Provides a personal view of the history of Anglo-American language testing over the last half-century. Argues that major developments in the field have tended to be embraced too enthusiastically so that they have led to unbalanced views concerning the construct definition of language, the scope of test impact, and the value of new methods of test…

Considers effect of language distance--how distant the language is from English--on attainment of English language literacy, as measured by performance on an Australian English-as-a-Second-Language end-of-school examination for non-English speaking background students, who also sat for another examination in their first language. Study concludes…

This paper examines the nature of dictionaries and encyclopedias, focusing on some of the preparation that has gone into the construction of a dictionary of language testing at the University of Melbourne (Australia). It discusses the purpose of such dictionaries, the nature and size of dictionary/encyclopedia entries, and the readability of…