The increasing influence of sociocultural theories of learning on assessment practices in second language education necessitates an expansion of the knowledge base that teacher-assessors need to develop (what teachers need to know) and related changes in the processes of language teacher education (how they learn and develop it). Teacher assessors…

Compares Japanese women's (N=159) reading comprehension of two original passages in English written for second-language consumers. Results supported the hypothesis that minor changes for unfamiliar cultural elements would result in a significantly better performance on cloze tests. (Author/CB)

Investigates how schemata activated by culturally familiar words might have influenced students' cloze test-taking processes. Subjects were Japanese English-as-a-foreign-language students. Results demonstrate that students who read culturally familiar cloze texts tried to solve more items and generally understood the text better, which resulted in…

Discusses the role of assessment in determining whether the investment in an early start in a foreign language has been worthwhile, suggesting that it is important for reasons, such as feedback to parents and the public, informing national policy development, and school self evaluation. Describes an independent evaluation of modern languages in…