Applied linguists have developed complex theories of the ability to communicate in a second language (L2). However, the perspectives on L2 communication ability of speakers who are not trained language professionals have been incorporated neither into theories of communication ability nor in the criteria for assessing performance on…

This paper considers how to establish the minimum required level of professionally relevant oral communication ability in the medium of English for health practitioners with English as an additional language (EAL) to gain admission to practice in jurisdictions where English is the dominant language. A theoretical concern is the construct of…

Gaining insights from domain experts into how they view communication in real world settings is recognized as an important authenticity consideration in the development of criteria to assess language proficiency for specific academic or occupational purposes. These "indigenous" criteria represent an articulation of the test construct and…

This article addresses the suitability of the CEFR as the basis for decisions about the readiness of individuals to engage in academic writing tasks in undergraduate university courses, and as a guide to progress. The CEFR offers potentially relevant general scales and subscales, but also more specific subscales for writing in the academic…

The suggested role for assessment in developing "Roadmaps for Learning" has potentially important implications for the learning of second or foreign languages in school, a major concern of applied linguistics. In this response, the authors consider how the findings of a detailed ethnographic study of classroom-based assessment in two…

The study reported in this paper is an investigation of the nature of speaking proficiency in English as a second language in the context of a larger project to develop a rating scale for a new international test of English for Academic Purposes, TOEFL iBT (Brown et al. 2005). We report on a large-scale study of the relationship between detailed…

Addresses the question of whether there are different characteristics and language performance conditions (involving assumed different levels of cognitive demand) associated with different levels of fluency, complexity, or accuracy in test candidate responses. Participants were pre-university students taking English courses. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the increase in discourse-based studies of oral proficiency assessment techniques. Discusses research carried out on a number of factors in the assessment setting, including the role of interlocutor, candidate, and rater, and the impact of tasks, task performance conditions, and rating criteria. (Author/VWL)

Investigated the impact of performance conditions on perceptions of task difficulty in a test of spoken language, in light of the cognitive complexity framework proposed by Skehan (1998). Candidates performed narrative tasks whose characteristics and the conditions under which they were performed were manipulated, and the impact of these on task…

Examines the linguistic orientation of traditional language-assessment procedures by focusing on an Australian study of immigrant health professionals in which a mismatch was found between successful performance on a test for occupation-specific English-language ability and clinical supervisors' perceptions of their supervisees' English…

This report documents two coordinated exploratory studies into the nature of oral English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) proficiency. Study I used verbal-report methodology to examine field experts? rating orientations, and Study II investigated the quality of test-taker discourse on two different Test of English as a Foreign Language? (TOEFL®) task…