Language assessment is a central aspect not only of language education in the general population, but also amongst heterogeneous, low-incidence populations. One such population are immigrant deaf and hard-of-hearing learners (IDML) who are bimodal-multilingual and whose languages development often includes the spoken, written, and/or signed…

This volume presents state-of-the-art research in early foreign language (L2) education in instructed contexts with a special focus on primary school (ages 5-12). Over the past two decades, early language teaching has become an important factor in both academic inquiry and education policy. Studies have attested to the value of early L2 learning…

This book innovatively connects the two fields of oracy and practice-oriented empirical research in English language education. It creates synergies and proposes innovative approaches to the study of oracy in the context of learning and teaching English as a second, additional or foreign language. The book also develops a contemporary and holistic…

In web surveys, no interviewer is present to clarify question comprehension problems, which can be particularly prevalent among respondents with low literacy skills. Although plain language is used in various contexts to improve text comprehensibility, its use in social science questionnaires has not been investigated to date. Using a…

This chapter examines whether commonality can be found across different institutions' approaches to assessment in language teacher education, and whether elements of individuality in these unique settings can be incorporated into a common framework, which can then be used as a model to be adapted to suit each partner's needs and requirements.…

The focus of this research is the practicalities of adjustment to a semester of teaching language wholly online in the current COVID-19 pandemic at a German university. Such a study is important in order to illustrate the ways in which language instructors who were already proficient in teaching online were able to marshal existing resources and…

For newly arrived students who are d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH), language acquisition is particularly complex. The spectrum of initial language situations ranges from no first language to multilingual acquisition contexts. In Germany, there are currently no studies that focus on the education of these learners. This prompted an interview study…

Purpose: From a psycholinguistic perspective, the quality of the stored word form in the phonological input lexicon, as well as its effective retrieval from the phonological output lexicon, is of great importance in lexical processing. This study aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of (a)typical word form processing in primary school children.…

The German school system employs centrally organized performance assessments (some of which are called "VERA") as a way of promoting lesson development. In recent years, several German federal states introduced a computer-based performance testing system which will replace the paper-pencil testing system in the future. Scores from…

Language teaching centres have been tasked predominantly with ensuring that prospective and enrolled students are able to fulfil established language criteria required for both domestic and international study programmes. It is less common, however, that language centres are responsible for ensuring the language and communicative skills of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe evidenced-based assessment practices for school-age children with any severity of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that could inform the practice of speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Method: A scoping review of the literature was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic…

This paper contains a collaborative video-based approach to foster prospective teachers' diagnostic skills with respect to pupils' L2 reading processes. Together with a peer, the prospective teachers watched, systematically selected, analysed and commented on clips from a comprehensive video corpus on L2 reading strategies. In order to assist the…

For this study we examined collaborative assessment in counseling 820 German students who were going abroad and who were exposed to the Test to Measure Intercultural Competence (TMIC). A randomized pretest-posttest control group design was used. The control group did not get any test feedback. The remaining groups received written feedback or…

This article explores ways in which learners' achievements can be assessed and reflected in both the domains of linguistic performance and subject-content learning. The content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach adopted by the authors is one in which language learning and content learning are truly integrated and where neither…

Pretend play may be beneficial for young children's social development. However, empirical results to date are inconsistent and limited, which is partly due to a lack of psychometrically sound measures for children's social pretend play competence. The current study aimed to compare and validate different assessment methods for children's social…