Research utilizing morphological priming has found that L2 speakers show facilitation from derived L2 primes, which could suggest morphological processing during derived L2 word recognition. However, the process of L2 derived word recognition is still poorly understood, with some arguing that the observed priming effects may not be morphological…

Accurate placement within levels of an ESL program is crucial for optimal teaching and learning. Commercially available tests are commonly used for placement, but their effectiveness has been found to vary. This study uses data from the Ohio Program of Intensive English (OPIE) at Ohio University to examine the value of two commercially available…

English learner (EL) children (i.e., children learning English as a second language) constitute one of the fastest growing, yet disproportionately underachieving, segments of the U.S. public-school population. A main difficulty that ELs face at school is learning English and content-area knowledge in tandem. Low levels of English proficiency may…

The factors that influence rater scoring have been a subject of great interest to researchers in second language assessment. However, the research on the impact of test-takers' speech profiles (e.g., a jagged or a flat profile reflecting analytic subscores) on raters' scoring behaviors remains to be seen. To investigate the role of speech profiles…

Second-language (L2) testing researchers have explored the relationship between speakers' overall speaking ability, reflected by holistic scores, and the speakers' performance on speaking subcomponents, reflected by analytic scores (e.g., McNamara, 1990; Sato, 2011). These research studies have advanced applied linguists' understanding of how…

Although bilingual individuals know 2 languages, research suggests that the languages are not separate in the mind. This is especially evident when a bilingual individual switches languages midsentence, indicating that mental representations are, to some degree, overlapping or integrated across the 2 languages. In 2 eye-tracking experiments, we…

This article reports the findings of a study in which we investigated the possible effects of word order on the acquisition of case marking. In linguistic typology (e.g. Greenberg, 1963) a very strong correlation has been shown between dominant SOV (subject object verb) word order and case marking. No such correlation exists for SVO (subject verb…

The testing and teaching of listening has been partially guided by the notion of subskills, or a set of listening abilities that are needed for achieving successful comprehension and utilization of the information from listening texts. Although this notion came about mainly through applications of theoretical perspectives from psychology and…

This paper is a study of a method for teaching German gender and plural assignment developed by the late Donald Steinmetz. My primary source for classroom material was the unpublished handbook for students that Steinmetz co-authored with Donald Nelson, The Joy of Gender: A Student Handbook made available to me by his son, Erik Steinmetz. In the…

The 33rd Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC), held in June 2011 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, included a conference symposium on the topic of "assessment literacy." This event brought together a group of four presenters from different parts of the world, each of whom reported on their recent research in this area. Presentations were…

In 2016, Dr. Martin Reinhardt and Dr. Jioanna Carjuzaa produced a series of three webinars concerning Indigenous language immersion programs. The first webinar focused on broad curriculum development ideas including core relationships, guidelines and principles for effective pedagogy, and models. The second webinar focused on the elements of…

Automated scoring has the potential to dramatically reduce the time and costs associated with the assessment of complex skills such as writing, but its use must be validated against a variety of criteria for it to be accepted by test users and stakeholders. This study addresses two validity-related issues regarding the use of e-rater® with the…

This study is to investigate whether self-assessment contains construct-irrelevant variances of gender and age, and whether self-assessment correlates with test scores. The data were collected from seventy-eight newly arrived international students at the English Language Center, Michigan State University, USA. Prior to class commencement, they…

Articles in the three Volume 5 issues of the National Network for Early Language Learning newsletter include: "Young Authors--A Double Success" (Carolyn Andrade); "Teacher Preparation for Elementary School Foreign Language Programs" (Carol Ann Pesola); "Strategies in a Small School Setting: The Filley FLES Program"…