There is a lack of tests available for assessing sign language proficiency among L2 learners. We have therefore developed a sign repetition test, SignRepL2, with a specific focus on the phonological features of signs. This paper describes the two phases of developing this test. In the first phase, content was developed in the form of 50 items with…

Many English-medium universities employ a compensatory model to establish cutscores on English language proficiency tests for student admissions. In this model, students can have different scores on different sections of the test provided their overall score meets the admission cutscore. This practice raises questions regarding potential variation…

This study uses a cognitive diagnosis model (CDM) approach to investigate the associations among specific L2 reading subskills. Participants include 1,203 Year-4 English major college students randomly selected from the nationwide test takers of Band 8 of Test for English Majors (TEM8), a large-scale English proficiency test for senior English…

The Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP) Test was designed for immigration and citizenship in Canada. CELPIP is a computer-based English-language proficiency test which covers all four skills. This test review provides a description of the test and its construct, tasks, and delivery. Then, it appraises CELPIP for…

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), with its illustrative scales and salient features of spoken language at the reference levels, is widely used as the base for rating scales for performance testing. If practitioners want to measure and report even small gains in proficiency, they need to adapt the descriptors to their local context…

Communication in the real world often entails the interpretation, evaluation, and integration of content from different sources. However, it appears that the ability to integrate content into discourse has not been explicitly scored for in existing studies. This study operationalizes content integration in the analytic scoring of a…

Jessica Wu is Research and Development Program Director at the Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) in Taipei, Taiwan. Jessica has been deeply involved in the development and validation of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) in addition to a number of other foreign language testing programs. Her research focuses on speaking…

Thinking skills play a critical role in determining language performance. Recent advancement in cognitive diagnostic modelling (CDM) provides a powerful tool for obtaining fine-grained information regarding these thinking skills during reading. Studies are scant, however, exploring the relations between thinking skills and language performance,…

In Dynamic Assessment (DA), the observation that individuals respond differently to support, or mediation, is important for diagnoses of development. The concept of learning potential refers to openness to mediation, i.e., the extent of change to performance when mediation is available, which may suggest learners will need less overall instruction…

Prompted by Taiwanese university students' increasing demand for English proficiency assessment, the absence of a test designed specifically for this demographic subgroup, and the lack of a localized and freely-accessible proficiency measure, this project set out to develop and validate a computerized adaptive English proficiency testing (E-CAT)…

This paper examined to what extent causal explanation speaking tasks (CESTs) are cognitively appropriate for assessing young language learners' (YLLs) L2 speaking. Ninety-six YLLs (48 from Grade 4 and 6 each) in China performed two CESTs in both L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). They also completed receptive and productive L2 vocabulary size tests.…

The effects of question or task complexity on second language speaking have traditionally been investigated using complexity, accuracy, and fluency measures. Response processes in speaking tests, however, may manifest in other ways, such as through nonverbal behavior. Eye behavior, in the form of averted gaze or blinking frequency, has been found…

Recently, research in second language acquisition has seen an increased attention on low-educated low-literate (LESLLA) learners. However, few of the existing instruments to measure L2 proficiency have been validated for use with this population. In this paper, we examine how adult L2 learners with diverging educational backgrounds perform on and…

Young Indigenous students with a language background of emergent, unrecognised, and/or non-prestigious contact languages are commonly by-passed as English language learners (ELLs). Consequently, they are taught and assessed via undifferentiated mainstream pedagogy and testing, generally characterised by reported underachievement. Long-term social…

The present study examined the performance of the bi-factor multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) model and higher-order (HO) cognitive diagnostic models (CDM) in providing diagnostic information and general ability estimation simultaneously in a listening test. The data used were 1,611 examinees' item-level responses to an in-house EFL…