Placement tests determine whether a student has mastered certain skills and content for a particular job or course of study and also help to identify students' weaknesses, which can then be targeted for improvement. Placement test objectives should be clearly defined, and design and administration are also crucial. If students are misclassified,…

The effectiveness of direct measurement techniques and standardized achievement tests for assessing within-individual change over a 10-week period was examined. The Reading Comprehension and Language subtests from the Stanford Achievement Tests and direct measures of reading and written language were administered twice to 83 low-achieving students…

A new approach to assessing unexpected differential item performance (item bias or item fairness) was developed and applied to the item responses of males and females to Scholastic Aptitude Test and Test of Standard Written English items administered operationally in December 1977. While the main body of the report describes the particulars of the…

This study is based on three sources: (1) an experimental try-out of four oral proficiency testing methods (oral interview, role play, reporting test, and group discussion); (2) an evaluation of the testing methods by a panel of experts; and (3) an analysis of the same testing methods by policy makers. The findings are reported in terms of the…

A study supplementing earlier research by Lalande and Schweckendiek investigated comparisons and correlations obtained from testing a group of 17 university students of German using both the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and the most recent revision of the examination for the…

The acquisition of the passive sentence structure by 36 adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) was studied. Twelve learners each spoke Arabic, Japanese, and Spanish as their native language. For each language group, four were beginners, four intermediates, and four advanced learners of English. All were studying English at the…

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.…