Discusses an aural discrimination test given to British students of French and examines the relationship between good aural discrimination ability and high achievement in a second language. (EKN)

Presents study designed to examine trait structure of a cloze test using confirmatory factor analysis. Results suggest that a modified cloze passage, using rational deletions, is capable of measuring syntactic- and discourse-level relationships in a text, and this advantage may outweigh considerations of reduced redundancy which underlie random…

Discusses two requirements for successful use of tests for self-correcting by the learner: (1) the learner must, as quickly as possible, compare the model answers with his own, and (2) the teacher must provide a summary of the learners' achievements and deficiencies. (IFS/WGA)

Examines objectivity as a criterion for excellency in language tests through a critical presentation of the characteristics of objective tests. This examination leads to a discussion of what the best approach to testing language might be, endorsing a combination of integrative and objective techniques. (Author/MES)

A project designed to study the feasibility of utilizing the eight components of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf Communication Performance Profile for evaluating the receptive and expressive communication skills of deaf secondary level students was conducted on 420 students (ages 11 to 21) at two residential schools for the deaf.…

Forty preschoolers performed a sentence imitation task under four conditions: immediate or delayed imitation of auditorily presented stimuli or immediate or delayed imitation of auditorily and pictorially presented stimuli. Immediate imitation subjects produced fewer total errors and more verbatim responses than did delay interval subjects.…

The study investigated the extent to which information obtained from the WISC overlaps with information obtained from the ITPA. A canonical correlation analysis revealed that only 24 percent of the WISC subtest variance is redundant, given the ITPA; while 22 percent of the ITPA subtest variance is redundant, given the WISC. (Author/DB)

Describes the benefits derived by the University of Alabama at a time of declining enrollment from offering the Goethe Institute exam for the "Certificate in German as a Foreign Language." Also mentions other innovations introduced by the German department: an intensive first year course and a German House on campus. (MES)

Describes the structure of the United Nations (Geneva) French language test, with exerpts from the listening comprehension portion of the test. The test is given to professional candidates to determine their level of functional proficiency in French. (AM)

Describes the Indiana University French Communicative Ability Test, developed to test communicative ability at a relatively low level (beginning university French), and in a large, multi-section program. (AM)

Explains unique features of a Branched Program Achievement Test for college French students, and presents data that validate the testing strategy and demonstrate the value of the test as a placement instrument. (JB)

A 6th-grade test in English as a foreign language is described and contrasted with second language acquisition by the children of foreign laborers in Germany. The latter calls for special teaching procedures; tests and tapes are described. The teacher's "feel" is considered more important than "scientific" methodology. (IFS/WGA)

Though speaking ability receives priority in FL teaching, grades are given with little attention to it. Tests in current use are examined; a new one is proposed. The individual test is preferred to group tests. Various aspects of the individual oral test are discussed. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Describes several techniques of informal assessment which might supplement test results. (DD)

The purpose of this investigation was to discover the relative rank order of efficiency of eight distractor categories in multiple-choice foreign language vocabulary tests. Type of test question used was clarified, types of distractors defined, selection process described, test design discussed, and resulting data tabulated and interpreted. (CHK)