguistic and didactic-linguistic material appropriate for monitoring purposes. We selected and developed test-items directed at tracing and assessing of students’ ESP proficiency at all stages of their studying. We also selected material for different language skills monitoring (grammar and structure / vocabulary / writing / English for Specific Purposes / etc.) from the bank of on-line tests, e-tests, multimedia courses. To get the objective data about students’ speaking and listening skills we created a set of case-studies aimed at students’ “professional English” level detection. Some study guides on work with video and workbooks on famous media companies’ audio materials were created by us. We studied carefully various thematic internet-sites.

Basing on the experience of the foreign test-writers (TOEFL, IELTS, CPE, etc.) and taking into consideration our own experience in the field of test development and writing (test items for Federal Internet Examination) we developed our own e-tests following the ALTE’s model. The test-items developed by us fully meet the requirements of State Educational Standard and work programs on foreign language teaching.

 

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MONITORING BASED ON E-TEST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MONITORING BASED ON E-TEST “ON ECONOMICS”“ON ECONOMICS”

In this paper we would like to describe one of the e-tests developed by us. It is aimed at effective monitoring of students’ ESP proficiency as one of the multiple monitoring tools. This e-test was highly appreciated by the experts at the International Conference on the problems of professionally oriented teaching of foreign languages and translation at higher educational institution (Moscow, Russian University of Nations’ Friendship (РУДН), 2010). With the help of monitoring on the basis of the e-test we managed to reach a very important practical goal – to characterize the qualitative to characterize the qualitative changes in students’ ESP proficiency level, changes in students’ ESP proficiency level, which can be identified as knowledge, skill and competences improvement at each stage of education.

The test is intended for ESP proficiency monitoring among the students of economic specialization on the topic “On Economics” (sub-topic “Money, banking, finance”). It can be used as a tool for “entrance”-monitoring in order to diagnose basic language knowledge on the given topic. Its use is also quite rational for intermediate testing as a monitoring tool of students' ESP proficiency dynamics. Final proficiency monitoring organized on this basis can also provide the exhaustive information about the compliance of the real training results with the planned ones. The use of this test to detect the residual knowledge of the subject gives valuable information about the foreign language skills and ESP proficiency level of a particular student or in a group of student as a whole.

The interface of this e-test is rather simple: the generic page contains its detailed operating instructions. The structure of the e-test can be described as a set of four main parts – listening, reading, grammar and structure and professional vocabulary and terms – all in all 120 test-items. Step-by-step going through all the test-items let you get not only the statistics about the test results, but also diagnose the level of the student’s ESP proficiency.

The e-test developed by us goes together with the reflection element. This element gives both students and their teachers the opportunity to compare the real test results in the form of statistical data with how the student himself/herself assesses his/her foreign language proficiency.

The effectiveness of e-tests use as the monitoring tools was proved by the pedagogical experiment, which specific character let us pick out two special groups of students: a screening group a screening group (SG) and an experimental group an experimental group (EG). In a stepwise way we also carried out the following actions:

diagnostics of ESP proficiency initial condition before the diagnostics of ESP proficiency initial condition before the introduction of the e-tests; introduction of the e-tests;

diagnostics of ESP proficiency after the e-tests introduction diagnostics of ESP proficiency after the e-tests introduction together with studying on the basis of electronic and multimedia together with studying on the basis of electronic and multimedia recourses and taking some improving measuresrecourses and taking some improving measures.

The experimental work aimed at checking the effectiveness of the e-tests developed by us was done in the period of time from 2008 to 2010. In the course of the experimental work the students of EG studied the foreign language in the cyber classroom on the basis of multimedia recourses and on-line tests. The students of SG were taught according to the traditional traditional methodsmethods. .

The coefficient of the ESP proficiency indicators was calculated according to the formula:

K = N / M K = N / M (V.P. Bespalko’s knowledge diagnostics), where:

K – a coefficient of the indicator under analysis; K – a coefficient of the indicator under analysis;

N – a number of performed operations; N – a number of performed operations;

M – a total number of operations. M – a total number of operations. In our research we chose 0,7 as a critical value of a

coefficient of the indicator under analysis. If the coefficient is less than 0,7, the student’s skills are insufficient. If the coefficient is about 0,9-1, it means that the student’s skills are sufficient and he/she can move to the next stage of education.

We do believe that the e-tests developed by us proved themselves to be one of the promising forms of both classroom and outside-classroom work. Such a kind of activity directed towards foreign language proficiency mastering helped us not only to improve the foreign language skills, but also to learn to use the knowledge acquired by practice. Yet, the e-tests added some fascination elements to the process of foreign language learning which allowed us to brisk up the students’ cognitive activity. All the mentioned things promoted the improvement of the students’ ESP proficiency and creative character of foreign language teaching and learning.

In our opinion, it is also necessary to emphasize the importance of IT in effective foreign language teaching and learning. It can be explained by, at least, two reasons:

IT development, the increase of volume and speed of IT development, the increase of volume and speed of information transmission together with the newest multimedia information transmission together with the newest multimedia teaching programs turned the PC into the tutorial;teaching programs turned the PC into the tutorial;

the Internet opened a wide access to the information, the Internet opened a wide access to the information, giving the opportunity to overcome the time limits and distance.giving the opportunity to overcome the time limits and distance.

The use of e-tests and Internet-technologies helped us organize students’ activity (classwork and homework) taking into consideration their psychophysical potential by means of differential approach to the tasks, training rate and speed. It helped us come closer to the solution of one of the most acute problems in teaching theory which is the individualization in teaching and learning. Thus, the effectiveness of students’ ESP proficiency monitoring on the basis of the e-tests was proved by the positive dynamics and, in particular, by knowledge quality improvement.

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CONCLUSIONCONCLUSION

Drawing a conclusion, it can be mentioned that the use of e-tests in foreign language teaching let us take into consideration not only the dominating cognitive style of each individual, but also his/her interest to the studied material together with his/her communicative abilities that helped us improve the ESP proficiency level of the students. With the help of the e-tests developed by us we made an attempt to define the tendencies which influence the students’ ESP proficiency. At the current stage of our work we truly hope, that our e-tests will favour the education effectiveness increase and will become an irreplaceable tool of students’ ESP proficiency monitoring in the conditions of higher education informatization.

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