Despite scholars' advocacy of intelligibility over nativelikeness in the EFL education context, many learners still seem to favour standard British and American accents. However, comparisons across studies have shown some changes in learners' perceptions, suggesting a move away from standard accent orientation. This article reports part of a…

Testing practices and the construct of English both serve separately and interactionally to promote activities of modernity and coloniality. Tests categorize and rank learning and knowledge in discrete, static ways. The construct of the English language through standardization and other processes upholds linguistic purism ideologies. Such concerns…

This article reports on the development of the literary portfolio as an alternative to standard written tests in summative assessment of literary competences in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. It is argued that traditional class tests put a too narrow focus on those aspects of literary competences that are more readily…

EFL teachers' beliefs, a constituent of teacher cognition, influence their instructional practices. In vocabulary teaching, the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices has not been much studied so far, so further research in a variety of geographical and educational contexts is necessary to compare findings and observe both…

This study examines the potential of educational media to provide preschool-aged dual language learners (DLLs) with vocabulary in a new language. Drawing from dual-coding theory, the current study investigated how three distinct instructional contexts with varying degrees of incidental-intentional vocabulary exposure on screen might facilitate…

Spanish-English bilingual learners are the fastest growing demographic in U.S. elementary schools. Yet many schools, particularly those in new immigration destination regions, continue to measure bilingual students' vocabulary using monolingual norms. This inequitable practice makes it appear as if bilingual learners have lower language abilities…

Whereas previous research revealed the interactional variability occurring in oral assessments, demonstrating how it could undermine test validity (e.g., A. Brown, 2003), little has been published regarding how language programs can mine and analyze video recordings of in-house oral placement tests for validation purposes. Addressing this need,…

Teachers are faced with the demand to teach their students to be competent individuals in the 21st century so that they are prepared for any challenges they may face in their lives. To meet this need, many educators have identified creativity as a necessary competence of the 21st century. To this end, integrating SMART (Self-directed, Motivated,…

This article describes how a course based on the concept of English for specific academic purposes (ESAP) was transformed into content and language integrated learning (CLIL) at a trilingual university where English serves as a lingua franca and medium of instruction, due to the application of a task-based communicative approach. The article…

For nonnative English speakers, taking a standardized English proficiency test seems inevitable, because the scores achieved play an important role in such life events as admission to a school, gaining a scholarship, or securing a job. Considering their importance, it is imperative that such tests be not only valid and reliable, but also fair.…

The article describes the agentive development of a group of first-year Japanese university students. They first individually wrote their language learning histories to grasp what they had been through in their junior and senior high school English education. They then analyzed the histories in small groups, discussing what motivated and…

Developing assessments within a program can create more useful measures of our students' language. This includes rating scales used in performance assessments such as writing or speaking tests. This article describes the process of development, use, and revision of a writing placement scale by teachers in an intensive English language program. To…

Examines ways to involve language students in the test-making process. Discusses student-generated test items, test goals, outdoor paired vocabulary testing, interactive grading, and peer testing. Argues that student learning is more important than test scores. (nine references) (MDM)