This paper reports on the process of developing an original framework for conceptualising and measuring language learner well-being within the context of heritage language (HL) learning. Drawing on a quantitative validation study with 545 young Chinese heritage language (CHL) learners, aged 7-18, in the UK, this paper presents an empirically…

"Tests of Aptitude for Language Learning" (TALL) is an openly accessible internet-based battery to measure the multifaceted construct of foreign language aptitude, using language domain-specific instruments and L1-sensitive instructions and stimuli. This brief report introduces the components of this theory-informed battery and…

The paper presents the first comprehensive look at the language development of Romani-speaking children from resource-poor Roma communities in several European countries. 250 participants aged 3- to 10-years participated. The experimental tasks assess knowledge in eight key areas of grammar and morphology, including fast mapping of novel items.…

The literature of empirical studies on the concordance-based cloze test (ConCloze) is far and few between. This is despite the fact that it has a potential for item writing without the aid of native speakers and for making use of corpus-based technology in task design. This article explores the test-taking processes and strategies of a ConCloze…

The field of multilingual testing and assessment has grown rapidly in recent years due to the widespread need to integrate immigrant populations into mainstream education and to provide fair and equitable forms of assessment for all students. However, a continuing emphasis on bilingual students has created a significant gap in testing and…

Recently, research in second language acquisition has seen an increased attention on low-educated low-literate (LESLLA) learners. However, few of the existing instruments to measure L2 proficiency have been validated for use with this population. In this paper, we examine how adult L2 learners with diverging educational backgrounds perform on and…

The rise in Spanish heritage language and Spanish native speaker (SHL/SNS) learners in language programs traditionally designed for second language (L2) learners has prompted an interest in the development of a more inclusive placement exam for diverse learners. Some practitioners opt for an instrument that compiles a comprehensive profile of the…

This paper will deal, firstly, with the South African context, that cries out for attention to responsible language assessment. The renewed interest in language testing in South Africa is well illustrated in assessments of language ability for educational purposes generally, and more specifically in the assessment of academic literacy. Secondly,…

Multilingualism in education is encouraged in South Africa, and children are expected to become bilingual and biliterate during the early primary grades. Much focus has been placed on measuring literacy in children's first language, often the medium of instruction (MOI), and English, the language typically used as MOI from fourth grade. However,…

Writing in a foreign language is a particularly difficult skill to develop, especially when young learners are concerned because they are parallelly learning to write in their L1 and do not have strong oral foundations in their L2. The issue becomes even more complex when the ways to assess young learners' writing are considered, given that…

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are particularly sensitive to phonological complexity in their language. Their performance drops when there are specific phonological structures or when complexity increases. A nonword repetition (NWR) test, which aims to assess the phonology of bilingual speakers with and without SLI, should…

With a growing population of heritage language speakers in the United States and an increasing enrollment of heritage language learners (HLLs) in language classrooms (Beaudrie & Ducar, 2012; Carreira & Kagan, 2011), heritage language (HL) education has become a special concern within the language acquisition research community. Although…

The present study examined the effect of L1 domain-relevant knowledge on L2 reading comprehension texts among student teachers of ELT (N = 90), drawn from a population of 270 student teachers studying at an undergraduate program in some state universities in Iran. A proficiency test was applied to control language proficiency of students. Among…

Testing Spanish speakers presents certain challenges common to all testing circumstances involving test takers whose first language is not English. In addition, some unique challenges arise because there are many subpopulations of Spanish speakers both inside and outside of the United States. Spanish as spoken in Spain differs from that spoken in…

While it is a well-known fact that speakers of article-less mother tongues, such as Polish, experience problems with articles in English, this study seeks to investigate the problem from a different perspective. Namely, it poses the question of whether the correct use of the article system of the L2 is indeed a purely grammatical task (as it is…