Dialang validity and reliability?

[RLTW_PR]

I have a hard time believing the results I just received on the Dialang exam I took. According to Dianlang I am an A1 or lower in listening and an A2 in reading. I was so surprised by the Dialang test, I took the Instituto Cervantes placement test https://ave.cervantes.es/prueba_nivel/registro/test_de_clasificacion.php I was placed in B1.4. According to the actual DELE exam I took last year I am B1 in both reading and listening, albeit I was a very low B1. Since my Spanish has improved since taking the DELE, I am more inclined to believe the Cervantes assessment than Dialang.

Dialang seems way off, at least for me.

[Jaleel10]

I have a hard time believing the results I just received on the Dialang exam I took. According to Dianlang I am an A1 or lower in listening and an A2 in reading. I was so surprised by the Dialang test

I got an A1 or lower in the listening portion as well and was too ashamed to post about it Heck, I know my listening comprehension is the worst of my skills but I can still understand the audio of my B1 graded readers fairly easily as well as a fair amount of Spanish youtube videos. Glad to see I am not the only one who feels the tests are a bit... weird?

I took the Instituto Cervantes placement test https://ave.cervantes.es/prueba_nivel/r ... cacion.php I was placed in B1.4

Thanks for this, this test seems pretty comprehensive. Hopefully it will be a better judge of my abilities, not that I should really be caring about stuff like this but it's good to know where and what you still have to improve on.

[Arnaud]

Out of curiosity I've taken the french vocab test (placement 1000)
I'm C1 because I've made only one mistake (answered sûrement instead of probablement, to express a probability: both are correct, imho).
With 29/30 you're C1 and 30/30 you're C2... Ridiculous.

[aaleks]

My Dialang test experience
I think this https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =90#p99325 was my first post about that.
Then these two:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 110#p99732
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 110#p99841
and this:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 30#p100462

In other words, I have my doubts too.

[rpg]

I just took the Spanish listening one on a whim. The whole thing seems a bit rubbish... the text input doesn't seem to be very good (I was marked incorrect for putting "la habitación" instead of "en la habitación" as my answer to a question about where something was, for example). One of the questions had the blank appear before the sentence and I had no idea what I was supposed to put. A couple others where the free response acceptable responses were hopeless too...

[zjones]

I just took the Dialang Listening test for French. I'm fairly tired, and yet scored way higher than I thought I would I should have. They put me at C1, which is ridiculous. I am certainly B1 in listening, quite possibly nosing my way into B2, but not C1. Not only was the result way too generous, but the listening test seemed way too easy. I was certain that they were going to increase the difficulty of the audio clips, but throughout the test everything was crystal clear and very obvious.

Apparently if I had gotten 2 more answers right, they would have pegged me as C2.

I have not finished the writing test, but I haven't been impressed by what I've seen. There is not enough instruction. What is the difference between a grammatical error and a vocabulary error? I can tell where the writing errors are, but for some reason I can't always make a distinction between the two types of errors. Maybe it's just me.

I'm curious to see what the reading test is like.

EDIT: I should add that the French listening test does not require any writing. It's a multiple choice test. I'm not sure if Dialang has changed their tests recently or if the French one has always been multiple-choice whereas the Spanish one requires typed input.

[Adrianslont]

I just took the Dialang Listening test for French. I'm fairly tired, and yet scored way higher than I thought I would I should have. They put me at C1, which is ridiculous. I am certainly B1 in listening, quite possibly nosing my way into B2, but not C1. Not only was the result way too generous, but the listening test seemed way too easy. I was certain that they were going to increase the difficulty of the audio clips, but throughout the test everything was crystal clear and very obvious.

Apparently if I had gotten 2 more answers right, they would have pegged me as C2.

I have not finished the writing test, but I haven't been impressed by what I've seen. There is not enough instruction. What is the difference between a grammatical error and a vocabulary error? I can tell where the writing errors are, but for some reason I can't always make a distinction between the two types of errors. Maybe it's just me.

I'm curious to see what the reading test is like.

EDIT: I should add that the French listening test does not require any writing. It's a multiple choice test. I'm not sure if Dialang has changed their tests recently or if the French one has always been multiple-choice whereas the Spanish one requires typed input.

I did the Dialang listening and reading tests early in 2018 and was also rated C1 in listening and B2 in reading. No way. More like B1 for both I would have said.

Still, a little flattery is good for the ego.

From memory the tests were MCQ.

[Lianne]

I'm doing the French Dialang tests right now (did listening and writing last night and reading this morning; still have two more tests to go but they're exhausting!). My experience has been similar to zjones' in that it seemed overly generous.

I did a test a couple years ago with Alliance Francaise and they put me at A2. I'm sure I've progressed some since then, but I'd hesitate to even call myself a B1. My reading is WAY better than my other skills, because my passive understanding is much better than my active abilities, and my listening is rough because of a number of factors.

I got B1 on both listening and writing, and was thrilled, though I suspect the writing one is so high because it's multiple choice, rather than actually have to generate language myself.

But then just now I got C1 on reading. I wish!! It took me an hour and a half yesterday to get through 5 pages of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel, with a dictionary open the whole time. It's just that in the test I was able to struggle through the texts well enough to answer the multiple choice questions accurately. I only got one wrong!

I'm interested to see what kinda results I'll get for structures and vocabulary...

Edit: I got B1 in Structures, and A2 in Vocabulary. So I guess if I were believing this, it would tell me that I'm more or less B1 across the board, with some gaps in my vocab, and good reading skills!

[David1917]

Even the 'official' A-C level exams aren't indicative of their own descriptions.

Exactly, though they do provide a useful benchmark so long as they are taken with a grain of salt and in isolation (that is, in spite of the aims of the CEFR, not comparing a French B2 with a German B2). I've discussed my own qualms with the exams and especially self-assessment in this thread on CV's as well as other posts. This user took the C2 in Spanish and concluded, as expected, that it tests your ability to take the test, rather than "the language" at large. Of course, trying to test such a thing might be futile and impossible to measure in itself, but that's another story.