This article details the challenges and best practices of evaluating second language learners for placement into postsecondary Spanish language courses. The literature on testing for placement purposes in second language acquisition and language testing provides a great deal of insight, but language programs must make many decisions as well that…

Foreign language aptitude is defined as one's potential to learn a second language. A language learner with higher aptitude is predicted to learn more, faster, and reach a higher level of proficiency. If this is the case, one way to validate the construct of aptitude and its measure is to conduct a validation study in which measures of aptitude is…

In response to the need for examples of test validation from which everyday language programs can benefit, this paper reports on a study that used Bachman's (2005) assessment use argument (AUA) framework to examine evidence to support claims made about the intended interpretations and uses of scores based on a new web-based Spanish language…

Implicit and explicit knowledge of the second language (L2) are two central constructs in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in obtaining valid and reliable measures of L2 learners' implicit and explicit knowledge (e.g., Bowles, 2011; R. Ellis, 2005). The purpose of the present study…

Research Findings: This study examined the measurement equivalence of the "Teaching Strategies GOLD[R]" assessment system across subgroups of children based on their primary language and disability status. This study is based on teacher-collected assessment data for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children for the fall of 2010, winter of 2010, and spring…

This study examined the second language (L2) development of adult learners of Spanish at three levels of proficiency during and after a semester of instruction. A fundamental goal was to identify cognitive and psychosocial individual differences (IDs) that can explain between-learner variation over time in order to expand our understanding of the…

In a comparison study, the receptive portion of the Screening Test of Spanish Grammar and the Spanish version of the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language were administered to 20 Spanish-speaking Mexican American children (4 to 6-years-old). (Author/IM)

The validity of the Fundacion MacArthur Inventaria de Habilidades Communicativas: Palabras y Enuciados was examined with twenty 20- and nineteen 28-month-old, typically developing, monolingual, Spanish-speaking children in Mexico. Results indicated validity for assessing expressive vocabulary in 20-month-olds and expressive vocabulary and grammar…

The Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool was compared to an author-developed structured task activity in determining the grammatical ability of 20 Spanish-speaking preschoolers. The structured task activity was a better means for obtaining information concerning the preschoolers' productive knowledge of grammatical forms. (CR)

This study represents several years' work on devising tests to measure children's relative proficiency in two languages or speech varieties. A preliminary oral proficiency test in English and Spanish was administered to 45 bilingual students, of whom 41 took both versions. On the basis of difficulty and significant tendencies, 32 items were…

A study evaluated the overall evaluative validity of the Four Skills Exam, a Spanish language proficiency test designed to ensure that bilingual education teachers in New Mexico can meet Spanish language demands in the bilingual education classroom. The test's construct validity was limited for several reasons. In designing a test capturing…