It is recommended that students of Chinese as a second language be introduced to characters corresponding to new vocabulary, rather than be taught to recognize characters after the words themselves are learned. An approach that breaks each character into its smallest meaningful units, then reassembles them into proper position to form characters,…

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…

The descriptions of 200 tests for a variety of language groups are designed for use with the test file maintained by the Evaluation, Dissemination, and Assessment Center for Bilingual Education (EDAC). The content areas covered include reading, mathematics, self-concept, language dominance, language proficiency, and intelligence. Tests are…

A classroom study in two advanced Chinese language courses compared the effectiveness of two instructional strategies: (1) proficiency-based instruction through cooperative learning (Chinese 405) and (2) "prochievement," a hybrid, performance-based strategy derived from both proficiency and achievement approaches (Chinese 406). Subjects…

The manual for administration of the Chinese Proficiency Test contains an overview of the program, including: (1) its history, content, and format; (2) its primary focus and uses; (3) administration procedures, including registration, ordering the test, reporting scores, and billing; (4) the interpretation of test scores based on normative data…

This collection of essays on measurement theory and language testing includes: "Computerized Adaptive Testing: Implications for Language Test Developers" (Peter Tung); "The Promise and Threat of Computerized Adaptive Assessment of Reading Comprehension" (Michael Canale); "Computerized Rasch Analysis of Item Bias in ESL…

This journal is intended to assist language educators in Hong Kong schools in developing and maintaining high standards of instruction in both English and Chinese. The 11 issues presented here contain articles, some in English and some in Chinese, on a variety of language education topics, including: language education planning; instructional…

This book, the second of two volumes devoted to instructional media in second language instruction, focuses on specific applications of advanced technology in the classroom. The first part, "Applications," contains seven chapters. They are: "The Language Laboratory in the Computer Age" (S. E. K. Otto); "Television…