This booklet describes the test used by the federal government to determine oral proficiency in a foreign language. The test is essentially an oral interview, conducted by two testers, and lasting from 15 to 30 minutes, although the format can vary. Proficiency levels range from 0 (for no practical speaking proficiency) to 5 (for speaking…

This specialized bibliography provides a widely representative selection of materials on testing foreign language skills. It is divided into two sections. The first covers articles that have appeared in periodicals over the past two years and includes abstracts of each. These have been reprinted from volumes 1 through 9 of "Language Teaching and…

Five papers on testing in English as a second language are included in this volume. "A Preliminary Diagnostic Test for Adult Immigrants" by Johan I. Arthur presents the first stage in a project to develop a test for limited English speaking adults in the Colchester, Essex area. "An Initial Testing Battery on a Course for Air Traffic…

The work reported here is part of an ongoing project to develop a language comprehension assessment instrument that: (1) is sensitive enough to pinpoint the particular language phenomena that are causing difficulty or have not been mastered, and (2) is also broad enough in scope to provide a credible and useful description of language proficiency.…

Three methods for second language data collection are compared: free composition, picture description and translation. The comparison is based on percentage of errors in a grammatical category and in a source category. Most results obtained from the free compositions and picture descriptions tended to be similar. Greater variation was found for…

This handbook illustrates how the classroom teacher can make efficient use of tests, discusses the main purposes tests can serve, treats principal kinds of testing devices especially useful in language instruction, and includes a section on the interpretation of test results. Chapters include: (1) the importance and place of testing in the foreign…

Twelve workpapers on the teaching of English as a second language presented during the 1971-72 school year on the University of California at Los Angeles campus are compiled in this booklet. They include: (1) "The Designs for Intermediate and Advanced Second-Language Classes, " (2) "The Universalist Hypothesis: Some Implications for Contrastive…

The manual is designed to be used in workshops to train English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers and contains a series of exercises for teaching reading comprehension, writing, and testing. An introductory section contains notes to workshop participants and facilitators. The exercises are then presented in three sections: reading comprehension;…

Summarizes some of the findings of recent study of tests designed to determine the English language proficiency of nonnative speakers. (CFM)

Questions the removal of a link between reading and writing tasks in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) examinations on two grounds: that this removal is prejudicial to those students whose native cultures may not provide the appropriate schemata to effectively write; and that it is unrealistic in terms of the measurement of…

Focuses on how second language (L2) readers go about decoding word forms. The article describes a psycholinguistic experiment investigating how advanced Finnish speakers of English as a foreign language pronounced monosyllabic pseudo-words based on common real-word orthographic patterns in English. Results indicate that even advanced L2 readers'…

Describes a school in Quebec, in which students enrolled in an intensive English-as-a-Second-Language program (ESL) use English in a variety of communicative interactions inside and outside the ESL classroom. Assessment of students' performance indicates that they achieve higher levels of English than comparable students in other intensive ESL…

Discusses the design of oral assessment measures to test the language proficiency of incoming Hispanic students into community colleges. The article emphasizes that focusing on oral skills has helped nontraditional English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students realize that they can master English. (nine references) (Author/CK)

Compares the empirical performance of C-tests with other representatives of the family of reduced redundancy tests--classical cloze, cloze-elide, multiple-choice cloze--using the Duisburg English Language Test for Advanced Students as the criterion for empirical validity. Findings reveal that the C-Test emerges as the most economical and reliable…

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)