We are doing a research about students´reading comprehension in a colombian bilingual university and we need a reliable test to apply it in order to measure their comprehension level.
A standarize test such as Cambridge, Pearson, or TOEFL could do, but all of them have different focus and different strategies to take it as a student.
Hello Sidney,
There are multiple ways to assess reading comprehension. The best place to start is with the reading level. You can identify the level through standardized tests such as this one:
Lower- level: https://www.cambridge.org/elt/readers/placement_test/placement_test.htm
Higher-level: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/reading/c1-advanced-reading
The most common method is asking questions that follow the reading passage (or during the passage). This is a more formal approach to assessing comprehension. If the learners are very young and at the very beginning of their journey, then maybe some basic word blends or questions about the basics 'what can you see?', 'what is it?' etc.
An informal way is to ask your students or learners to retell the story or rewrite the story in their own words. You can also ask them to get into discussion groups, this can help students who are confused about the task or the passage (or who generally aren’t participating in the activity). Fun approaches surround discussions or writing about 5 things that they learned from the texts, re-enacting their favourite scene (this depends on the book and the level) or pretending to be characters and completing writing tasks or activities from a character or author's perspective.
Higher-level groups benefit from group discussions, creating theories and evaluating different perspectives on the book. They can also discuss challenging vocabulary, other or conflicting theories on the text etc.
Do you want to create your own method for assessment for research or would you like more information on concrete methods that have been tried and tested at a university level?
Let me know!
I hope to some extent that helps. This is a great question.
Kind regards,
Kirsty
Dear Kirsty,
Our research focus in describing the level of reading comprehension of EFL students in a colombian university. We don´t have yet the license for using standardized tests, that´s why we are attempting to design our own test to assess the students' reading comprehension. We are thankful for your help. Your suggestions light our way to create a method.
We will show you our test as soon as we finish it.
Kind regards,
Sindy
our research more about comprehension while study by english language
Sindy Cardona this is very exciting for you and for the group. I would be highly interested to see what you come up with. I imagine that you have already looked at the format of other tests including the pros and cons of those. Good luck with all of it and if there is anything else I can do to help or assist please let me know.
Kind regards,
Kirsty
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