A federally funded project was undertaken at the University of New Hampshire to: (1) determine the feasibility of incorporating specific techniques of oral proficiency evaluation in college-level foreign language courses, (2) create a network of foreign language professors in northern New England colleges and universities trained in the use of…

A theoretical framework that distinguishes the knowledge, or competence, aspect of language proficiency from the skills aspect is outlined, and the factors in the language testing situation that affect performance on language tests are examined. The model is intended for use in assessing the construct validity of tests of language proficiency and…

The development and validation of oral native language tests for Dutch adolescents was conducted for both assessment and curriculum development purposes at the secondary level. The oral language situations tested were the monologue, dialogue, and polylogue or group conversation on a topic. An American inventory of common speech subjects was used…

The commonly-occurring mismatch between second language student and course level, resulting in student boredom or intimidation, is due to overreliance on standardized language tests. These tests emphasize passive skills, such as recognition of grammatical structures and translation, and they ignore the element of communicative competence. As a…

Classical cloze tests have been criticized as unsatisfactory operationalizations of the concept of reduced redundancy and the theory of expectancy grammar. Use of the C-Principle is proposed as an improvement over the classical cloze procedure. Such tests are constructed according to a technique that deletes the second half of every second word in…

A collection of position papers on aspects of foreign language and international studies was compiled for the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies. The three major presentations focus on: the student and the foreign language curriculum, developing and maintaining teacher skills, and directions for research and…

This Israeli journal for teachers of English provides news reports and articles on aspects of teaching English in Israel. The brief news items address such topics as language examination formats, teacher certification examinations, teacher education degree programs, conferences, and new instructional materials. The articles cover the teaching of…

This paper explores the influence of field independent-dependent cognitive style on second language test performance, especially as it relates to performance on the integrative type of measure known as the cloze test. Approximately 250 college students enrolled in a first semester Spanish course formed the sample group for this correlational…

This report is a summary of the review of the Defense Language Institute (DLI) that was made by the General Accounting Office (GAO) at the request of a member of Congress. The objectives of the study were to identify and analyze significant internal DLI problems that diminish the overall effectiveness of the language training provided there.…

Results are summarized of research on a program instituting graded objectives and tests in French. The research project was conducted during the 1979-80 school year by the Language Teaching Council at York, England. Two experimental groups and two control groups were formed of students aged 13 and over. Pupils, parents, and teachers completed…

This article describes the organization, functions, and components of the Defense Language Institute. The test division is responsible for aptitude, achievement, and proficiency tests and for test development in a variety of resident and non-resident programs. The progress that has been made over a 10-year period is also described and special…

A standardized language arts achievement test can be used by language arts teachers as they plan the language arts curriculum, group pupils, individualize instruction, and identify pupils needing special help. Two interventions, training and process consultation, were used to identify the most effective method of training preservice elementary…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) third writing assessment was administed to 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students in 1978-79. This volume contains the released exercises from this assessment. Part I summarizes objective and exercise development procedures, describes the different scoring procedures used in the writing assessments,…

This volume, one in a series on modern language testing, collects four essays dealing with current approaches to lanquage testing. The introduction traces the development of language testing theory and examines the role of linguistics in this area. "The Psycholinguistic Basis," by E. Ingram, discusses some interpretations of the term…

An oral language assessment test not only can determine the relative proficiency of a child in one or more languages and his or her language preference, but also can provide diagnostic information as to the child's strengths and weaknesses in each language. This information can serve as a guide to curriculum development and to prescriptive…