Reviews research that sheds light on the comparability of Oral Proficiency Interview and the Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview. Suggestions are provided for further research. (16 references) (VWL)

Reviews research on the use of the "T-Unit" as a measure of language ability, demonstrating that the measure has limited utility in the case of second language, since it bases itself solely on syntax and does not reward speakers for sophistication in such areas as vocabulary. (Author/CB)

A review of Hunt's research to find ways of measuring the growth of syntactic proficiency in American school children explores the possibilities of applying these measures to groups of British native and non-native speakers of English and developing them for use in teaching and testing. (Author/CB)

Discusses the "sore-finger" form of multiple choice test items. "Sore finger" items employ authentic texts making use of the rules of text grammar, achieve high discrimination levels, and show a high validity for several subtests, especially style tests. The use of sore finger items in German nationwide English and German tests…

Describes weaknesses of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) testing methods and argues that many EFL departments set up their own examinations to assess how effectively they are preparing students for those examinations. It is suggested that this leads to production of test items that are biased against divergent students and that an interview…

The findings from research on written and oral summarization are discussed under three headings: summarizers' strategies, improving summarizers' performance, and the assessment of summary quality. Objective measures of summary quality used by researchers are described, and ways these measures could be adapted for use in higher education assessment…

Considers how the development of a computer-based microconcordance program could be used to produce cloze tests that do more than present a mutilated text derived from a single source, with an example within the context of advanced learners of English-as-a-Second-Language. (CB)