Assessment, especially testing, is actually of great importance to the education systems all over the world. Educators and teachers in general and teachers of English in particular use tests to obtain information to serve a number of purposes. They may want to find out if a candidate is qualified enough to pursue a course of study; how a student is progressing during a course of study and possibly identify problem areas before the end of the course; they may also want to compare a student’s performance with that of other students; or to make out how much a student has acquired during the school year (i.e. what students can do at the end of the course in comparison with the beginning of the course) (Harris and McCann, 1994). Consequently, the existence of different types of tests results from the above-mentioned purposes, involving entry/placement tests, progress tests, diagnostic tests and proficiency tests.

Of all types of tests, “on-going tests” is most frequently used at High schools. The questions of “What a good on-going test is” and “How to make effective use of tests in teaching English to students”, especially 10th-grade ones (the “newcomers” of High schools) must have always been challenging teachers. Despite a variety of books and studies of assessment and testing, none of them have, so far, particularly focuses on the 10th-form students in Danang city. For this reason, the study is carried out with the hope to help enhance the effectiveness in teaching English for students at this first grade of High schools in Danang city through on-going tests.

The following poem reveals the positive influence of tests on teaching and learning.

An Instructor’ s Lament

My face is lined, my hair is gray

Though I’m but five and twenty;

I’ll tell you how I got this way

My friends, I’ve been through plenty.

My principal once took a course

In measurement and testing

And since that God-forsaken day,

We’ve none of us been resting.

Each term begins the same old way,

We give tests diagnostic;

I once believed there was a God,

Now I’m a grim agnostic.

When all the papers have been marked

With data tabulated;

They’re stored away till Judgement Day

Berated, hated, fated.

And then we give Achievement Tests

To find the children’s level;

I fear my faith in life now rests

A-shattered with the devil.

We take them home and through the night

Work out the correlations,

We seek deficient coefficients

And those obscure relations.

And then without a breathing spell

We test to find IQ’s,

Like soldiers shocked by shrieking shell

We seek out those M.A’s.

Each day, each week, each month, we test

No matter what the weather,

For teaching there’s no time at all

To ever get together.

The Mid-term comes, the Finals too,

And tests with other labels,

We’re working now with fevered brows

Computing phoney tables.

The end has come, our principal

Now gives the figures study.

His face lights up, he shake each hand,

He even calls me “Buddy”.

“In the short term, our children gained

Three year”, he cried, “that’s plenty”.

But he forgets to mention us-

His teachers – we’ve lost twenty.

Author Unknown (quoted from Payne, 1997)

This study concentrates on investigating on-going English tests in current use. Concretely, the study focuses on on-going tests for 10th-grade students at High schools in Danang city to make English teaching effective.

1. How important are “on-going tests” to English teaching and learning?

2. Do “on-going English tests” in use for 10th-form students follow testing criteria and principles?

3. In what ways can teachers enhance the effectiveness in teaching English for 10th-form students at High schools in Danang city by using on-going tests?

This study includes the following five chapters:

Chapter 1, “Introduction”, mentions the rationale for choosing the topic, the aim and objectives, scope of the study, research questions and the organization of the study.

Chapter 2, “Literature Review and Theoretical Background”, consists of a review of previous studies and the related theoretical preliminaries.

Chapter 3, “Method and Procedures”, describes the methodology and procedures for carrying out the study, selection of samples, decision on data collection methods, the collection and analysis of the data.

Chapter 4, “Findings and Discussion”, investigates the current situation of using “on-going English tests” to enhance the effectiveness in teaching English for 10th-form students at High schools in Danang city.

Chapter 5, “Implications, Recommendations and Conclusion”, presents some suggestions to develop more effective tests, proposes some recommendations for further studies, and the conclusion.

The study ends with the appendices of the questionnaires for students, the interview questions for teachers, the test samples, the students’ scores and the bibliography of all the reference books necessary for the study.