The internal construct validity of the 1989 Advanced Placement Spanish Language Examination was analyzed to determine whether the traditional four-factor examination structure hypothesized by test developers (listening, reading, writing, speaking) was invariant for relevant subpopulations. Using a nested hierarchical design, multiple confirmatory…

This paper discusses recent developments in language testing. It begins with a review of the traditional criteria that are applied to all measurement and outlines recent emphases that derive from the expanding range of stakeholders. Drawing on Alderson's seminal work, criteria are presented for evaluating communicative language tests. Developments…

This study investigated the presence or absence of two new functional features at a later stage of second language (L2) acquisition by Korean learners of English. It tested the predictions of the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis, which says that new features of functional categories in a second language are not acquirable beyond the critical…

Although language needs, strategies, and instructional situations vary considerably, some degree of integration of methods for native and second language instruction based on empirical research is recommended. The value of second language instructional methods for native language instruction, instruction for communicative competence, and the place…

Describes a bilingual education program for Finnish children in Sweden. Analyzes some of the factors influencing the school and language achievement of the Finnish pupils and compares their achievement level with other relevant student groups. (EKN)

Discusses Gardner and Lambert's Attitude and Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) and its application in Canada. Study's purpose was to test sociopsychological theory of second-language learning by validating an adapted AMTB in the U.S. with American students of Spanish. Sought to compare underlying structure of adapted ATMB with original ATMB and…

A cross-section method was used to study the developmental changes in elementary decoding and encoding processes of 163 Swedish-German bilingual students, whose length of residence in Sweden varied. It was demonstrated that decoding in two languages, expressed in terms of reaction time, develops faster than encoding. (SW)

The Speech Perception in Noise Test was administered to nine native-Mexican Spanish-speaking adults who learned English either before age 6 or after age 14 and nine monolingual American-English adults. Levels of noise at which speech was intelligible were significantly higher and the benefit from context was significantly greater for monolinguals…

Analyzes the incorporation patterns of well-educated, but low proficiency, Chinese immigrants (n=4) to Spain and of high-proficiency Chinese university students (n=4) with extensive formal training in Spanish. Findings reveal that whereas the university students showed awareness of error and successfully incorporated native speakers' corrections,…

A study investigated differences in sentence interpretation, with case marking and lexical-semantic cues systematically manipulated, of 20 native English-speaking learners of Japanese (JFLs) (10 beginners, 10 intermediate) and 10 native Japanese-speaking learners of English. Results show: greater animacy effect with the verb "see" than "eat";…

Quantitative analysis of 1,083 first language and second language academic texts establishes that advanced nonnative-English-speaking students in U.S. universities employ excessively simple syntactic and lexical constructions at median frequency rates significantly higher than those found in basic texts by native English speakers. (Author/VWL)

Comparison of the reading strategies and resulting reading comprehension and recall of native and advanced non-native adult speakers of Japanese found that reading strategy significantly affected comprehension and recall, with non-native readers with limited language command paying more attention to vocabulary and grammar than native readers, who…

An exploratory analysis comparing two test batteries for English-as-a-Foreign-Language reading comprehension used a single framework of communicative language ability and test method facets to investigate construct validity. The framework's use in the content analysis of communicative language tests, and for the comparison of content across tests,…

Investigates the acquisition of English synthetic compounding by 15 native Spanish and 11 native Chinese speakers, finding that although the production of regular plurals in English compounds was rampantly pervasive, the overall rate of correct omission of /-s/ inside compounds was roughly chance. The results are compared with previous studies.…

This study compared the performance of English-speaking children attending French schools (bilingual group) on phonological awareness tests with same age English-speaking children attending English schools. Results of the study are interpreted to reflect the role of second-language input in phonological awareness. (JL)