Expanding Horizons and Unresolved Conundrums: Language Testing and Assessment

Abstract

Since the last TESOL Quarterly commemorative issue 15 years ago, there have been too many important developments in language testing and assessment for all of them to be discussed in a single article. Therefore, this article focuses on issues that we believe are integrally linked to pedagogic and curriculum concerns of English language teaching. Although the discussion has been organized into two main sections, the first dealing with issues relating to formal tests and the second to broader concerns of assessment, we highlight the common themes and concerns running through both sections in the belief that testing and assessment are two sides of the same educational coin. In the first section we address the issue of test authenticity, which underscores much of language testing enquiry. We consider developments in the field's understanding of this notion and suggest that relating test authenticity to target language use may be necessary but insufficient without considering authenticity as it is operationalised in the classroom. In the second section, acknowledging current concerns with standardized psychometric testing, we broaden the discussion to issues of validity, ethics, and alternative assessment. We first consider the intellectual climate in which the debates on such issues has developed and the relevance of these deliberations to pedagogy and curriculum. We then discuss some of the key issues in current classroom-based teacher assessment that are related to and can inform student second language competence and teacher professional knowledge and skills. We end by projecting how the current globalization of English may affect the understanding of authenticity and how this understanding is likely to affect testing and assessment practices worldwide.

Integration in Flanders (Belgium) – Citizenship as achievement

“…Australia (McNamara 2009) or the US (Kunnan 2009) -the last three decades have seen a proliferation of compulsory language courses and/or tests for integration or citizenship through policy emulation (Foblets et al 2008;Leung & Lewkowicz 2006;Extra et al 2009;Van Avermaet 2009;Van Avermaet 2012). In some countries, language conditions were and still are a very covert part of obtaining citizenship.…”

Apprendre la langue du pays d’accueil

“…Des enquêtes réalisées au cours des dernières années attestent ainsi la multiplication de tests et de cours dits d'intégration mis en place par les pouvoirs publics (Leung et Lewkowicz, 2006;Foblets et al, 2008;Extra, Spotti & Van Avermaet, 2009 Le pourcentage de pays concernés par des mesures relatives à la connaissance de la langue du pays d'accueil dans le cadre des politiques d'intégration reste le même (75 %). Le tableau 1 met en évidence les changements intervenus entre les deux dates qu'il s'agisse de l'entrée sur le territoire, de la résidence permanente ou de l'acquisition de la nationalité.…”

Classroom-based language efficiency assessment: a challenge for EFL teachers

“…The fourth and the fifth perspectives focus on instruction-based formative dimension of assessment and learners' involvement in it. Leung and Lewkowicz (2006) note that apart from considerations concerning the design and administration of large-scale certificate testing, scho-ol and classroom-based assessment is increasingly the focus of researchers' attention, although Rea-Dickins (2004) and Cheng et al (2004) complain that this dimension of assessment has not yet been adequately embraced by research. Similarly, Davison and Leung (2009) admit that teacher-based assessment of English as a second/foreign language has been largely neglected by research, in contrast to the amount of such research into the teaching of other school subjects.…”