Finds that text material in final (end-of-school) French oral examinations in Germany do not correspond with the accomplishment to be expected of the students, in both appropriateness and degree of difficulty. Offers criteria, sample texts, and suggestions regarding reasonable requirements. (IFS/WGA)

A description of the revised baccalaureate examination. The performance objectives for modern languages in oral and written expression, especially for French, comprehension and critical judgment of a text are discussed. Results of the inter-ministerial study and sample sections from examinations are given. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

A technique is outlined which simultaneously checks students' aural and oral control of sounds and prosodies. Intended for intermediate and advanced students, the test consists of a number of minimal pairs which are read by different people while the others listen and note which of the alternatives they hear. (SW)

Quotes passages from the publication "Mock Examination," showing test samples from sections of the new People's University Certificate Examination in English. The sections are on listening comprehension, oral production, reading comprehension, letter writing, structures, and vocabulary, which show differences from the traditional examination.…

It is recommended that undergraduate second language teaching include individualized instruction, cultural education, testing for mastery, and emphasis on communicative competence. Textbook selection is also discussed. (SW)

Among the comments on the "Normbook for English" are: it is admirably flexible; its limiting of learning goals to "basic skills" is too undifferentiated; for the graduate exam, it rightly prefers a text assignment to a theme assignment; goal-oriented auditory understanding exercises should be added. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Hitherto, the People's University Certificate examinations were largely vocabulary and structure lists; the skills were weighted very differently. The new examinations define "behavioral objectives" much more exactly. Content guidelines are given, as well as text types, topics and "situations." A later article will discuss…

Two grade 7 groups were tested to compare their relative proficiency on numerous French and English language achievement tests. One group had followed the early immersion option through grade 6 and then a traditional English curriculum (with a French maintenance class); the other group had followed a traditional English curriculum (with a strong…

Describes a third-year English test for fifth graders, with examples (and discussion) in the areas of listening comprehension, answering questions, asking questions, speaking about a series of pictures, reading comprehension, sentence conversion and letter writing. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

The two studies reported examine changes in the control over inflections of New Zealand children aged 5-10 years. The progress of White New Zealand children with English as their mother tongue is contrasted with the progress of urban Maori children and urban Samoan children in Auckland. (Author/DB)

Productive language is where both recent innovative efforts and the most severe problems are. Two problems to be answered are decisions about the assessment situation and about focal aspects of communicative competence to be assessed in them. Two examples of current work are inserted from papers prepared by the staff of the High/Scope Educational…

Presents arguments for and against: the theoretical acceptance of language skills breakdown; the Unitary Competence Hypothesis/General Language Proficiency theory; and the existence of a separate listening comprehension factor in language ability. Also considered is the technique of factor analysis in language research. (CB)

A study compared subjective and objective methods of evaluating college students' second-language communicative competence as expressed in their writing. (MSE)

Identifies some underlying assumptions about language, testing and its use, and second language acquisition (SLA) for those current on the issue of oral proficiency assessment. Suggests that even with its limitations, the assessment procedure can become a source of data for future SLA research. (Author/LMO)

Present results of a longitudinal study of vocabulary development as it takes place in a classroom setting involving elementary-level Swedish-speaking learners of English. The study used spew tests requiring pupils to write down as many words as they could in one minute that began with a given letter. (Author/LMO)