English language learners are traditionally behind in academics such as reading, math and science. Hispanics, who make up the vast majority of English language learners, tend to not enroll in pre-school or higher education, have higher dropout rates and as adults earn less than whites. Common instructional strategies used in public schools are not meeting the needs of these students. The field of TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) has typically offered a wide variety of poorly defined teaching strategies that are not based on empirical research. Within public schools, assessment tends to serve the purpose of qualifying students for ESOL services rather than being used to guide instruction. The present study examined using the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS) with three English language learners in an elementary public school setting to discern its usefulness for teachers and students. Results showed that the ABLLS could be used for English language learners, and teachers generally liked the assessment information, although the current assessment may be too lengthy and time intensive to be practical for regular education settings. Also, it did not appear that reviewing the ABLLS assessment had much effect on teacher behavior in terms of changes in instructional strategies used for the three students, although teachers did indicate that they would target different skills as a result of viewing the assessment. Suggestions are made for developing a modified version of the ABLLS for use with English language learners. Possible trends in student data are examined, as well as possible teaching strategies that may be suggested by the ABLLS.

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Language sample analysis has come to be considered the “gold standard” approach for cross-cultural language assessment. Speech-language pathologists assessing individuals of multicultural or multilinguistic backgrounds have been recommended to utilize this approach in these evaluations (e.g., Pearson, Jackson, & Wu, 2014; Heilmann & Westerveld, 2013). Language samples can be elicited with a variety of different tasks, and selection of a specific method by SLPs is often a major part of the assessment process. The present study aims to facilitate the selection of sample elicitation methods by identifying the method that elicits a maximal performance of language abilities and variation in children’s oral language samples. Analyses were performed on Play, Tell, and Retell methods across 178 total samples and it was found that Retell elicited higher measures of syntactic complexity (i.e., TTR, SI, MLUw) than Play as well as a higher TTR (i.e., lexical diversity) and SI (i.e., clausal density) than Tell; however, no difference was found between Tell and Retell for MLUw (i.e., syntactic complexity/productivity), nor was there a difference found between Tell and Play for TTR. Additionally, it was found that the two narrative methods elicited higher DDM (i.e., frequency of dialectal variation) than the Play method. No significant difference was found between Tell and Retell for DDM. Implications for the continued use of language sample for assessment of speech and language are discussed. / Communication Sciences

This paper examines language ideology in the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) 2012 speaking proficiency guidelines using the method of critical rhetoric analysis. Language ideologies, a concept borrowed from linguistic anthropology, are the ways people and organizations conceptualize and talk about language. In this paper, I explore how the ACTFL speaking proficiency guidelines discuss proficient language. Since these guidelines are widely used and highly respected, it is necessary for those who use them to understand what ideologies of proficiency they express. Therefore, this study also discusses how the language ideologies in the guidelines may impact consequential validity. The results from this analysis are a description of language ideologies found in the guidelines, including ideologies about standard language and native speakers. From these findings, I make recommendations for how knowledge about these language ideologies should inform decisions being made for users of the guidelines and the accompanying test, the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview. These recommendations include considering 1) how generalizable these ideologies are to languages other than English, 2) how what is included and excluded in the definition of proficiency could impact less prestigious speakers of the languages tested, and 3) how well these ideologies align with the decisions that will be made based on the test's results.

Testing, at times, can be a complicated matter. It takes a lot of time, precision and trial and error to adequately create a valid and reliable test. When creating a test, we should be aware of the impact that it is going to have on our teaching and whether it will be positive or negative. The goal of this project was to create four good intermediate Spanish diagnostic pre-tests that could be taken at the Brigham Young University Humanities Computer Testing Laboratory. The purpose of these pre-tests was to ascertain the grammatical strengths and weaknesses of our Fall Semester 2012 Spanish 205 students' in regards to specific grammatical principles covered throughout the course. Then, the results could be used to determine how to best plan class time and promote good instructional decisions. This report covers the necessary steps it took to develop and validate said pre-tests and concludes with reviewing the results of the validity and reliability process and gives recommendations for future application of the pre-tests designed and implemented.

