This article begins by situating modern-day second language acquisition (SLA) research in a historical context, tracing its evolution from cognitive to social to sociocognitive accounts. Next, the influence of the zeitgeist is considered. In this era of rapid change and turmoil, there are both perils and opportunities afforded by globalization. In…

In vocabulary research there has been a shift from focusing on single words to considering multiword sequences, such as collocations. Despite the general consensus among language researchers that collocation is essential to effective language use in real-world communication, particularly oral communication, language-testing researchers have made…

Looking back to the language testing world of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, we need to be aware that how we perceive or remember ourselves to have been then--whether as individual language testing academics or as corporate language testing organisations--will be shaped by multiple influences. Although we may have been present at and shared in…

This article reviews recent studies on English language teaching (ELT) in South Korea, where a great deal of research has been produced in recent years in local journals. In this article we review 95 studies from a pool of some 1,200 published between 2009 and 2014 on English language teaching and learning, focusing on research within the public…

This study investigates how figurative language is processed by learners of a second language (L2). With an experiment testing L2 comprehension of figurative expressions in three categories, each combining shared and unshared first language (L1) and L2 lexical representations and conceptual representations in a different way, the study…

Lyle F. Bachman is Professor, Department of Applied Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles. He is a past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and of the International Language Testing Association. He has published numerous articles and books in the areas of language testing, program evaluation, and second…

The Guidelines for Good Practice of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA) stress the importance of collaboration between all parties involved in the process of developing instruments, activities and programmes for testing and assessment. Collaboration is considered to be as important as validity and reliability,…

The findings obtained from previous research indicate that test anxiety has significant effects on the foreign language learning process. Thus, this paper aims to present a synthesis of research results on the "sources" and "effects" of test anxiety among foreign language learners. The results of the studies reviewed in the…

Argues from the premise that a language test is a special case of a second language acquisition (SLA) elicitation device and suggests that SLA and language testing share much common ground in terms of research methods, which have similar properties in that they are both used to make systematic observations of language performances from which…

Reports findings from a study in two stages to trial tests of vocabulary size in English as an additional language. The first stage trialled the Levels test and the Yes/No test. In the second, the Levels test was used with students aged 13 and 14 years. Results of the tests show a different profile of scores for EAL than occur in typical…

This paper contrasts two traditions, one originally seeking applications for theory, the other looking for solutions to problems in foreign language teaching, and finds both valuable. Five applied linguistics topics--curriculum, discourse analysis, systemic linguistics, testing, and second language acquisition--are briefly discussed within this…

Currently accepted principles of communicative approaches to second language pedagogy are examined to determine the extent to which they are grounded in theories of language, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and other language-related disciplines. The discussion of communicative approaches distinguishes the notions of communicative competence…

Recent research into the use of articulatory movements by the deaf has revealed the significance of this visual input, but research into the speech perception of the blind has demonstrated the significance of its loss. The implications of these findings for teaching and testing foreign language listening skills are considered. (Author/JL)

An outline is provided of the contents and boundaries of three areas of competence, or systems of knowledge, that are to be minimally included in a theory of communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Grammatical competence is concerned with the rules of sentence grammar and sentence…

Explores recent developments in the use of computers in language testing in four areas: (1) item banking; (2) computer-assisted language testing; (3) computerized-adaptive language testing; and (4) research on the effectiveness of computers in language testing. Examines educational measurement literature in an attempt to forecast the directions…