The paper reports on trends in language testing taking place over the years and aim at critical perspectives of testing and promoting inclusion, equity and justice. It begins with critical theories by Messick, Foucault and Bourdieu, leading to critical language testing (CLT) which focused on consequences and uses of tests. Given the power of tests…

This review departs from current practice in reviewing tests in that it employs an "argument-based approach" to test validation to guide the review (e.g. Bachman, 2005; Kane, 2006; Mislevy, Steinberg, & Almond, 2002). Specifically, it follows an approach to test development and use that Bachman and Palmer (2010) call the process of "assessment…

The Lau Remedies, federal recommendations to help school districts comply with the law in providing education for non-English-speaking children, raised questions of language assessment and resulted in a variety of language tests. Four years later, an examination of 46 currently available language tests, in the context of commonly accepted notions…

This is an evaluation of the first 2 years of a 5-year comprehensive Bilingual Education grant funded by Title VII Part A of the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 in the Austin Independent School District (AISD) (Texas). The grant awarded to the AISD funds a program of Developmental Bilingual Education at two elementary schools where more…

A new South African testing approach designed to assess potential university students' ability to cope with English-medium academic education is also designed to take into account the effects of educational disadvantagement and minimize reliance on students' content-based secondary school experiences. The approach incorporates principles from…