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In the past, the focus in language testing, teaching and research has largely been on careful reading while expeditious (quick, efficient and selective) reading has been largely ignored. However, some research suggests that careful reading ability alone is inadequate for students to meet the demands of undergraduate academic reading. In the main English for Academic Purposes (EAP), test instruments have been previously based on careful reading models which assume reading to be unicomponential. If this is not the case, the issue for language testing is whether the construct of academic reading can be validly measured by a focus on careful reading alone. The aims of this study were to investigate the types of academic reading required of firstyear undergraduates based on Urquhart and Weir's (1998) four-cell matrix of reading types which also forms an important part of Khalifa and Weir's (2009) reading model. Based on this, a valid academic reading test battery for undergraduate students was developed and used to examine the divisibility of the academic reading construct. The literature review on reading models suggested that current models were nearly all premised on careful reading and expeditious reading had in the main been ignored. The findings of a pilot and main questionnaire survey with undergraduates suggested that both careful and expeditious reading were important in accomplishing academic reading tasks at the undergraduate level. Accordingly, the empirical data generated by these surveys validated Urquhart and Weir's (2009) reading matrix and aspects of the reading model by Khalifa and Weir (2009). Based on this matrix and aspects of the model, a valid reading test was developed and administered to first-year undergraduate students. The performance of undergraduates across the different parts of the reading test confirmed that academic reading was a divisible construct. The findings of this study add to the literature on EAL academic reading by lending empirical support to a componential approach to the teaching and testing of reading. The componential model and the test design methodology employed should help test designers develop valid academic reading tests embracing both careful and expeditious reading types. The results from such tests might usefully inform pedagogical practice leading to more efficient reading practice at undergraduate level.

The present study aimed to establish a test development and validation framework of reading-into-writing tests to improve the accountability of using the integrated task type to assess test takers' ability in Academic English. This study applied Weir's (2005) socio-cognitive framework to collect three components of test validity: context validity, cognitive validity and criterion-related validity of two common types of reading-into-writing test tasks (essay task with multiple verbal inputs and essay task with multiple verbal and non-verbal inputs). Through literature review and a series of pilot, a set of contextual and cognitive parameters that are useful to explicitly describe the features of the target academic writing tasks and the cognitive processes required to complete these tasks successfully was defined at the pilot phase of this study. A mixed-method approach was used in the main study to establish the context, cognitive and criterion-related validity of the reading-into-writing test tasks. First of all, for context validity, expert judgement and automated textual analysis were applied to examine the degree of correspondence of the contextual features (overall task setting and input text features) of the reading-into-writing test tasks to those of the target academic writing tasks. For cognitive validity, a cognitive process questionnaire was developed to assist participants to report the processes they employed on the two reading-into-writing test tasks and two real-life academic tasks. A total of 443 questionnaires from 219 participants were collected. The analysis of the cognitive validity included three stands: 1) the cognitive processes involved in real-life academic writing, 2) the extent to which these processes are elicited by the reading-into-writing test tasks, and 3) the underlying structure of the processes elicited by the reading-into-writing test tasks. A range of descriptive, inferential and factor analyses were performed on the questionnaire data. The participants' scores on these real-life academic and reading-into-writing test tasks were collected for correlational analyses to investigate the criterion-related validity of the test tasks. The findings of the study support the context, cognitive and criterion-related validity of the integrated reading-into-writing task type. In terms of context validity, the two reading-into-writing tasks largely resembled the overall task setting, the input text features and the linguistic complexity of the input texts of the real-life tasks in a number of important ways. Regarding cognitive validity, the results revealed 11 cognitive processes involved in 5 phases of real-life academic writing as well as the extent to which these processes were elicited by the test tasks. Both reading-into-writing test tasks were able to elicit from high-achieving and low-achieving participants most of these cognitive processes to a similar extent as the participants employed the processes on the real-life tasks. The medium-achieving participants tended to employ these processes more on the real-life tasks than on the test tasks. The results of explanatory factor analysis showed that both test tasks were largely able to elicit from the participants the same underlying cognitive processes as the real-life tasks did. Lastly, for criterion-related validity, the correlations between the two reading-into-writing test scores and academic performance reported in this study are apparently better than most previously reported figures in the literature. To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this study is the first study to validate two types of reading-into-writing test tasks in terms of three validity components. The results of the study proved with empirical evidence that reading-into-writing tests can successfully operationalise the appropriate contextual features of academic writing tasks and the cognitive processes required in real-life academic writing under test conditions, and the reading-into-writing test scores demonstrated a promising correlation to the target academic performance. The results have important implications for university admissions officers and other stakeholders; in particular they demonstrate that the integrated reading-into-writing task type is a valid option when considering language teaching and testing for academic purposes. The study also puts forward a test framework with explicit contextual and cognitive parameters for language teachers, test developers and future researchers who intend to develop valid reading-into-writing test tasks for assessing academic writing ability and to conduct validity studies in such integrated task type.

