Mellon-NWLC

University of Puget Sound

French

Steve Rodgers
Instructor, Foreign Languages and Literature (French)
rodgers@ups.edu

On-line French Placement Test

Date Awarded: Spring, 1999

URL:
www.ups.edu/community/mellon/placement/frame_vr/

Description of Project:
The project created an on-line aptitude / placement examination for Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced French students. Previously, students placed via face-to-face discussions; increasing dissatisfaction with this relatively imprecise approach led us to consider other options. Placing students at the highest appropriate course level is essential for maximizing language development potential; maximizing placement mechanisms efficiency is thus highly desirable.

Project Goals and Objectives:

Process:

The exam was constructed using Beta. Entirely auto-corrective, it includes scoring mechanisms and a score interpretation mechanism to guide students in selecting appropriate course levels in French.

Areas tested include such structures, usages as:

regular and irregular verb forms
adjectives - form (gender, number) and placement
verb tenses: present; past-perfect, imperfect; "if" clause tense concordance; subjunctive
articles
plural noun forms
negative forms
personal and relative pronouns
reading comprehension
elementary / intermediate / advanced level vocabulary

To determine what scoring levels corresponded appropriately to what placement levels in French courses, I had a number of students, both current and previous, take the test and let me know what their scores were. We also asked them how long it took them to finish. Thus, we were able to "tweak" the scoring interpretation mechanism of the test, as well as to edit out a considerable number of questions. As it stands now, it takes about 45 minutes, on the average, to complete the test; we hope, sometime between now and August of this year, to boil it down to a far less time-consuming (on the order of, say, 15 minutes to complete), albeit perhaps somewhat less precise interpretive mechanism.

We first used the exam in August 1999, during fall freshman orientation and registration rush; we expected in the range of 100 students (based on typical Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced French course enrollment figures this and past years) using it to make self-placement assessments. In fact, it turned out to be more like 5 to 10 students who ended up using it to help them determine appropriate placement.

Outcomes:

The placement test was frankly all I had time to accomplish during the semester I had the unit off thanks to the Mellon grant, as it turned out to be a bigger project than I had anticipated when I applied. I have, however, managed to find time to develop more course-related materials using technology since the semester of my unit off.

All in all, I am quite proud of what we were able to accomplish with this test. Of course, our work-study student technician, Cathy SooHoo, deserves a great deal of credit for all aspects of the test involved in getting it on-line and functioning the way we envisioned it. The test looks slick, is relatively easy to use, and gives students quite an accurate assessment of their language skills in French, thus serving the purpose it was designed to do.

The test has been made available to NWLC participants, for use as is, or as a model. As I have yet, using WWW searches, to find many such exams for French, I anticipate the on-line placement exam has been and, I hope, will continue to be particularly useful to many colleagues, especially those in the Consortium, as a placement exam or a review sheet. It should also provide a review tool for students on particular grammar points in an auto-corrective setting. The examination should in effect serve future, current, and former students in an interactive, non-threatening medium, providing them with accurate assessment of their skill levels.