Language Assessment Policy Research Articles

European foreign language policies, national language testing and ambivalence towards the introduction of the logics of standardisation

Educational policies and priorities shaped at the supranational level by European and global agencies and players impact the processes of national policymaking in complex ways. In this study, recontextualisations of European foreign language education and language assessment policies in the Greek policy and pedagogical contexts are examined. Specifically, the politics of foreign language education and assessment are explored with a focus on English language teaching in public schools and the expected introduction of the Greek National Certificate of Language Proficiency (known as KPG) which is a state-led testing system formed by adopting the six-level scale of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages. Drawing on Bernstein’s theory of symbolic control and pedagogic discourse, it is shown that extensive recontextualisations of European (and global) discourses on English language teaching and assessment in the Greek context project competency and outcome-based curricula and learning as the desirable pedagogic model. Furthermore, attempts to introduce certification procedures in public schools derive from market-driven discourses that sanction a standardised system of student performance while the implications of standardisation for schools, teachers and students alike are downplayed.

Test-taker insights for language assessment policies and practices

Test-taker insights for language assessment policies and practices

Policies of English language teacher recruitment in Iran and a glimpse of their implementation

ABSTRACT This study examines policies of English language teacher recruitment in Iran as part of broader education policies reflected in official national documents, and briefly investigates the implementation of these policies in selected educational institutions. Seven major documents are scrutinised using qualitative content analysis revealing three major categories of English language teacher recruitment policies: prioritising Islamic values and perspectives; emphasising commitment to the goals of the educational system; and focusing on recruited teachers’ knowledge and expertise. Moreover, interviews with three groups of participants at public schools, private language institutes, and universities showed clear discrepancies in translating the official policies into actual recruitment practices. In addition to considerations related to our local context, more broadly, we argue that language education policy as a rich research area, should be further studied in more specific sub-areas such as language teacher education policies, policies of language teaching materials development, and language assessment policies.

Manifestation of Agency by English Language Teachers in Relation to Thailand’s Language Assessment Policy

The concept of human agency has received increasing attention in the field of education in the past decade. Yet, education researchers, those in the area of English language teaching included, still have much to grapple with in exploring and conceptualizing agency of teachers—or teacher agency. The current study thus aims to contribute to greater understanding of teacher agency in relation to the English language assessment policy of Thailand’s higher education. Insights are gleaned from questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews with 26 English language teachers of various nationalities, currently teaching undergraduatelevel English, from nine public and nine private higher education institutions across Thailand. Findings reveal five types of manifestation of teacher agency and the various degrees in which personal and ecological factors influence each manifestation type. It also appears that manifestation ofteacher agency depends not so much on the direct demands of policy mandates as on the teachers’ personal dispositions being mediated—or subjugated—by their institutional culture and structure.

Assessment Practices of Albanian & Italian Teachers in English Classrooms

Language assessment policies in Albania and Italy have impact on assessment practices of English teachers. This study describes Albanian and Italian secondary school English teachers’ classroom assessment practices in ELL classes. It was conducted using qualitative method design with 48 secondary school English teachers as respondents, practically 24 from Albania and 24 from Italy who participated in an interview and observation to clarify their practices on classroom assessment. The study found that secondary school English teachers in both countries Albania and Italy used assessment for learning as the main purpose of assessment. The majority of secondary school English teachers in Italy prepared and made their own assessment, while secondary school English teachers in Albania used items from published textbooks as their primary sources for constructing assessment items. English teachers of both countries used written comments for providing feedback. Total score test and a letter grade were the highest percentage methods for providing summative assessment for both secondary school English teachers in Albania and Italy.

