To date, language testing research has devoted little attention to adult L2 learners with low levels of alphabetic print literacy (LESLLA), even though this population makes up for a substantial proportion of the candidature of language tests used for migration purposes. This special issue focuses on LESLLA learners, shows how literacy impacts…

This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars whose complementary expertise regarding print literacy and migration offers a thought-provoking and innovative window on the representation of print literacy in applied linguistic research and in migration policy. The panel members are experts on…

Background: There is growing understanding of the potential benefits of a multi-method approach to accurately capture language skills of children on the autism spectrum. Tools such as Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) provide an efficient means of capturing and analysing early child vocalizations (CVs) and the language learning environment.…

This study provides a preliminary validation of a Greek Sentence Repetition Task (SRT) with a sample of 110 monolingual and bilingual typically developing (TLD) children and examines the test's ability to distinguish between Greek monolingual children and age-matched Albanian-Greek bilinguals using a Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC)…

The credibility of conclusions arrived at in quantitative research depends, to a large extent, on the quality of data collection instruments used to quantify language and non-language constructs. Despite this, research into data collection instruments used in Applied Linguistics and particularly in the thesis genre remains limited. This study…

When making memory predictions (judgments of learning; JOLs), people typically underestimate the recall gain across multiple study-test cycles, termed the underconfidence-with-practice (UWP) effect. This is usually studied with verbal materials, but little is known about how people repeatedly learn and monitor their own actions and to what extent…

This study tracked the development of Hong Kong's assessment practices for English pronunciation over the past four decades, with reference to the nativeness and intelligibility principles in L2 pronunciation research and pedagogy. Specifically, it evaluated changes in assessors' comments on candidates' English pronunciation performance in…

Recent research on rater effects in performance assessments has increasingly focused on rater centrality, the tendency to assign scores clustering around the rating scale's middle categories. In the present paper, we adopted Jin and Wang's (2018) extended facets modeling approach and constructed a centrality continuum, ranging from raters…

This study compared preschool spoken language outcomes for children with hearing loss who met the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) guidelines to those who did not, as well as compared outcomes for those who met the current EHDI guidelines to those who met the earlier benchmarks. Finally, the predictive role of meeting each component…

Accompanying the still pervasive influence of the College English Test (CET), some universities in China, especially the higher-ranking ones, have in recent years devised and implemented their own local English testing regimes. This significant shift, however, has captured limited research attention. Building on considerations in local language…

In the field of second language assessment, there is limited empirical research on the alignment of different language proficiency standards. This study aims to establish level correspondences for overall language proficiency between China's Standards of English Language Ability (CSE) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages…

The Indiana Department of Education's (IDOE's) "Accessibility and Accommodations Information for Statewide Assessments" is intended for school-level personnel and decision-making teams as they prepare for and implement Indiana state assessments. Information is provided for school personnel as a reference to inform school personnel about…

This study aims to provide a comprehensive profile of collocational competence, a key component of one's overall linguistic competence. For the maximum of ecological validity, we elicited naturalistic oral/written production data from 84 Chinese intermediate EFL learners and performed a 2×2 fashion of analysis on their performance in each of the…

This evaluation report examines extensive reading (ER) speed and words read by students at a Japanese university using a digital ER platform called Xreading and compares them to standardized test reading performance using the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The study focuses on first- and second-year students who…

The aim of this study was to explore the connection between students' anxiety levels during language classes and their performance on English achievement exams. A random sampling method was employed to select participants. Students' levels of foreign language classroom anxiety were measured using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, a…