Placing students of a foreign language within a basic language program constitutes an ongoing problem, particularly for large university departments when they have many incoming freshmen and transfer students. This article outlines the author's experience designing and piloting a language placement test for a university level Spanish program. The…

Describes the academic context in which the "French CAT" was created and trialed and gives a detailed consideration of the test presentation platform and operating algorithms. Finally, the article evaluates the first administration of the test and discusses its reliability and validity as a placement instrument for first-year Australian…

Describes the construction and small-scale implementation of a computer program that can be used on a self-access basis to assess English-as-a-Second-Language listening proficiency. The test involves an extended dictation in dialog form. Results indicate a good correlation with traditional pen-and-paper tests and suggests that the concept has…