This research investigates the extent to which indices of social justice and democratic rights are expressed in Israel in the crucial national English matriculation exam, as perceived by Palestinian Arab high school pupils studying for these exams and their English teachers. The research employed Critical Theory as a paradigm, case study as a…

This article investigates a version of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) listening test for evidence of differential item functioning (DIF) based on gender, nationality, age, and degree of previous exposure to the test. Overall, the listening construct was found to be underrepresented, which is probably an important cause…

Given the current lack of appropriate assessment tools for measuring deaf children's sign language skills, many test developers have used existing tests of other sign languages as templates to measure the sign language used by deaf people in their country. This article discusses factors that may influence the adaptation of assessment tests from…

The Language Trends survey is run jointly each year by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, the Association for Language Learning (ALL) and the Independent Schools Modern Languages Association (ISMLA). In this period of rapid change and policy development, it is vital to have an up to date picture of current issues for languages. Therefore,…

Measures of productivity and sentence organization are useful metrics for quantifying language development and language impairments in monolingual and bilingual children. It is not yet known what measures within and across languages are most informative when evaluating the language skills of bilingual children. The purpose of this study was to…

This study piloted test items that will be used in a computer-delivered and scored test of productive grammatical ability in English as a second language (ESL). Findings from research on learners' development of morphosyntactic, syntactic, and functional knowledge were synthesized to create a framework of grammatical features. We outline the…

A considerable amount of time has elapsed since the existence of a distinct variety of English, Brunei English (BNE), was mooted in the early 1990s. A subsequent study conducted by Svalberg in 1998 suggested that BNE was then in its infancy and that its speakers were largely unaware of the differences between it and Standard British English (STE).…

Although anecdotally there appear to be differences in the way native speakers use and comprehend their native language, most empirical investigations of language processing study university students and none have studied differences in language proficiency, which may be independent of resource limitations such as working memory span. We examined…

The MA Entrance Examinations (MAEE) held in Iran since 1990 are frequently criticized as being invalid, unstandardized exams with lots of problem in terms of principles of testing in general and test construction in particular (for instance, Jafarpur, 1996). To make sound judgments about such objections, the present study dealt with a content…

Maki, Wasada, and Hashimoto developed the Minimal English Test (MET), which is a five-minute English as a Second Language (ESL) test. The Maki Group has, since the development of the MET, investigated correlations between the scores on the MET and the scores on other ESL tests, the reliability of the MET, and what kind of ESL proficiency the MET…

Studies of word production in patients with Alzheimer's disease have identified the age of acquisition of words as an important predictor of retention or loss, with early acquired words remaining accessible for longer than later acquired words. If, as proposed by current theories, effects of age of acquisition reflect the involvement of semantic…

The study investigated how second language (L2) learners self-assessed word knowledge on a page of text taken from a graded reader. The case study subjects were five Thai high school learners of English. They were asked to assess their word knowledge using a page of continuous text. Data gained through observation, interviews, self-assessment and…

This paper reports findings from a case study of the amount of explicit vocabulary focus (EVF) that occurred in a week of classes for one group of upper intermediate students in an intensive English program (IEP). To assess EVF, instruction from a total of 25 hours of classes was analyzed to see if the number of EVF events was more connected with…

The present study investigated Japanese students' EFL vocabulary development through e-mail interactions with a native English speaker (NS), with primary focus on students' imitation of new words. According to sociocultural theory, learners can internalize new linguistic knowledge by imitating an expert's expressions to create his/her own…

In recent years, the emphasis in second language (L2) oral proficiency assessment has shifted from linguistic accuracy to discourse strategies such as the ability to initiate, respond, and negotiate meaning. This has resulted in a growing interest in the discourse analysis of students' performance in different oral proficiency assessment formats.…