Language Testing Reconsidered

Language Testing Reconsidered
Author: Janna D. Fox
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2007-06-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0776616315

Language Testing Reconsidered provides a critical update on major issues that have engaged the field of language testing since its inception. Anyone who is working in, studying or teaching language testing should have a copy of this book. The information, discussions, and reflections offered within the volume address major developments within the field over the past decades, enlivened by current "takes" on these issues. The real value of this collection, however, lies in its consideration of the past as a means of defining the future agenda of language testing.

Science Teaching Reconsidered

Science Teaching Reconsidered
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 102
Release: 1997-03-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309175445

Effective science teaching requires creativity, imagination, and innovation. In light of concerns about American science literacy, scientists and educators have struggled to teach this discipline more effectively. Science Teaching Reconsidered provides undergraduate science educators with a path to understanding students, accommodating their individual differences, and helping them grasp the methodsâ€"and the wonderâ€"of science. What impact does teaching style have? How do I plan a course curriculum? How do I make lectures, classes, and laboratories more effective? How can I tell what students are thinking? Why don't they understand? This handbook provides productive approaches to these and other questions. Written by scientists who are also educators, the handbook offers suggestions for having a greater impact in the classroom and provides resources for further research.

Post-admission Language Assessment of University Students

Post-admission Language Assessment of University Students
Author: John Read
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2016-08-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3319391925

English-medium universities around the world face real challenges in ensuring that incoming students have the language and literacy skills they need to cope with the demands of their degree programmes. One response has been a variety of institutional initiatives to assess students after admission, in order to identify those with significant needs and advise them on how to enhance their academic language ability. This volume brings together papers from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Oman, South Africa and the United States, written by language assessment specialists who discuss issues in the design and implementation of these post-admission assessments in their own institutions. A major theme running through the book is the need to evaluate the validity of such assessments not just on their technical quality but on their impact, in terms of giving students access to effective means of developing their language skills and ultimately enhancing their academic achievement.

Reconsidering Context in Language Assessment

Reconsidering Context in Language Assessment
Author: Janna Fox
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2022-04-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1351184555

This volume reconsiders the problem of context in language testing and other modes of assessment from the perspective of transdisciplinarity. Transdisciplinary assessment research brings together collaborators who draw on the strengths of their differing backgrounds and expertise in order to address high-stakes complex socially-relevant problems. Traditional treatments of context in language assessment research have generally been informed by individualist cognitive theories within measurement and psychometrics. The additive potential of alternative social theories, including theories of genre, situated learning, distributed cognition, and intercultural communication, has largely been overlooked. In this book, the benefits of socio-theoretical reconsiderations of context are discussed and further exemplified in transdisciplinary research studies that investigate the use of assessment in classroom and workplace settings. The book offers a renewed view of context in arguments for the validity of assessment practices, and will be of interest to assessment researchers, practitioners, and students in applied linguistics, education, educational psychology, language testing, and other related disciplines and fields.

Reading Reconsidered

Reading Reconsidered
Author: Doug Lemov
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2016-02-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1119104246

TEACH YOUR STUDENTS TO READ WITH PRECISION AND INSIGHT The world we are preparing our students to succeed in is one bound together by words and phrases. Our students learn their literature, history, math, science, or art via a firm foundation of strong reading skills. When we teach students to read with precision, rigor, and insight, we are truly handing over the key to the kingdom. Of all the subjects we teach reading is first among equals. Grounded in advice from effective classrooms nationwide, enhanced with more than 40 video clips, Reading Reconsidered takes you into the trenches with actionable guidance from real-life educators and instructional champions. The authors address the anxiety-inducing world of Common Core State Standards, distilling from those standards four key ideas that help hone teaching practices both generally and in preparation for assessments. This 'Core of the Core' comprises the first half of the book and instructs educators on how to teach students to: read harder texts, 'closely read' texts rigorously and intentionally, read nonfiction more effectively, and write more effectively in direct response to texts. The second half of Reading Reconsidered reinforces these principles, coupling them with the 'fundamentals' of reading instruction—a host of techniques and subject specific tools to reconsider how teachers approach such essential topics as vocabulary, interactive reading, and student autonomy. Reading Reconsidered breaks an overly broad issue into clear, easy-to-implement approaches. Filled with practical tools, including: 44 video clips of exemplar teachers demonstrating the techniques and principles in their classrooms (note: for online access of this content, please visit my.teachlikeachampion.com) Recommended book lists Downloadable tips and templates on key topics like reading nonfiction, vocabulary instruction, and literary terms and definitions. Reading Reconsidered provides the framework necessary for teachers to ensure that students forge futures as lifelong readers.

Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words
Author: Harvey Daniels
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1983
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

Daniels refutes the contention that a literary crisis is raging through the United States and that the English language is deteriorating. By showing that panics concerning the state of language have occured at regular intervals since 2400 B.C., he asserts that language cannot die, that it changes constantly and that attitudes toward language are social attitudes. He identifies several classes of language critics including journalistic critics like Edwin Newman, William Safire and John Simon; educational critics who employ techniques that preclude a student from communicating effectively; and a group of critics he identifies as "the higher authorities" - authors of English handbooks and usage panelists of dictionaries. Also demonstrates the futility of "back-to-basics" literacy programs that drill grammar but ignore actual writing and offers a program for teacher training in writing instruction. ISBN 0-8093-8093-7 (pbk.) : $10.95.

Assessing Academic English

Assessing Academic English
Author: Alan Davies
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2008-02-21
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780521542500

The volume offers an explanatory account of the progress of academic language proficiency testing in the UK (and later Australia), from the British Council's English Proficiency Test Battery (EPTB), through the revolutionary English Language Testing Service (ELTS) to the present solution of IELTS. The three stages of academic language testing in the UK over the last 50 years move from grammar through real life to features of language use. At the same time, comparison of predictive validities suggests that all three measures account for very similar shares of the variance (about 10%) and that therefore the choice of an academic language proficiency test is determined only in part by predictive validity: other factors such as test delivery, test renewal in response to fashion, research and impact on stakeholders, and assessment of all four language skills are also important.

Communicative proficiency and linguistic development

Communicative proficiency and linguistic development
Author: Inge Bartning
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1446669939

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has become the yardstick for teaching and testing language skills in Europe and elsewhere. Yet little is known about the relationships between the communicative levels established using the can-do statements of the CEFR and the developmental stages of grammatical and lexical development described by Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research. This book presents empirical research by members of the SLATE network (Second Language Acquisition and Testing in Europe), aimed at bridging this gap. The studies deal with several target languages, including Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian and Spanish, with adult, adolescent and child learners in both formal and informal contexts.