It is recommended that students of Chinese as a second language be introduced to characters corresponding to new vocabulary, rather than be taught to recognize characters after the words themselves are learned. An approach that breaks each character into its smallest meaningful units, then reassembles them into proper position to form characters,…

This paper argues that visual aids should be used in teaching and testing language. It has been scientifically demonstrated that visuals allow for greater cognitive mapping and navigating in an environment. Visuals are a good and useful tool for examination purposes, because they lead the learner to draw out language from their own knowledge and…

The paper describes the system of rater comments used in an American College Testing (ACT) Program English language test designed for use with Japanese secondary school students learning English as a foreign language. The writing portion of the test consists of two short essays, each scored by two native speakers of North American English, using a…

The goals, concerns, and issues addressed by a committee of the American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages (AATT) in the process of developing a standardized Turkish language proficiency test at the college level are examined. The testing committee aimed at incorporating recent scholarship on second language acquisition, teaching…

As an admissions test, the SAT II: Subject Tests in foreign languages allow students to demonstrate academic competence in the selected language area. As a placement tool, the SAT II: Subject Tests in foreign languages serve the same function as the SAT II: Subject Tests do in other academic areas such as world history, chemistry, or math. SAT II:…

Argues that the implicit tendency to infer that the sophistication of one's verbal behavior mirrors one's cognitive sophistication must be scrutinized, and demonstrates that the assessment of the verbal behavior of nonstandard speakers must be accomplished via a medium that is not "foreign" to those in question. (Author/JM)

Discusses techniques for testing reading of "sight" passages. (HW)