Este trabalho apresenta uma investigação sobre as concepções e práticas referentes à avaliação da aprendizagem de língua inglesa em comunidades do Ensino Fundamental. Os registros dessa investigação são aqui analisados e servem como ponto de partida para uma discussão sobre o tema segundo a perspectiva das teorias de letramentos predominantes nas últimas décadas. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa-interpretativa de caráter etnográfico (André, 2003), cujas perguntas direcionadoras são: I. Como se caracteriza hoje a avaliação da aprendizagem nas aulas de inglês em algumas comunidades do Ensino Fundamental? II. Como pensar a concepção de avaliação da aprendizagem de línguas sob a perspectiva dos novos estudos de letramento? Diante das observações de aulas, das entrevistas com as professoras e da análise dos documentos, pudemos identificar a recorrência de uma concepção de avaliação pautada no paradigma da modernidade, cujos problemas mais evidenciados foram seu entendimento como sinônimo de mensuração, a ênfase ao ensino de conteúdos objetivos e estáveis e ainda a prioridade do uso de provas escritas. Tais evidências, porém, não se fizeram de modo linear e homogêneo, uma vez que as narrativas e práticas pedagógicas dos sujeitos de pesquisa mostraram-se descontínuas e contraditórias. Assim é que pudemos curiosamente identificar concepções estruturalistas de língua acompanhadas de uma prática avaliativa formativa e concepções progressistas de ensino ao lado de uma concepção convencional de avaliação. No que diz respeito à discussão da avaliação de línguas diante das transformações epistemológicas assinaladas pelos novos estudos de letramento, concluímos que sua reconceituação deverá abarcar elementos até então negligenciados pela concepção convencional de educação. Trata-se, pois, de uma re-conceituação em curso e que requererá maior expansão de conhecimento por meio de pesquisas acadêmicas. / The aim of this study is to investigate both conceptions and practices regarding English language assessment in some Elementary School communities. The reports of this investigation are then analyzed and serve as a starting point for a discussion about the theme from the perspective of the prevailing new literacy studies in the last decades. It is an interpretative-qualitative research, with ethnographic aspects (André, 2003), whose guiding questions are: I. How does language assessment evolve in English classes in some Elementary School communities? II. What would the conception of language assessment be like from the perspective of the new literacy studies? Through research field, interviews with teachers and documentation analysis, we could identify a recurring conception of evaluation based on the paradigm of Modernity, whose most evident problems were its interpretation as measurement, the emphasis on objective and stable contents, and also the predominant use of written assessments. These findings, however, did not occur in a linear and homogeneous way, since both narratives and teaching practices appeared to be discontinuous and contradictory. Thus, we could curiously notice language structuralist conceptions together with formative evaluation and progressist views of language beside a more conventional evaluation concept. Regarding the discussion of language assessment towards the epistemological transformations signaled by the new literacy studies, we come to the conclusion that its re-conceptualization should enclose certain elements hitherto neglected by a conventional education conception. This, therefore, refers to a current reconceptualization, which will demand more academic research outcomes.