Describes current procedures used for testing bilingual teachers in the United States and focuses on one means of assessment used in Arizona. Examinee questionnaire responses, teacher questionnaire responses and test section analysis all contributed evidence for validity. (33 references) (Author/CK)

Assessed native Brazilian students' affective reactions to different oral English-as-a-Foreign-Language achievement test formats. A multivariate analysis of variance based on the results of a factor analysis showed no significant difference among student reactions to the different test formats. (Author/CB)

The purpose of this study was to derive the criteria/dimensions underlying learners' second-language oral ability scores across three tests: an oral interview, a narration, and a read-aloud. A stimulus tape of 18 speech samples was presented to 3 native speaker rater groups for evaluation. Results indicate that researchers might need to reconsider…

A total of 102 university English majors were administered 4 different language tests to form a General Language Proficiency measure against which the C-test was evaluated. Results confirmed its reliability and validity and also provided data on text difficulty/appropriateness, word structure, content, and different scoring methods. (13…

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…

Discusses the reliability and validity of different measures of lexical richness in various language data research and computer simulations, and examines the behavior of these measures in spontaneous speech data of first language and second language children learning Dutch, aged 4 to 7, compared with their lexical abilities as measured by tests.…

Addresses the question of whether any test can be defended as ethical or moral. Defines ethicality in terms of issues such as harm, consent, confidentiality of data, and fairness and presents frameworks for determining equity of educational opportunity. An assessment project in Australia is examined in relation to these concerns. (24 references)…

Learner-centred approaches to language teaching, especially those that seek to develop learner autonomy, require the learner to take decisions concerning the goals, content and methods of learning; they also assign a central role to self-assessment. Although the logic of learner-centredness demands that learner self-assessment should somehow be…

Reviews earlier studies of the effect of student background knowledge on reading comprehension and then reports on a third investigation into the same effect. Concludes that the test results obtained in the study can be accounted for in terms of an interaction between background knowledge and linguistic proficiency. (Author/SED)

Examines the beliefs underlying promotion and development of self-directed learning and self-assessment, and the emphasis placed on these beliefs in an English language teaching master's degree program. The problems of tension and conflict between self-assessment and institutional assessment leading to certification, and the advantages and…

Reviews factors influencing reversals of expectations for language-learning outcomes. This article touches on psychological and neurological data regarding individual differences in language-learning mechanisms and focuses on cross-linguistic psycholinguistic analysis that indicates that different target languages offer a wide variety of learning…

Investigated the test-taking processes of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) testees taking a multiple choice listening-comprehension test, evaluating the effectiveness of immediate retrospection for accessing such processes. Linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge was activated in a parallel manner for all subjects with input of various…

In this study, planning time was manipulated as a variable in a trial administration of a semi-direct oral interaction test. Discourse analytic techniques were used to determine the nature and/or significance of difference in the elicited discourse across two conditions in terms of complexity and accuracy. Findings suggest that planning time may…

Discusses a recently developed post-admissions testing battery, for Ontario colleges and universities, that tests students' listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills through integrated texts and tasks that simulate academic language use. The battery yields placement and diagnostic information about students' readiness to undertake academic…

Examined differences between native and nonnative English-as-a-foreign-language teachers' rating of the English writing of Chinese university students. Explored whether two groups of teachers--expatriates who typically speak English as their first language and ethnic Chinese with proficiency in English--gave similar scores to the same writing task…