The Use of Summary Tasks in Testing University Students' Comprehension of Foreign Language Texts

Abstract

The use of multiple choice questions in testing students' reading comprehension of foreign language texts has become a widespread practice. However, not only does this technique ignore and/or override most of the reading skills that we train our students in but it also establishes in them the habit o f reading not for total comprehension but only enough to answer the questions in the test. The validity of any test will be achieved only to the degree that it tests our students' ability in the manner it has been taught in the classroom, not to mention that it will reflect on what is taught and how it is taught in the classroom (backwash effect). Considering the fact that reading ability consists of certain strategies and sub-skills which interact with each other, we need to use a testing technique which can capture the complexity of the process. As an example of such a technique, summarization was used with university students following their reading of two texts - expository and narrative - and results from this technique were correlated with scores gained from a multiple choice test constructed for the same two texts. Based on the results of the study, we conclude that summarization can be a reliable way of testing reading comprehension, and to use this technique more effectively it is suggested that students receive prior training in summarization.