Test de Connaissance du Français (TCF), a French knowledge test for any non-native speakers of French, is an official language exam for the certificate of proficiency in French designed by France Éducation international (FIE) and accredited by le Ministère Français de l'Éducation Nationale, de la Jeunesse et des Sports (French Ministry of National…

Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) as a secondary school subject is affected by two policies, namely the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) and Progress 8, which contribute to the measurement of performance in exams at age 16 (GCSEs). In this paper, I discuss the concept of performance measurement in schools and the purpose it purportedly serves, before…

Grammatical and lexical cohesion are necessary conditions to guarantee a text's coherence (Halliday and Hasan 1976). Grammatical cohesion is classified into four types of relation: reference, conjunction, substitution, and ellipsis. This study aims to investigate the use of the cohesive device of reference in written discourse produced by…

Due to the spread of applying standardized national examinations in addition to the normal centralized formal exams in English language teaching, EFL teachers have been urged to reshape their teaching pedagogies to respond to the demands and competencies which EFL students are required to fulfil in these exams. This study sheds light on this…

In the test-centric Thai education system, results on national exams are often viewed as indicators of educational success. These exams use multiple-choice which can have detrimental effects on students' attitudes and learning. If school assessments also rely on multiple-choice exams, the situation would be worrying, yet there is little data…

The study aims to investigate washback of the English National Exam (ENE) on learning and how they impacted English language learning strategies of first-year English majors at University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Danang (UFLS, UD). Data was collected from a questionnaire administered to 120 first-year English majors and an…

This study was designed to firstly develop a corpus of Indonesia's junior high school (JHS) and senior high school (SHS) English textbooks (TB) and national examination (NE) texts. By means of corpus analysis, this study then attempted (1) to find out the vocabulary levels (i.e. distribution among the K1-K20, where K refers to 1000-word band in…

Each year the National Reference Test (NRT) reports the proportions of students achieving at or above three key GCSE grades in English and mathematics. The NRT is therefore uniquely placed as a Key Stage 4 assessment which compares performance directly at ability level, to contribute to the evidence on the impact of disruption to education due to…

This action research was conducted to help students develop their vocabulary skills through parent-teacher collaboration and to help parents and teachers understand that collaboration is an important aspect that warrants enough attention. Thus, few studies have focused on parent-teacher collaboration to help students develop their vocabulary…

This paper aims to report a case study of exploring the effect of "assessment for learning" on improving student learning and facilitating teachers' professional development in the examination-oriented context of Hong Kong. By adopting Variation Theory of the Lesson Study approach, data were collected through pre- and post-tests,…

The present paper looks at the issue of standardization in L2 oral testing. Whereas external examiners are frequently used globally, some countries opt for test-takers' own teachers as examiners instead. In the present study, Sweden is used as a case in point, with a focus on the mandatory, high-stakes, summative, ninth-grade national test in…

This research investigated a comparison between the effect of cooperative learning and lecture teaching on Comprehensive English classes in a Chinese Independent College. An empirical study for two semesters was carried out in the forms of pretest, posttest, questionnaire and interviews. While control class was taught in the conventional way,…

This study aims to present the validation of a test designed to assess young learners' general L2 English vocabulary knowledge, the Young Learner Vocabulary Assessment Test (YLVAT). YLVAT consists of 37 items selected from the K1-2 frequency levels of the Productive and Vocabulary Levels Tests. In the study, Swedish learners (N = 52, age 12) took…

The main objective of this report is to provide a clear understanding of the current national testing regimes for languages in European countries. National tests are defined as standardised tests/examinations set by central/top level public authorities and carried out under their responsibility. All languages are considered except the languages of…

This study focuses, from a bilingual perspective, on how a Swedish national test is intended to promote critical literacy and language development in line with related aims in syllabuses for Swedish and Swedish as a second language. The material consists of reading and writing assignments and prescribed classroom preparations (including…