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
The primary concerns of most language educators, are the process of instruction and measurement which can improve the quality of the service being
delivered to the learners. Since testing is the most applied method of measurement as an integral part of educational system that gives vital value in maintaining and
enhancing the quality of teaching and learning, a right testing instrument is really critical. Therefore, a good and right testing instrument needs a strong concept as
the underlying theory.
8 In order to formulate a right concept and design of a testing instrument to
measure the written English competence of elementary school’s students, this research will work on four key problems noted to clarify, that are: Elementary
School English Learners, English Testing, Communicative Written English Competence, and English Teaching and Learning in Elementary Schools of
Indonesia.
D. RESEARCH FOCUS
The former parts of this chapter have explored the problems which might reveal in formulating a testing model for written English competence of
elementary school students. Within the ‘revealed’ problems, the focus of this research will be limited specifically to the communicative written English
competence of Indonesian elementary school students and the development of its theoretical testing model.
E. RESEARCH LIMITATION
This research will use Research and Development method in formulating the concept so as developing the instrument. In the Research and Development
procedure, a researcher should conduct a cicly which containts 10 phases. Yet, due to the limitation of time available for the researcher, this research will only be
limited to five phases of the required ten phases. The validation of the product will be conducted through a construct validation by four TEYL professionals and
a ‘semi’ trial test conducted in a small number of the test taker candidates as the supplement to the experts’ improvement feedbacks.
F. RESEARCH QUESTION
