Investigation of correlations between students’ knowledge of English and its practical application by using language tests and the machine learning approach

Since technology and online education allow access to information from various sources more easily than ever, students may compensate for a potential lack of knowledge by making a quick reference to relevant sites. However, the most significant question not only for learners but also for their prospective employers is whether they can use their foreign language knowledge in practice – to communicate effectively with other people, representatives of their own or a different culture, express their personal opinion without hurting other people's feelings, write fluently in an appropriate style, etc. Hence, this article aims to look for correlations between students’ results on closed test items, which show learners’ lexical and grammatical knowledge of the foreign language, and their scores on open-ended test questions that require exhibiting practical language skills. For this purpose, we have analyzed the results of 130 students on two language tests – a placement test and a test based on authentic literary sources. In conclusion, we can predict with 86% certainty how well a student who does well on closed questions will do on open ones. The students’ motivation to do the practice test (whether they like the test subject matter, their opinion on the test as a whole, the number and variety of test questions, and the difficulty level of the test) is even more significant than their language knowledge, skills, and competences.