The possible effects of applying new assessment techniques to second language learning is dramatized by two contrasting scenarios. The first describes a high school Spanish class as we might find it today: the teaching is effective, but the best results are not being obtained. The second scenario is set in the year 1990. Here, applications of…

An administrator's manual and two reading comprehension tests in Spanish and English for use in elementary grades are presented here. The Spanish reading comprehension test was developed, standardized, and normed in Mexico; the English reading comprehension test was translated from the Spanish test. The tests were designed to be used in the…

A forced-choice paired-comparison test containing 252 items was presented to eight subjects. Each item consisted of two geometric figures chosen systematically from a sample of four ellipses and four triangles. The subjects (six female and two male adults who spoke only English) were asked to decide which of the two figures went best with a…

The experiment reported in this document extended the study by Milburn and Bell (1969) of English word frequencies. Specifically, this experiment examined the influence of instructional set on the relationship between affect and frequency estimates, with a distinction between personal and nationwide norms. The experiment design provided for two…

This paper answers a series of questions concerning the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM): what it is, who it is designed for, what it consists of, how long it takes to administer the test, who should administer it, where the BSM should be given, how to conduct the assessment, and how to score the test. The paper concludes that, overall, the BSM can…

A STUDY WAS UNDERTAKEN TO INVESTIGATE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING IN BOTH INTRAINING AND FIELD PROGRAMS OF THE PEACE CORPS, AND TO DETERMINE INDIVIDUAL AND EXPERIENCE FACTORS AFFECTING THE RATE OF LANGUAGE LEARNING. THE OBJECTIVE WAS TO DEVELOP A PROTOTYPE FOR A PARAMETRIC STUDY INVOLVING SUCH FACTORS AS LANGUAGE APTITUDE AND PRIOR LANGUAGE…

A study involving 40 nursery school and kindergarten children was conducted to obtain information on how preschool children understand the following three aspects of spoken sentences: word patterns; word regularities, and word relationships. Available from: Journal of Practical Approaches to Developmental Handicap, 3304-33rd Street N.W., Calgary,…

Suggests that giving students two copies of a language test allows the student the opportunity to check his answers, know his results immediately, and possibly add points to his original score through self-correction. (CHK)

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was used to test and compare the language related functioning of 20 autistic and 20 mentally retarded 11-12 year olds. (BB)

Evaluation of performance on the Preschool Language Scale of 18 low-vision children (two to four years old) found lower performance than for sighted peers, especially on the Auditory Comprehension Quotient, the Verbal Ability Quotient, and the overall Language Quotient. (Author/DB)

A foreign language teacher relates how instruction, testing, and student achievement have changed with the use of GCSE instead of the traditional CSE/GCE in French instruction. (CB)

Neither the race of the examiner nor the race of the child depicted in the stimulus materials affected the language performance of randomly selected Black and White elementary children (N=79) when language performance was measured in terms of response length and reponse latency. (Author/CL)

Discusses the origins and uses of proficiency-based systems in government and education, an initial application of proficiency-based foreign language oral skills assessment in one corporate setting, and the wide range of potential applications of proficiency-based systems for business, industry, and the professions in general. (SED)

Reports on an analysis of two administrations of two reading tests--the first time without the reading passages and the second time with the passages--in order to determine the extent to which questions can be answered without reading the texts on which they are based. (SED)

Thirty visually impaired children (6-12 years old) were administered The Word Test which does not use visual stimulus. Correlation between age and scores and comparisons of test results for individuals with test norms indicate that The Word Test can be used in assessing language disorders among visually impaired children. (Author/CL)