This article describes a language achievement test designed for French students studying English. It evaluates reading and listening comprehension, and grammatical and lexical skills. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

The advantages of a defined syllabus in second language teaching, especially in relation to public examinations, are discussed. The origin and development of the York defined syllabuses are described, and extracts are given from the introductory document and the French and Russian syllabuses. (RM)

Ways to use classroom tests as an aid to students of foreign languages are discussed, with particular reference to retesting. (RM)

Recent workplace literacy initiatives for limited-English-proficient (LEP) employees in Illinois have resulted in employer interest in the measurement of adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) achievement, particularly in the area of reading comprehension. Employers are requesting that evidence of a language minority employee's reading ability…

The rationale and methodology for using videotape recordings to test foreign language listening comprehension are discussed. First, the advantages of using video in teaching and testing listening comprehension are examined and the specific listening skills to be developed at the beginning level are outlined. Issues in the selection of video…

Problems related to the study of second language learners are described, and the factors affecting language development are discussed. Factors influential in second language learning include psychological, sociological, and affective aspects. Similarly, the measurement of language has been influenced by linguistic, psychological, and social…

Where English as a Second Language is taught as part of the regular school curriculum, student motivation may be limited. One solution is to encourage involvement in learning by having students write their own tests. For classroom tests used in formative evaluation, this approach can be applied to both group and individual work. A unit from an…

A study investigated the reliability and validity of the partial dictation test, a combination of dictation and cloze procedure, to measure foreign language listening comprehension. Subjects were 78 students of English as a Foreign Language in the second year of high school in Spain. Students listened to a passage from a commercial reader three…

This study investigates the strength of relationships between direct measures (holistic scores for free writing samples) and indirect measures (the Test of Ability to Subordinate) of attained writing proficiency in English as a second language. Subjects were 67 undergraduate foreign language students enrolled in Basic Composition for Foreign…

It is proposed that a speech-dynamic analysis of oral fluency phenomena serves best to highlight the nondiscrete nature of the sound stream and to capture English syllable structure. Some current concepts and practices in oral testing are criticized, and previously neglected evidence concerning temporal variables in speech, automatic speech…

The most appropriate statistical model for the small-scale (n<100) studies common in language testing research is the Rasch one-parameter logistic model. The Rasch model provides a wide range of options for conducting research, refining existing examinations, and developing tailored (computerized adaptive) language tests. Three investigations…

The traditional upper-level course in French civilization at Utah State University was abandoned in favor of a course entitled "France Today," taught once a year to a consistent enrollment of students majoring in a wide variety of disciplines. The content varies somewhat each year, but the class typically begins with several class…

Two major areas are recommended in the redesign of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data collection: assessment of social and communicative competence, and description of classroom processes. Social and communicative competence are important achievements of the school-age years and are heavily influenced by classroom…

A discussion of the ease or difficulty of learning vocabulary words in a second language looks at a variety of issues in second language instruction. Research on factors in vocabulary learning is discussed, focusing on such factors as similarity in form and morphology, deceptive morphological structure, different syntactic patterning in the native…

Intended to aid schools in designing a Literacy Profile (defined here as consisting of documented information from a variety of assessments of a student's performance over a range of items defined as the dimensions of language learning), this pamphlet presents an alternative to standard assessment techniques. In the form of data tables the…