Challenges in Language Testing Around the World Insights for language test users

This book combines insights from language assessment literacy and critical language testing through critical analyses and research about challenges in language assessment around the world. It investigates problematic practices in language testing which are relevant to language test users such as language program directors, testing centers, and language teachers, as well as teachers-in-training in Graduate Diploma and Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics programs. These issues involve aspects of language testing such as test development, test administration, scoring, and interpretation/use of test results.

Chapters in this volume discuss insights about language testing policy, testing world languages, developing program-level language tests and tests of specific language skills, and language assessment literacy. In addition, this book identifies two needs in language testing for further examination: the need for collaboration between language test developers, language test users, and language users, and the need to base language tests on real-world language use.

1. Introducing Challenges in Language Testing Around the World.- 2. Problems Caused by Ignoring Descriptive Statistics in Language Testing.- 3. Disregarding Data Due Diligence Versus Checking and Communicating Parametric Statistical Testing Procedure Assumptions.- 4. Washback of the Reformed College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) in English Learning and Teaching in China, and Possible Solutions.- 5. Fairness in College Entrance Exams in Japan and the Planned Use of External Tests in English.- 6. (Mis)use of High-stakes Standardized Tests for Multiple Purposes in Canada? A Call for an Evidence-based Approach to Language Testing and Realignment of Instruction.- 7. Testing in ESP: Approaches and Challenges in Aviation and Maritime English.- 8. A Conceptual Framework on the Power of Language Tests as Social Practice.- 9. The Washback Effect of the Vietnam Six-levels of Foreign Language Proficiency Framework (KNLNNVN): The Case of the English Proficiency Graduation Benchmark.- 10. Avoiding Scoring Malpractice: Supporting Reliable Scoring of Constructed-response Items in High-stakes Exams.- 11. Score Changes with Repetition of Paper Version(s) of the TOEFL in an Arab Gulf State: A Natural Experiment.

Betty Lanteigne is a former Fulbright Dissertation Fellow and English Teaching Fellow, and also an Associate Professor at LCC International University in Lithuania. For 14 years she has trained English teachers from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, focusing on language assessment literacy and sociolinguistics, particularly pragmatics. Her research and teacher training interests combine sociolinguistic description and language assessment.

Christine Coombe has a Ph.D. in Foreign/Second Language Education from The Ohio State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of General Studies at Dubai Men’s College. She is the former Testing and Measurements Supervisor at UAE University and Assessment Coordinator of Zayed University. Christine has published numerous books and articles on language testing/assessment, research methods, leadership, teacher effectiveness and task-based teaching and learning.

James Dean Brown is Professor of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. He has spoken and taught in many places (from Australia to Venezuela). He has published numerous articles and books on language testing, curriculum design, research methods, and connected speech.