A significant number of students experience anxiety when asked to speak in English. This unease, often rooted in factors such as shyness, lack of confidence, uncertainty, and a lack of motivation, can hinder their active participation during English oral exams. One of the most important goals that every English language teacher should strive to…

The German school system employs centrally organized performance assessments (some of which are called "VERA") as a way of promoting lesson development. In recent years, several German federal states introduced a computer-based performance testing system which will replace the paper-pencil testing system in the future. Scores from…

Background: Current UK measures of early spoken language comprehension require manipulation of toys and/or verbal responses and are not accessible to children with severe motor impairments. The Computer-Based Instrument for Low motor Language Testing (C-BiLLT) (originally validated in Dutch) is a computerized test of spoken language comprehension…

The "purpose" of the study is to identify how the speech production component of the linguistic competence, which seems to be a deficiency of using the Moodle LMS in the language training, can be enhanced through the use of the voice-administered language tests. Ten Moodle-based voice-administered language tests were designed, piloted,…

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic largely disrupted the continuity of educational delivery. Online learning was the prompt response by educators. However, this comes with a big question on the conduct of assessment. Running examinations traditionally is vulnerable to high security risks and administration costs. A precise mechanism to…

This study aimed to examine the impacts of computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) and rater-mediated assessment on the test anxiety, writing performance, and oral proficiency of Iranian EFL learners. Based on Preliminary English Test (PET) results, a sample of 64 intermediate participants was chosen from 93 students. Running a convenience sampling…

The introduction of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT) into the second language (L2) domain provides a potential site to explore the mechanisms underlying L2 learners' cognitive modification and the transformation of social understanding into the personal one. This study provided a picture of L2 personalization in two groups of advanced and…

This article reports on an experimental study on the acquisition of prepositional relative clauses in second language European Portuguese by Chinese native speakers. It focuses on the role of resumption, mandatory in prepositional relative clauses in Chinese (the native language of the learners) and non-conventional in European Portuguese (the…

This study attempts to explain a systematic phenomenon that has been described in interlanguage grammars crosslinguistically: Null-Prep, which consists of omitting the obligatory preposition in certain movement constructions. We propose that Null-Prep is not related to lack of knowledge of "wh"-movement, as previously assumed, but to…

As a result of the Japanese Ministry of Education's recent edict that students' written and spoken English should be assessed in university entrance exams, there is an urgent need for tools to help teachers and students prepare for these exams. Although some commercial tools already exist, they are generally expensive and inflexible. To address…

Assessment is a central feature of teaching and learning. It is both complex and challenging in ordinary times, and these aspects are magnified in an online learning environment. Given its central role, it is crucial that its design and purpose is rigorous and robust. This paper presents justification for using interactive oral assessment as an…

Acquiring complex oral presentation skills is cognitively demanding for students and demands intensive teacher guidance. The aim of this study was twofold: (a) to identify and apply design guidelines in developing an effective formative assessment method for oral presentation skills during classroom practice, and (b) to develop and compare two…

This study is about the development and validation process of the Computerized Oral Proficiency Test of English as a Foreign Language (COPTEFL). The test aims at assessing the speaking proficiency levels of students in Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages (AUSFL). For this purpose, three monologic tasks were developed based on the Global…

The effects of question or task complexity on second language speaking have traditionally been investigated using complexity, accuracy, and fluency measures. Response processes in speaking tests, however, may manifest in other ways, such as through nonverbal behavior. Eye behavior, in the form of averted gaze or blinking frequency, has been found…

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…