Thisstudy is a theoretical-and-experimental research into the methodology for testing educational achievements of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers in linguistic subjects.
It is established that over time, differences in the status of tests had been observed ranging from its denial as an efficient form of control at the governmental level to its greater recognition and implementation as a mandatory external independent evaluation of educational achievements at the national level for admission to higher educational establishments.
In the study, the classification attributes of a test as a means of educational achievement measurements of the subjects of the educational process (validity; adequate level of complexity; impartiality and credibility; representativeness; relevance and discrinimability; accuracy and scientific character) and the typology of tests (training, controlling, alternative, variative, sequential, constructive, successive, topical, situational and achievement and computer tests) are determined; the content of basic concepts of the research, notably “test”, “testing”, “test control of educational achievements of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers” is defined and specified. The content of the notion “test control of educational achievements of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers” is construed as a diagnostic instrument (monitoring and summative) which would comprise a qualimetrically reconciled system of test tasks and provide a standardized procedure for its carrying out, previously designed technology for processing and analyzing the test results.
As a consequence of theoretical comprehension of a substantial part of the works on linguistic competence attributes, it is established, that the scholars distinguish the following components of the linguistic competence, namely, a cognitive one representing a scope of knowledge about the language, its linguistic units and functioning rules; operational, which would envisage the level of mastering the linguistic units, the ability to articulate accurate utterances and percept other peoples' ones; personal, which comprises motivation as well, is deemed to be the determination to employ the linguistic means in the course of performing linguistic activities and to apply the aforementioned knowledge. The content of the notion “linguistic competence of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers” is construed as a deliberate focusing of the content of the education in the humanities on developing high-level professional communication skills of language students, which is deemed to be a crucial component of their occupational excellence. This being a linguistic competence that could provide better comprehension of a speech situation, inasmuch as it belongs to both the knowledge scope and the skills of applying the knowledge in the course of communication. The acquisition of core units belonging to every level of the language and structure of speech communication, as well as their essence and nature are considered to be decisive for forming the linguistic competence of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers.
The content of training and methodological materials for test control of educational achievements of the subjects of the educational process is analyzed; the advantages of testing over other forms of assessment are determined. The following criteria are defined: cognitive, activity-orientated and professionally-orientated as well as the levels of formation of the linguistic competence of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers; the methodology for testing educational achievements of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers in linguistic subjects is developed, which envisages elaboration of various types of tests with due regard for principles, methods and forms of assessment established in pedagogy and the relevant combination of traditional (blank testing) and innovative forms (electronic platforms) of educational achievement testing in the course of teaching linguistic and linguodidactic subjects.
The results of the experiments proved the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for testing educational achievements of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers in linguistic subjects.
Key words: test, testing task, testing educational achievements of future Ukrainian language and literature teachers, linguistic competence, methodology for testing.
