Objects that sit between intersecting social worlds, such as Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) tests, are "boundary objects"--dynamic, historically derived mechanisms which maintain coherence between worlds (Star & Griesemer, 1989). They emerge initially from sociopolitical mandates, such as the need to ensure a safe and efficient…

This study explores how second language (L2) texts written by learners at various proficiency levels can be classified using computational indices that characterize lexical competence. For this study, 100 writing samples taken from 100 L2 learners were analyzed using lexical indices reported by the computational tool Coh-Metrix. The L2 writing…

Presents a qualitative analysis of one aspect of interviewer-candidate interaction, i.e., the types of linguistic and interfactional support that the native speaker interlocutor provides to the nonnative speaker candidate in a one-on-one interview. Results indicate there are eight types of interlocutor support, a positive finding. (63 references)…

Examination boards are often criticized for their failure to provide evidence of comparability across forms, and few such studies are publicly available. This study aims to investigate the extent to which three forms of the General English Proficiency Test Intermediate Speaking Test (GEPTS-I) are parallel in terms of two types of validity…