The Impact of the University Entrance Exam on EFL Education in Turkey: Pre-service English Language Teachers⿿ Perspective

Abstract The values and world views of different nations are reflected in their educational systems (Barnwell 1996). The methodologies they use to train language teachers and to assess language proficiency not only mirror and reinforce general attitudes about language and language learning but also create closed systems that are usually highly resistant to change and innovation ( Locastro, 1990 ). Language teachers⿿ experiences as testees shape their beliefs about assessment, inform their teaching and play a central role in how they plan and implement classroom assessment practices (Bliem & Davinroy, 1997; Craig et al., 2013 ). Therefore, the current study, first, presents the sociocultural and historical context of how English is taught and tested in Turkey and then, it presents the beliefs and views of pre-service teachers related to assessment of English in Turkey. The views and beliefs of pre-service teachers have been gathered using questionnaires and interviews. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses of all sets of the data have been performed so that a more detailed, more representative picture is created. The results of the study not only present how language assessment policies shape and reshape teaching beliefs and practices in the country but also reveal how pre-service teachers⿿ views about assessment could be situation-specific, hence difficult to understand once placed out of context.

English Teachers Classroom Assessment Practices

The new language assessment policies in the Philippines and in Indonesia have impact on English teachers’ assessment practices. Classroom assessment; as mandated in the current curriculum of both countries swifts from sources of information to the inseparable process of teaching and learning. This study describes Filipino and Indonesian high school English teachers’ classroom assessment practices in ELL classes.This study was conducted using a mix method design with 48 Filipino and Indonesian junior high school English teachers as respondents who completed the questionnaire on classroom assessment practices. Twelve respondents participated in an interview and observation to further clarify their practices on classroom assessment. The study found that both Filipino and Indonesian junior high school English teachers used assessment for learning as the main purpose of assessment. The majority of Filipino Junior High school English teachers prepared and made their own assessment, while Indonesian junior high school English teachers used items from published textbooks as their primary sources for constructing assessment items. Both Filipino and Indonesian junior high school English teachers used written comments as their primary method for providing feedback. Total score test and a letter grade were the highest percentage methods for providing a final report for both Filipino and Indonesian junior high school English teachers.

Interview with Antony John Kunnan on Language Assessment

Antony John Kunnan is a language assessment specialist. His research interests are fairness of tests and testing practice, assessment literacy, research methods and statistics, ethics and standards, and language assessment policy. His most recent publications include a four-volume edited collection of 140 chapters titled The Companion to Language Assessment (Wiley, 2014), a four-volume set of 75 previously published papers titled Language Testing and Assessment (Routledge, 2014) and Talking about Language Assessment (Routledge, 2015). He was the founding editor of Language Assessment Quarterly (2003-2013) and the founding president of the Asian Association for Language Assessment. He has held academic and professorial appointments at universities in Bangalore, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Taichung, Hong Kong and Singapore. Currently, he is a research consultant at the Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou. The interview you are about to read here was recorded before Kunnan’s plenary talk at the 4 th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ICELT2015) in Melaka, Malaysia. My colleague, Dr. Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi, managing editor of the International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature (IJALEL) also accompanied us during the interview.

LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT POLICY IN IRAN

Despite its geopolitical reputation, Iran has been quite underrepresented in studies of its sociopolitically dominated religious educational framework and its language teaching and assessment policy. In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, major restructuring was planned for foreign language teaching and assessment to accord with Islamic values. However, due to political obstacles, including the long-lasting war between Iran and Iraq, most of the plans could not be implemented until years after the revolution. Since high-stakes language tests including university entrance examinations are developed, administered, and scored by the government agencies, independent researchers do not have access to test data. A critical review of the language assessment policy in Iran requires research-based data, which is, in many cases, lacking or sporadic. This article is an attempt to provide some basic documented information about the educational system, foreign language teaching, and assessment in Iran.

