Exploring Language Assessment and Testing : Language in Action.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of tables -- Permissions -- Acknowledgements -- Series editors' introduction -- Part I -- 1 Putting language assessment in its place -- Language as evidence about people -- Assessment and testing -- 2 Purposes for assessment -- Purposes for assessment -- Educational assessment in teaching and learning -- Different worlds or shared spaces? -- 3 The practice of language assessment -- Building quality systems for language assessment -- Effective assessment comes at a PRICE -- The assessment cycle -- 4 The qualities of effective assessment systems -- Four qualities of useful assessments -- Practicality -- Reliability -- Validity -- Interpretative arguments: assessing the evidence -- Assessments as maps -- Beneficial consequences -- Summary: the right tool for the job -- Part II -- 5 Assessing receptive skills -- Defining reading and listening abilities -- Assessing grammar and vocabulary -- Preparing items for assessing reading and listening -- Trying out material -- Scoring performance -- Standard setting -- 6 Assessing productive and interactive skills -- Defining productive and interactive language abilities -- Purposes for assessment -- Assessment design -- Speaking tasks -- Task review -- Trying out material -- Scoring performance -- Using computers to score performance -- Score reporting and feedback -- Standard setting -- Part III -- 7 Multiplication and division: trends in language assessment -- Introduction -- The growth of a profession -- What to assess? Constructs -- Conflicting and shifting views of language education -- Objections to discrete point testing -- Integrative testing -- The mastery learning movement -- Language aptitude -- Behavioural objectives -- Two approaches to score interpretation.

Pragmatic tests and the unitary competence hypothesis -- The 'promised land' of communicative testing -- Rapprochement: communicative language ability -- Developments in formative assessment -- Assessment wars: teacher assessment versus external tests -- Ethical and critical language assessment -- Higher, wider, deeper: some emerging trends in language assessment -- Last words -- 8 Commentary on tasks -- Glossary -- Further reading -- References -- Index.

Offering an accessible introduction that starts from real-world experiences and uses practical examples to introduce the reader to the academic field of language assessment and testing, this book is indispensable for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students studying Language Education, Applied Linguistics and Language Assessment.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.