The purpose of this paper is to (a) establish whether meaning recall and meaning recognition item formats test psychometrically distinct constructs of vocabulary knowledge which measure separate skills, and, if so, (b) determine whether each construct possesses unique properties predictive of L2 reading proficiency. Factor analyses and…

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the university admissions and proficiency testing landscape. One change has been the meteoric rise in use of the fully automated Duolingo English Test (DET) for university entrance purposes, offering test-takers a cheaper, shorter, accessible alternative. This rapid response study is the first to investigate the…

Word frequency has a long history of being considered the most important predictor of word difficulty and has served as a guideline for several aspects of second language vocabulary teaching, learning, and assessment. However, recent empirical research has challenged the supremacy of frequency as a predictor of word difficulty. Accordingly,…

This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis-grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and…

Test-taker characteristics (TTCs), or individual difference variables, are known to be a systematic source of variance in language test performance. Although previous research has documented the impact of a range of TTCs on second language (L2) learners' test performance, few of these studies have involved young learners. Given that young L2…

The present study intended to investigate whether test takers' breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge can contribute to their efficient use of lexical bonds while restoring damaged texts in reduced redundancy tests. Moreover, the moderating role of general language proficiency was investigated in this interaction. In so doing, Vocabulary Levels…

This study examines how foreign language anxiety (FLA) and proficiency relate to second language (L2) utterance fluency during a final oral exam. Thirty-eight learners of Spanish (L1 English) completed unplanned narratives that were coded for ratio and length of pauses between and within Analysis of Speech Units, mean length of run, phonation-time…

As a result of the fact that judgments of non-native speech are closely tied to social biases, oral proficiency ratings are susceptible to error because of rater background and social attitudes. In the present study we seek first to estimate the variance attributable to rater background and attitudinal variables on novice raters' assessments of L2…

Placement and screening tests serve important functions, not only with regard to placing learners at appropriate levels of language courses but also with a view to maximizing the effectiveness of administering test batteries. We examined two widely reported formats suitable for these purposes, the discrete decontextualized Yes/No vocabulary test…

Oral fluency and foreign accent distinguish L2 from L1 speech production. In language testing practices, both fluency and accent are usually assessed by raters. This study investigates what exactly native raters of fluency and accent take into account when judging L2. Our aim is to explore the relationship between objectively measured temporal,…

This study explores how second language (L2) texts written by learners at various proficiency levels can be classified using computational indices that characterize lexical competence. For this study, 100 writing samples taken from 100 L2 learners were analyzed using lexical indices reported by the computational tool Coh-Metrix. The L2 writing…

SRI International's EduSpeak[R] system is a software development toolkit that enables developers of interactive language education software to use state-of-the-art speech recognition and pronunciation scoring technology. Automatic pronunciation scoring allows the computer to provide feedback on the overall quality of pronunciation and to point to…

Presents the theory of general language proficiency and looks at the construct validation of cloze tests and C-tests. Describes the defects of classical cloze procedures. Gives an example of the C-Test and discusses its empirical validity. Concludes that C-tests are authentic tests of the construct of general language proficiency.