LANGUAGE TESTING Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

LANGUAGE TESTING - Essay Example This form of direct oral testing is known variously as "oral interview", "oral test", or "oral examination". I will refer to it here as "oral examination", as I am dealing mainly with examinations in a university context. The literature on language testing has identified a number of unsolved problems with oral examinations. Much of the discussion has centred on the issues of validity and reliability, but problems in the practical administration of oral examinations have also received comment. The fundamental problems with oral examinations are those of reliability (i.e. the consistency with which different examiners mark the same test, or with which the same examiner marks a test on different occasions) and validity (i.e. whether or not an oral test assesses what it sets out to assess). The reliability of oral examinations has been seen as a serious problem right from the start of research on this topic. Spelberg et al. (2002) report very low correlations, averaging only .41, between the marks of different examiners, although Taguchi (2005) points out that "the nine examiners who marked sixteen candiates [ . . . ] in this study did not have marking schemes, were given no training, were unstandardized and were given no criteria for judging candidates ability", so the discrepancies in their judgements are perhaps not such a surprise. Spelberg (2000) describes the usual ways of testing oral ability as "impressions from memory or haphazard interviews" and writes that "the vast majority of cases [ . . . ] are not reliably separated into levels of speaking ability by this approach, because of the complexity of the language and non-language factors involved". Michael (2001) states that for tests based on free conversation "the problems of sampling, and reliable scoring ar e almost insoluble, unless a great deal of time and many

Sexual harassment in the workplace Research Paper

Sexual harassment in the workplace - Research Paper Example This is a crucial topic to discuss since women have made significant progress towards achieving respect and equality at the work place, but there are some challenges that face their efforts. Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Introduction For many years, women’s rights have been under threat, whether it is within the family set up or any other place outside the family set up. In many countries, the civil society organizations are in the forefront fighting for women equality in all spheres of life. However, equality have failed to prevail in various areas whereby women face lack protection from violence, political, economic, and personal security, and also lack of full access to sexual and reproductive health. It is worth mentioning that women have come out in large numbers to join the workforce around the world (Kaushik, 2003). Discussion The need to be financially independent is a significant contributing factor to these advancements in women life. The increased number of wom en in the workplace is marked with increased vulnerability of women to acts of sexual harassment. This form of women mistreatment is said to be the oldest and most widely spread form of women harassment. In addition, it affects lives of all women irrespective of their culture, age, religion, income, race or class. Experts point out that sexual harassment is a tool that men use to portray their dominance on women since they are considered to be the weaker gender. The most affected women in the society are those focused on fighting the patriarchal system (Shahira & Widad, 2009). Sexual harassment being about power puts women in an inferior position. There are women who respond to acts of sexual harassment in extremely strict manner, but the largest number of women continues to suffer in silence. Those who persevere with acts of sexual harassment do so due to fear of stigma, hostility, ridicule, and discrimination. At the work place, the management must ensure that women are protected from acts of sexual harassment as well as handling such cases in a free and fair manner when they arise. However, due regard is not paid to such cases, which aggravates the issue of sexual harassment in such organizations (Cobb-Clark, 2009). Over a long period of time, many countries have failed to recognize the issue of sexual harassment as a key violation of human rights. This has caused the lack of clear rules and methods to deal with cases of sexual harassment. However, countries such as India have made tremendous progress in combating offences on sexual harassment. In India, the Supreme Court recognizes acts of sexual harassment as unacceptable acts, which cannot be condoned at work places. The increased number of women at workplaces and the closeness between men and women calls for clear guidelines on how to deal sexual harassment in all countries (Shahira & Widad, 2009). Women are known to be excellent in whatever they do. Going by this fact, providing a safe work environment for women implies that their productivity at the workplace will be optimum. Therefore, any organization that is to excel in its operations should take advantage of its women work force. Study based evidence indicates that, in work places where women are in authority, there are less cases of sexual harassments towards women. This observation implies that main perpetrators of acts of sexual harassment are men in authority. This gives men in such positions a lot advantages since the affected women fear