The present study examined how a reader's subject knowledge, the analogy versus nonanalogy difference in text type, and type of test (written recall, sentence completion, and multiple choice) affect first language (L1) and second language (L2) reading comprehension. There were three participant groups: (a) 53 native Costa Ricans enrolled in…

Discusses student evaluation in foreign-language courses and argues that passing a multiple-choice test should not be a course objective. Suggests that achieving such an objective does not ensure that students understand the topic or that they will use their new knowledge in new situations, nor that they know how to analyze to the appropriate…

The educational advantages of open-book testing are explored, considering the changes in teaching method that are necessary for open-book testing to be successful. How open-book testing should work is illustrated through the example of tests for Spanish-language classes. (SLD)

Reports on the Minnesota Articulation Project, providing an overview of the projects' three principal working groups: political action, curriculum, and assessment. The article then outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the proficiency-based assessment instruments developed in French, German, and Spanish and describes in detail the content and…

Provides insight on preparing students to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Specific suggestions include helping teachers to become comfortable with the test's computer-based format and helping students adapt to the test's point of view. (Author/VWL)

Writing assessment essentially juxtaposes two elements: how "good writing" is to be defined, and how "good measurement" of that writing is to be carried out. The timed test is often used in large-scale L2 writing assessments because it is considered to provide reliable measurement. It is, however, highly inauthentic. One way of enhancing…

This report describes the development, construction, and validation of the Preliminary Chinese Proficiency Test (Pre-CPT), a standardized, nationally-normed test of listening and reading comprehension for beginning-level native English-speaking learners of Chinese as a second language. The Pre-CPT was designed as a lower-level version of the…

Test data from 200 examinees from the Spanish Teacher Certification Examination and 75 examinees from the French Teacher Certification Examination were used in a study of scale drift in sequentially equated test forms. Using sampling with replacement, 1,000 samples of 100 examinees each for Spanish and 1,000 samples of 50 each for French were…

Assessed native Brazilian students' affective reactions to different oral English-as-a-Foreign-Language achievement test formats. A multivariate analysis of variance based on the results of a factor analysis showed no significant difference among student reactions to the different test formats. (Author/CB)

This paper surveys some current developments in second language vocabulary assessment, with particular attention to the ways in which computer corpora can provide better quality information about the frequency of words and how they are used in specific contexts. The relative merits of different word lists are discussed, including the Academic Word…

Educators in Europe are complaining about mishandled changes in a key English-language test and are demanding that the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which runs the examination, delay plans to introduce its new online format in March 2006 in more than 100 countries. Critics of the planned change in the Test of English as a foreign Language…

This article describes the development of an English spelling measure designed to assess the progress made by Spanish-English bilingual children from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Different stages of developing the measure are described, such as selecting the focus features, the prepilot and pilot phases, and the operational version. Two underlying…

Based on personal experience, this paper examines the ambiguities of the Likert-type 5-point scale in learning strategy elicitation. Four parallel questionnaires consisting of the same batch of 20 items taken from the Oxford scale (1990) were administered among a group of 120 tertiary level, non-English majors in China. Questionnaire 1 used the…

Discusses the issue of oral communication tests through an account of an oral test administered to nearly 1,000 students at Yarmouk University Language Center. The ways in which the institution attempted to overcome problems in the oral test's feasibility, validity, and reliability are presented. (Author/CB)

To date, little work has been done to ensure limited English proficient (LEP) students are accurately assessed on a large scale. The purpose of this guide is to help scorers in high volume situations to be able to effectively evaluate the open-ended responses of this population. Section one of this guide presents a brief overview of the State…