Analyzes the interpersonal skills of 14-year-old girls and boys (n=15) who were participating in group discussions as part of the oral test for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GLCE). The analysis focuses on the pupils' use of minimal responses, interruptions, and questions that draw others into the discussion. (26 references) (GLR)

This study evaluated 9 computer-generated measures of children's language production, based on 24 children with specific language impairment and 24 normally developing children, ages 24-50 months. Three measures possessed desirable developmental and diagnostic characteristics: mean syntactic length, total number of words, and number of different…

Describes weaknesses of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) testing methods and argues that many EFL departments set up their own examinations to assess how effectively they are preparing students for those examinations. It is suggested that this leads to production of test items that are biased against divergent students and that an interview…

This study, involving 20 children (ages 4-11) with severe hearing impairments, affirmed the content validity of the Clark-Madison Test of Oral Language as a measure of nonwritten expressive language with hearing-impaired children. Performance comparison with hearing individuals revealed a different profile of strengths and weaknesses than did…

A discussion of vocabulary development for intermediate and advanced students preparing for the Australian certification test for Teaching English as a Foreign Language focuses on nine areas: collocations, clines, clusters, cloze procedures, context, consultation or checking, cards, creativity, and guessing. (seven references) (LB)

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised assesses standard American English receptive vocabulary in individuals, both handicapped and nonhandicapped, ages 2 to 40. This paper describes the test's administration, summation of data, standardization, reliability, and validity. (JDD)

Investigates effect of task type on resultant candidate discourse and input of the interlocutor. The experimental design ensured an information gap in one of the interview tasks for prospective immigrants to Australia. Findings indicate that candidate discourse differs in quantity and quality between situations when an information gap exists and…

Examines the linguistic orientation of traditional language-assessment procedures by focusing on an Australian study of immigrant health professionals in which a mismatch was found between successful performance on a test for occupation-specific English-language ability and clinical supervisors' perceptions of their supervisees' English…

Suggests a quick and practical supplementary test that can solve many of the difficulties of student placement in intensive English programs (IEPs). Dictation is suggested as an easy and efficient way to gain information about students' underlying abilities to communicate. (Author/VWL)

Examines whether a defect of the C-test can be avoided by constructing a C-test with five texts and 126 items. The test was tried with 146 Iranian English majors. On the basis of item analysis, a tailored C-test with 100 items was developed and tried with 60 other subjects. Results show no gains were made with the classical item analysis.…

Investigates the relationship between language comprehension and language production in Swedish children in a study carried out longitudinally with 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 10 children with unimpaired language development. Results indicate that the relationship between comprehension and production is different at…

Findings are reported from a series of literacy assessments in which four classes of bilingual Grade 3 and Grade 5 students from an indigenous community in Central Mexico participated. Subjects who completed the battery of tests of reading and writing in Spanish and Nahuatl range from balanced bilinguals to Spanish-dominant speakers with at least…

Provides information regarding the input-to-intake phenomenon by exploring data that were gathered but not analyzed in Shook (1994): reading recalls produced by subjects after reading the input passages. Two levels of Spanish students read reading passages containing one of two different target items under one of three different attention…

Explores the nature of formative assessment in a primary language learning context. The research is from nine inner city schools where an early years intervention project is being carried out to address problems of low levels of achievement in English, with specific reference to the language support of learners for whom English is an additional…

Reports the results of a study on the intonation of 18 Mandarin Chinese speakers lecturing in English. The study investigated the hypothesis that the nonnative speakers who were able to use the intonation system of English most effectively would score higher on a global language test. (Author/JL)