Gaining insights from domain experts into how they view communication in real world settings is recognized as an important authenticity consideration in the development of criteria to assess language proficiency for specific academic or occupational purposes. These "indigenous" criteria represent an articulation of the test construct and…

Criticism of specific-purpose language (LSP) tests is often directed at their limited ability to represent fully the demands of the target language use situation. Such criticisms extend to the criteria used to assess test performance, which may fail to capture what matters to participants in the domain of interest. This paper reports on the…

This paper examines the uptake of Rasch measurement in language testing through a consideration of research published in language testing research journals in the period 1984 to 2009. Following the publication of the first papers on this topic, exploring the potential of the simple Rasch model for the analysis of dichotomous language test data, a…

The increasing influence of sociocultural theories of learning on assessment practices in second language education necessitates an expansion of the knowledge base that teacher-assessors need to develop (what teachers need to know) and related changes in the processes of language teacher education (how they learn and develop it). Teacher assessors…

The Assessment of Language Competence (ALC) certificates is an annual, international testing program developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research to test the listening and reading comprehension skills of lower to middle year levels of secondary school. The tests are developed for three levels in French, German, Italian and…