Diagnostic assessment is increasingly being recognized as a potentially beneficial tool for teaching and learning (Jang, 2012). There have been calls in the research literature for students to receive diagnostic feedback and for researchers to investigate how such feedback is used by students. Therefore, this study examined how students…

This study, framed within sociocultural theory, examines the interaction of adult ESL test-takers in two tests of oral proficiency: one in which they interacted with an examiner (the individual format) and one in which they interacted with another student (the paired format). The data for the eight pairs in this study were drawn from a larger…

Reviews a volume of descriptive and evaluative information on 47 commercially available English language proficiency tests used in North America, Great Britain, and Australia. The book includes discussions of uses and misuses of tests, and overviews of English as second language testing in North America and Great Britain. (SV)

Describes design and progress of the Ontario Test of English as a Second Language (OTESL) developed in response to need for a common instrument for Ontario postsecondary institutions that need to determine whether students in academic programs have adequate English skills. The test provides placement and diagnostic information to ESL programs for…

Addresses the challenges faced in developing a task-based language assessment instrument for adult immigrants in Canada that is accountable to the needs of diverse groups of stakeholders, including learners, teachers, and administrators. The test, the Canadian Language Benchmarks Assessment (CLBA), is designed to place adult newcomers in language…

Discusses evolution of task performance assessment technique of the Toronto Office Skills Training Project (TOSTP), a 45-week training program for women from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Training in office skills, language, and life skills is uniquely integrated in a program designed to enable the women to overcome the obstacles of language…

Suggests a test to assess the language proficiency of second language teachers prior to their admission to teacher education programs in Canada or their being hired by a school board. The themes explored include education in general, classroom organization, stories as told by teachers and learners, and different forms of communication. (21…

A computerized adaptive test for placement of students in postsecondary French second language courses is evaluated for unidimensionality of its three component tests: reading comprehension of a short paragraph; selection of the appropriate statement in a given situation; and a "fill-in-the-blank" section. A variety of statistical…

The perceptions of an administrator embroiled for several years in the language issue in Quebec are briefly summarized in this paper. Before the first legislation concerning language (Bill 63) was passed, it became clear that in spite of the fact that Quebec was the home for a large number of French immigrants, French language and culture were in…

Describes a school in Quebec, in which students enrolled in an intensive English-as-a-Second-Language program (ESL) use English in a variety of communicative interactions inside and outside the ESL classroom. Assessment of students' performance indicates that they achieve higher levels of English than comparable students in other intensive ESL…