Reviews some of the research on listening comprehension and defines listening skills, such as comprehension of key points and "chunking." Describes an exercise using authentic oral and written material that is intended to develop reflective skills and suggests ways in which the exercise may be adapted for various learning levels. (SED)

Describes a pilot project whereby oral proficiency interviews were administered to students studying fourth- and fifth-year year German at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts. The interviews were based on techniques taught at the American Council on the teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service Oral Proficiency Summer…

Stresses the importance of systematically determining children's language dominance before enrolling them in bilingual programs, and evaluates a variety of methods used to determine language dominance. A table listing 25 aural and oral instruments (including rating scales, interview schedules, and parallel tests) is provided. (CW)

Significant test concepts are discussed and guidelines are given for planning and constructing test items. Examples are given for evaluating reading comprehension and suggestions are made for pre- and post-test activities. (Author/RM)

The need for testing oral proficiency in the foreign language is discussed and several kinds of testing procedures described. A specific oral language production test is suggested. (RM)

Six journal articles (1972-1975) on auditory comprehension are presented, with their content and conclusions. These deal primarily with the objective evaluation of performance, giving suggestions for preparing and administering tests, example of game-type exercises, and other concrete suggestions. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

An interim report on preparations for designing an examination in Dutch. The "unit-credit system" proposed by the Council of Europe is being used. The Dutch certificate will be comparable to the certificates given by the British Council and by the People's Universities. Sample portions are given. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Discusses some central problems in the Norm Book for English "Einheitliche Pruefungsanforderungen in der Abiturpruefung Englisch," Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1975. A clear statement of teaching objectives is lacking. Problem types are discussed, along with criteria for rating answers. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This article presents a practical approach to assessing Spanish-English bilingualism in Mexican-American children entering school. The general aim of bilingual assessment is discussed. The approach to assessment includes a method of selecting subjects, the use of a sociolinguistic survey, and tests for measuring bilingual communicative competence.…

The distribution of person fit indices is not easy to describe in tests where the item sample is too small to conform to a theoretical asymptotic statistical distribution, particularly the normal N(0,1). In practice, it is always the fact and, consequently, it is difficult to get the critical percentile value indicating person misfit. First, we…

Current practices for assessment of language in bilingual students frequently involve the use of tests translated from English to the target language or tests designed for, and normed on, monolingual people. This Digest explains why these common approaches are not well suited for a bilingual population and provides guidance regarding more suitable…

A discussion of language testing addresses three questions: why good test construction seems to be increasingly difficult; what forces are shaping the practice of test construction; and what lies ahead in testing. It is proposed that practitioners are constantly redefining what "good" tests are, and those who develop tests are facing greater and…

This paper describes a study on rater training that involved the analysis of ratings given to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) compositions by 8 inexperienced and 8 experienced raters both before and after rater training, using FACETS (Linacre, 1990, 1993), which provides measures of rater severity and consistency. The testing text was a…

The deficit hypothesis operates on the differences in level of intelligence as determined by testing; the differential hypothesis opposes direct interpretation of linguistic forms as cognitive structures and attempts to understand the nonstandard speaker. (DD)