Many overseas students in Higher Education in the UK struggle to understand the compulsory texts for their course, and obtain lower scores for their modules than their monolingual peers. While the existence of this achievement gap is well established in the literature, little is known about the ways in which overseas students in HE with limited…

Background: Assessment policies and practices are key to the success of curriculum innovations. Therefore, large-scale ELT innovations always include changes in assessment too. Thinking that Iranian students were not enabled to communicate in English after six years of English education in public schools, educational policy makers have recently…

Although most international students arrive with required language qualifications, many struggle with the linguistic demands of their programmes. This study explored whether the test-preparation industry undermines the qualifications with which students arrive. English proficiency of 153 Chinese student in the UK was tested on the Duolingo English…

At Saudi universities, there was a sudden shift from face-to-face instruction to distance learning and assessment in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. This study explored the status of online exams in language, linguistics, and translation courses in the first two semesters of the Pandemic (Spring 2020 and Fall 2020). Analysis of faculty…

This study investigates the status of grade inflation in language and translation courses in Saudi Arabia. Analysis of the pass rates and percentages of students who obtained Grades A+, A, B+ and B in 70 English language skills and translation college courses, in addition to the English course scores of students in grades 1 to 11 at a private…

Teachers' grading in secondary education has been recognised as a 'hodgepodge' practice that incorporates both cognitive and non-cognitive factors (e.g. effort, participation, and attendance) to determine students' final grades. Consequently, students' grades are perceived to be an inaccurate representation of their academic knowledge. Hodgepodge…

English is the associate official language in India and serves as a unifying force in this multilingual country. The teaching of English in K-12 settings focuses on the skills of reading and writing. Listening and speaking skills are not awarded much time, if any, in most classrooms or test settings; only two Boards of Examinations mandate their…