From Testing to Assessment

From Testing to Assessment: English as an International Language provides a critical review of conventional and alternative approaches to the assessment of English literacy skills in various parts of the world. It presents empirical studies conducted in three major settings: in countries such as Japan and Brazil where English functions as the language of international commernce; in multilingual countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe where English is the national language of education and government; and in such countries as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States where English is the dominant language. The book opens with a discussion of language assessment in relation to debates about the nature of literacy; it concludes with a discussion of policy implications, which is grounded in literacy theory as well as in practical constraints such as available human and material resources.

Clifford Hill, Kate Parry

List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Theoretical Considerations 1. Models of literacy: the nature of reading tests, Clifford Hill and Kate Parry Part II: Reading Tests 2. The Test of Enlgish as a Foreign Language: developing items for reading comprehension, Bonny Norton Peirce 3. An entrance test to Japanese universities: social and historical context, John E. Ingulsrud 4. The test and the text: readers in a Nigerian secondary school, Kate Parry 5. Adult education in the United States: adapting material for reading tests, Clifford Hill and Laurie Anderson Part III: Literacy Assessment 6. English education in Zimbabwe: testing communicative competence, Kate Allen 7. English for academic purposes in Brazil: the use of summary tasks, Andrew Cohen 8. An adult learner in Canada: watching assessmen take place, Patrick Cummins and Stan Jones 9. Assessing adult literacy in the United Kingdom: the Progress Profile, Deryn Holland and Brian Street Part IV: Policy Implications 10. Assessing English language and literacy around the world, Clifford Hill and Kate Parry Bibliography Index