Modelling and Assessing Second Language Acquisition
Added by: rapgreen | Karma: 1035.14 | Coursebooks, Only for teachers | 7 April 2009
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The planning of this volume started out in response to the question: What are the implications of second language acquisition research for language teaching? The aim of the book is therefore to give this question an in-depth consideration from various points of view. The discussion centres around issues such as whether and how teaching, teaching materials and testing can be planned and executed in ways that are more favourable for the individual learners, if known facts about second language acquisition are taken into account. As the title of the book suggests, it is divided into two parts. Part I deals with those factors which concern syllabus design, teaching materials, and teaching itself. Part II is concerned with assessment testing.
The purpose of the present volume, then, is twofold; first to update teachers, researchers, policymakers/administrators, and others on what is involved in this complex issue of testing and its effects, and how such a phenomenon benefits teaching and learning, and second, to provide researchers with models of research studies on which future studies can be based. In order to address these two main purposes, the volume consists of two parts. Part I provides readers with an overall view of the complexity of washback, and the various contextual factors entangled within testing, teaching, and learning. Part II provides a collection of empirical washback studies carried out in many different parts of the world, which lead the readers further into the heart of the issue within each educational context.
Added by: rapgreen | Karma: 1035.14 | Coursebooks, Only for teachers | 7 April 2009
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Tim McNamara and Carsten Roever’s “Language Testing: The Social Dimension” is the fifth volume in the Language Learning Monograph Series. The volumes in this series review recent findings and current theoretical positions, present new data and interpretations, and sketch interdisciplinary research programs. Volumes are authoritative statements by scholars who have led in the development of a particular line of interdisciplinary research and are intended to serve as a benchmark for interdisciplinary research in the years to come. The importance of broad interdisciplinary work in applied linguistics is clear in the present volume. McNamara and Roever survey the work that language testers have done to establish internal equity in assessment, and they describe the consequences of language testing in society as a whole and in the lives of individuals. Language is rooted in social life and nowhere is this more apparent than in the ways in which knowledge of language is assessed. Studying language tests and their effects involves understanding some of the central issues of the contemporary world.
Validity is an ominous word. The Oxford English Dictionary assigns it several meanings, deriving from Latin origins of 'powerful, effective': 'possessing legal authority or force', 'technically perfect or efficacious', as well as 'sound and to the point; against which no objections can fairly be brought'. These senses are all relevant to current uses of the term validity in language testing. But as the chapters in the present volume make clear, various practices, modes of argumentation, sources of information, and complex conceptual issues exist for establishing the validity of language testing instruments, procedures, and their uses in educational settings. Moreover, many valuable analytic approaches and theoretical considerations have only recently been explored, applying innovative measurement techniques, corresponding to the complex nature of language proficiency itself, and accounting for the diverse purposes for which languages are learned as well as settings in which languages are used.
The information contained in this handbook can be used by organizations as well as individuals seeking a higher level of personal or professional success.
Throughout this handbook, we will be following an eight-step "success map" that was developed from research showing that the process of achieving success is remarkably consistent from person to person and organization to organization. These eight steps win provide you with the means for achieving success and securing goals on a day-to-day basis.
