6 decisions on what should be done for the improvement. Such reason has driven
the writing of this thesis. With the intention to create an effective blue-print of English testing model, the thesis is written to formulate a blue-print and its
prototype for an effective testing model which enables us to make a right decision in the improvement of English teaching and learning in elementary school of
Indonesia.
B. RESEARCH POSITION
This research is conducted as a scientific research in English measurement in Indonesia in the elementary school level. The research will deal with
Indonesian elementary school students and the development of the right theoretical testing model to measure their communicative written English
competence. Some studies have been conducted to do research in English test in the
International scale, among of them are: 1 A study on Measures of Language Proficiency from the Learner’s
Perspective which was done in 1982 by Hossein Farhady from University of California, Los Angeles, University for Teacher Education, Tehran, Iran. Here, he
examined the importance of learner characteristics in relation to learner performance on ESL tests. He argued that test taker characteristics were not
included in the design of most ESL tests. In the research, he also provided the empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that performance on various ESL
tests was closely related to test takers’ educational and language backgrounds and that in order to account for those factors, so as to reduce test bias, the theoretical
7 definition of language proficiency should be modified. The result of the research
was a suggestion on the guidelines to dealing with test taker’s characteristics. 2
A study on English Test-Taking Strategy Use and Students’ Test Performance by Wenxia Zhang, Meihua Liu, Shan Zhao, Qiong Xie from
Tsinghua University, China. They reported on a study of the use of English test- taking strategy and its effect on students’ test performance.
There are, actually, many studies conducted in the international scale that deal with English testing, Yet, it is really rare to find any in the national scale,
especially the one which deals with English testing for Indonesian young English learners. This may because there are still many people who are still sceptical
about the importance of introducing English to Indonesian young English learners. Moreover, testing itself, is also still considered as a complicated stuff for
young learners. With such assumption, the researcher is sure that this research can be stated as a new step in the study of English testing for Indonesian young
English learners. Therefore, this research can be stated as original and, hopefully, can provide more contribution to the development of language testing literature.
C. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
