The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), requires state education agencies to establish and implement standardized, statewide entrance and exit procedures for English learners (ELs). WIDA provides the English language proficiency placement and annual assessments administered in…

Scholars have long recognized the Washback effect of English language tests on English teaching inside the classroom. However, the lack of scholarly reports in this area is also nonnegligible. Therefore, the present study intends to review some empirical researches that focus on the washback of some English language tests on different aspects of…

This article introduces the use of public exam questions in fishbowl debate to engage highly exam-oriented secondary students with communicative language teaching (CLT). The practice aims to address the issue that many teachers of English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) in Asian contexts either teach to the test or…

Whereas the Interagency Language Roundtable Language Skill Level Descriptions broke new ground for assessing proficiency in foreign languages, the need for user-oriented (rather than assessment-oriented) proficiency scales has led, especially in Europe, to the creation of scales consisting of positively formulated "can-do" statements,…

This article summarizes some of the technical issues that add to the complexity of language testing. It focuses in particular on the criterion-referenced nature of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines-Speaking; and it proposes a criterion-referenced interpretation of the ACTFL guidelines for reading and listening. It then demonstrates how using…

In this interview, JD Brown reflects on language testing/assessment. He suggests that language testing can be seen as a continuum with hard core positivist approaches at one end and post modernist interpretive perspectives at the other, and also argues that norm referencing (be it proficiency, placement, or aptitude testing) and criterion…

Discusses the results of a workshop examining the application of American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages proficiency testing to African languages, focusing on the possibility of an alternative testing procedure for those languages for which certified testers are not available and the potentials and problems of a team assessment…

Oral tests for speaking skills evaluate two major skills: linguistic competence, including accuracy of pronunciation, vocabulary, and structure, and communication ease. Four factors affect students' oral performance: verbal intelligence, short-term auditory and visual memory, sound-symbol association skill, and grammatical analysis. Personality…

Describes relationship between curriculum and learner evaluation in Jordan of English language teaching. Claims Oxford Secondary English Course for Jordan tests are defective, speaking is ignored in tests, reading comprehension is neglected and tests are exclusively discrete-point tests. Suggests use of cloze tests and translation. (BK)

Three arguments are generally advanced about why language testing is not more familiar to teachers. The arguments are that the material on testing is not readily available or relevant to teaching, that it is out of date, and that it is not taught in teacher training or in-service training. A review of research led to inconclusive evidence on the…

Communicative oral language tests have claimed high content validity, but have also elicited concern that the assessment scales are based on theory with little empirical justification. A new approach to construct validity can be found in discourse analysis, which could lead to the development of new communicative discourse tests in all skills. (CB)

The report describes a federally funded study of the application of language proficiency concepts, developed for commonly taught languages, to less commonly taught languages. It summarizes the project's background and origins and the activities of the project, including four separate studies on the feasibility of proficiency-based instruction and…

Materials are presented from a workshop designed to provide an opportunity for bilingual education researchers and practitioners to share knowledge, experiences, and concerns related to assessing language proficiency. The sessions included: (1) "Formal and Informal Evaluation of Oral English Language Skills," by William Russell; (2) "Assessing…

A survey of 182 educational programs for hearing-impaired children and youth identified those test instruments most widely used to assess language at infant, preschool, primary, and secondary levels. Also analyzed were communication modes and manual systems used in testing, difficulties encountered in assessing hearing-impaired children, and…

Examines various forms of pure skills and skills combination laboratory testing developed at the Geddes Language Center (GLC) of Boston University during the past 10 years. Discusses suggestions for refinements and basic testing principles for each format, based on an evaluation of oral/aural exams on file at GLC. (MES)