The recent psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic trend in foreign language teaching indicates a shift of interest away from quantitative data towards qualitative information of different kinds. Validity and relevance are stressed and so new test formats are demanded, as well as new methods of dealing with student answers. Item analysis techniques used…

This bibliography is divided into four main sections. The first section cites bibliographies dealing with language testing, while the second and third sections deal with books and articles in the same area. A fourth section lists test distributors' catalogues. Entries include publications from many countries. Most entries have been published since…

The self-instructional language program (SILP) allows students to learn, through a guided individualized study program, a foreign language not offered in the regular university curriculum. A director for the program offers the facilities and materials necessary for administering such a program. A tutor, who is a native speaker of the target…

This report discusses the types and results of tests used on 142 "reasonably representative" American Indian bilingual students at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Major hypotheses of the study were that (1) there is a factor in the abilities of an English-as-a-second-language speaker which can be isolated…

Teachers and testers should encourage children to repeat or restate verbal stimuli in order to enhance their comprehension. Changing the administration of a language comprehension test to include such restatement significantly raised the mean test scores of four- and five-year old Head Start children. (CTM)

Proposes a new type of oral test, based on Grice's Co-operative Principle and its dependent maxims, to measure communicative competence. Describes the design, administration, and scoring of this timed, multiple-choice test and gives sample test materials. Discusses applications to testing languages for special purposes and ways of presenting the…

Describes a pilot project whereby oral proficiency interviews were administered to students studying fourth- and fifth-year year German at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts. The interviews were based on techniques taught at the American Council on the teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service Oral Proficiency Summer…

Significant test concepts are discussed and guidelines are given for planning and constructing test items. Examples are given for evaluating reading comprehension and suggestions are made for pre- and post-test activities. (Author/RM)

The need for testing oral proficiency in the foreign language is discussed and several kinds of testing procedures described. A specific oral language production test is suggested. (RM)

This paper describes a study on rater training that involved the analysis of ratings given to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) compositions by 8 inexperienced and 8 experienced raters both before and after rater training, using FACETS (Linacre, 1990, 1993), which provides measures of rater severity and consistency. The testing text was a…

Expressive language samples were obtained from 20 children in four location-stimulus combinations and from wireless radio telemetry. No significant differences existed between the locations of home and clinic, but significant differences were noted among samples elicited using pictures as opposed to open-ended questions as compared to telemetry…

The use of taped radio programs is suggested for testing advanced level French comprehension. In the testing technique described less attention is given to program content than to style and language usage. A sample test is presented. (MSE)