The What, the Why and the How of Testing in the Teaching and Learning of English

Abstract

Testing is the most important component of the English teaching and learning mechanism. It paves the ground for the teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of the syllabus as well as the methods and materials he is employing. It also engages, in a systematic fashion, all the factors 
that affect learning process.  This study proposes dynamic views on the prevalent concepts of testing with a special focus on the matter of Classroom Tests. Moreover, the study aims to make a significant attempt to examine the vital problems concerning test-construction, test-management and test-evaluation, and suggest some practical clues for the redress of emerging problems. The study also puts forth contributory recommendations for making testing procedures more effective and more rewarding. It tends to establish a firm opinion that approaches to testing procedures do not have any demarcation boundary, particularly in view of an array of language testing alternatives and emerging new language testing formats. Therefore, they need to be reviewed, systematized and streamlined from time to time, so that they may pragmatically serve the teaching and learning 
goals of English as FL/SL.