Includes an interview with a noted figure in the field of language assessment. Focuses on a range of test development projects, including several related to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale. (Author/VWL)

English plays an important role for the life of the people of East Timor. So it is studied from secondary to tertiary schools. However, the resources of English are not sufficiently available. Under the development concerns the conditions that are faced by both the educator and learners in English as a foreign language course at the university.…

This publication contains information about community colleges, the largest and fastest growing sector of U.S. higher education. Designed especially for students thinking about studying abroad in America, this publication provides information about: (1) College selection, application and visa processes, traveling to the United States, living in…

In its late colonial history and early years as an independent nation, Australia practised a policy of ruthless exclusion of immigrants on the basis of race by means of a language test: the notorious Dictation Test. In the 50 years following World War II, Australia adopted policies encouraging immigration with bipartisan political support.…

As a result of investigations showing that communication problems can be a significant contributing factor to major aviation accidents, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has established a set of Language Proficiency Requirements. All pilots and air traffic controllers engaged in international aviation must be certified by their…

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is currently implementing a program to improve the language proficiency of pilots and air traffic controllers worldwide. In justifying the program, ICAO has cited a number of airline accidents that were at least partly caused by language factors. Two accidents cited by ICAO are analysed in this…

During an investigation into the L2 proficiency and L3 acquisition skills of 10- to 12-year-olds in Irish primary schools, questions of metalinguistic awareness and cross-linguistic influence were raised. Do children who are more balanced bilinguals develop a higher sense of metalinguistic awareness than less balanced bilinguals? What evidence of…

The purpose of the current study is to examine language influence in sequential bilinguals. Specifically, this study evaluates whether performance in a first language predicts success in the acquisition of a second language nine months after exposure to the second language begins. Forty-nine Spanish-speaking children attending English-only…

Preschoolers' theory of mind (ToM) was examined in relation to emotional features of their conflicts with siblings, using mothers as privileged informants. Fifty-four children aged 3 to 5 years and their 54 mothers took part. Children were given 10 standard false belief tasks and a standardized language test. Mothers completed questionnaires,…

With recent statistical advances in cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA), the CDA approach has been increasingly applied to non-diagnostic tests partly to meet accountability demands for student achievement. The study aimed to evaluate critically the validity of the CDA application to an existing non-diagnostic L2 reading comprehension test and…

This construct validation study investigated the factor structure of the Test of English as a Foreign Language[TM] Internet-based test (TOEFL[R] iBT). An item-level confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for a test form completed by participants in a field study. A higher-order factor model was identified, with a higher-order general factor…

This study investigated the relationship between students' actual performance (accuracy) and their subjective judgments of accuracy (confidence) on selected English language proficiency tests. The unidimensional and multidimensional IRT Rasch approaches were used to model the discrepancy between confidence and accuracy at the item and test level…

In the last column we focused (as a primary goal of instruction) on the importance of teaching so that students learn to think their way into and through content. We stressed the need for well-designed daily structures and tactics for fostering deep learning, offering three strategies as examples. In this column, we provide four additional…

This article presents three strategies for teaching students who are taking the IELTS speaking test. The first strategy is aimed at improving confidence and uses a variety of self-help materials from the field of popular psychology. The second encourages students to think critically and invokes a range of academic perspectives. The third strategy…

The current article describes the results, inter-scorer reliability, and potential sources of bias in conducting speech-language assessments with Aboriginal children in remote Ontario communities using videoconferencing. A main focus of this pilot study was to examine scoring bias, an issue that might arise with videoconferencing for any…