LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE TEACHING EVALUATION

Abstract

After reviewing some of the notions of language according to Traditional Grammar, some of the notions and definition of language according to Structural Linguistics, some of the notions and definition of language according to Transformational Generative Grammar by Avram Noam Chomsky, some of the notions and definition of language according to Generative Semantics which is represented by Wallace Chafe (1970), and some of the notions of language according to Finegan (2004), about a year and a half ago I attempted a definition of language that: A language is a universe of unions between referents, sounds, meanings, and contexts, which are organized by semantically – based grammatical rules for language use in the society. On the basis of this new definition of language, language teaching evaluation, not only the evaluation of the teaching of English but also the evaluation of the teaching of all languages throughout the world, must include:

1. The testing of as many unions between referents, sounds, meanings, and contexts as possible (words or vocabularies) of the language.
2. The testing of as many semantically – based grammatical rules as possible of the language.
3. The testing of language use in the society which includes:

3.1   The testing of the speaking skills. The foci are the width of the vocabulary mastery and the number of ideas the examinee can express.

3.2   The testing of the listening skills.

3.3   The testing of the writing skills. Again, the foci are the width of the vocabulary mastery and the number of ideas the writer can express in his compositions.

3.4   The testing of the reading skills.