AIR SAFETY, LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT POLICY, AND POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE CASE OF AVIATION ENGLISH

The language of international aviation communication is English, but numerous aviation incidents and accidents have involved miscommunication between pilots and air traffic controllers, many of whom are not native speakers of the language. In 2004 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) published a set of Language Proficiency Requirements and a Proficiency Rating Scale, and by 5 March 2008, air traffic controllers and pilots were required by the ICAO to have a certificate attesting to their proficiency in the language used for international aeronautical communication. Although some organizations made efforts to produce tests by the deadline, in the event an implementation period was allowed, with a new deadline of March 2011. This article describes a number of surveys of tests of aviation English, the implementation of the ICAO requirements, and the rating scales. It concludes that many of the assessment procedures appear not to meet international professional standards for language tests, the implementation of the language assessment policy is inadequate, and much more careful and close monitoring is needed of the quality of the tests and assessment procedures required by the policy.

The Affects of Language Assessment Policies in Speech-Language Pathology on the Educational Experiences of Indigenous Students

The role and significance of speech-language pathology (SLP) is not often considered in studies of language planning. SLP has tended to be considered more as an issue for health policy than for language policy. However, the health focus of SLP does interact with language planning especially in education where SLP assessments have implications for language-in-education planning in local contexts and in the development of literacy programmes and educational interventions in schools. It is in the case of assessment in educational contexts in which the concerns of SLP and language planning come closest together. This paper will discuss the implementation of language assessment policies within one rural Aboriginal community school in Australia. These policies have had the effect of medicalising non-standard language systems and increasing existing power imbalances between the Aboriginal people and the non-Aboriginal education system. This has resulted in significant detrimental impacts being experienced by the individual children who have been tested in accordance with these language assessment policies.

The Affects of Language Assessment Policies in Speech-Language Pathology on the Educational Experiences of Indigenous Students

The role and significance of speech-language pathology (SLP) is not often considered in studies of language planning. SLP has tended to be considered more as an issue for health policy than for language policy. However, the health focus of SLP does interact with language planning especially in education where SLP assessments have implications for language-in-education planning in local contexts and in the development of literacy programmes and educational interventions in schools. It is in the case of assessment in educational contexts in which the concerns of SLP and language planning come closest together. This paper will discuss the implementation of language assessment policies within one rural Aboriginal community school in Australia. These policies have had the effect of medicalising non-standard language systems and increasing existing power imbalances between the Aboriginal people and the non-Aboriginal education system. This has resulted in significant detrimental impacts being experienced by the individual children who have been tested in accordance with these language assessment policies.

How Language Proficiency Tests Mislead Us about Ability: Implications for English Language Learner Placement in Special Education

The authors argue that English language learner (ELL) language assessment policy and poor language tests partly account for ELLs’ disproportionate representation in special education. Previous research indicates that many states routinely assess ELLs’ first language (L1) at initial enrollment and that ELLs identified as limited in both languages have relatively high rates of identification in special education. Two common tests, the Language Assessment Scales-Oral (LAS—O) Español and the Idea Proficiency Test I–Oral (IPT) Spanish, are shown to identify 74% and 90%, respectively, Spanish-background ELLs (N = 145) as limited L1 students, whereas a natural language measure found only 2% of participants to have unexpectedly high morphological error rates. Correlations are provided. The authors recommend changes in language testing policies and practices for ELLs.

How Language Proficiency Tests Mislead Us about Ability: Implications for English Language Learner Placement in Special Education

The authors argue that English language learner (ELL) language assessment policy and poor language tests partly account for ELLs’ disproportionate representation in special education. Previous research indicates that many states routinely assess ELLs’ first language (L1) at initial enrollment and that ELLs identified as limited in both languages have relatively high rates of identification in special education. Two common tests, the Language Assessment Scales-Oral (LAS—O) Español and the Idea Proficiency Test I–Oral (IPT) Spanish, are shown to identify 74% and 90%, respectively, Spanish-background ELLs (N = 145) as limited L1 students, whereas a natural language measure found only 2% of participants to have unexpectedly high morphological error rates. Correlations are provided. The authors recommend changes in language testing policies and practices for ELLs.