Contemporary Second Language Assessment

Dina Tsagari is Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics/TEFL in the Department of English Studies at the University of Cyprus, Cyprus. Jayanti Veronique Banerjee is Research Director at Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments, USA.

• Introduction, Dina Tsagari (University of Cyprus, Cyprus) and Jayanti Banerjee (Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments, USA)Section I: Key Theoretical Considerations1. Modelling Communicative Language Ability: Skills and Contexts of Language Use, Lin Gu (Educational Testing Service, USA)2. Presenting Validity Evidence: The Case of GESE, Elaine Boyd and Cathy Taylor (Trinity College London, UK)3. A New National Exam: A Case of Washback, Doris Frötscher (Federal Ministry of Education, Austria)4. Linking to the CEFR: Validation Using a Priori and a Posteriori Evidence, John de Jong (Pearson Engish, The Netherlands) and Ying Zheng (University of Southampton, UK)Section II: Assessment of Specific Language Aspects5. Authentic Texts in the Assessment of L2 Listening Ability, Elvis Wagner (Temple University, USA)6. The Role of Background Factors in the Diagnosis of SFL Reading Ability, Ari Huhta (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), J. Charles Alderson (Lancaster University, UK), Lea Nieminen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), and Riikka Ullakonoja (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)7. Understanding Oral Proficiency Task Difficulty: An Activity Theory Perspective, Zhengdong Gan (The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)8. Principled Rubric Adoption and Adaptation: One Multi-method Case Study, Valerie Meier (UC Santa Barbara, USA), Jonathan Trace (University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA) and Gerriet Janssen (Universidad de los Andes, Columbia)9. The Social Dimension of Language Assessment: Assessing Pragmatics, Carsten Roever (University of Melbourne, Australia)Section III: Issues in Second Language Assessment10. Applications of Corpus Linguistics in Language Assessment, Sarah Cushing Weigle (Georgia State University, USA) and Sarah Goodwin (Michigan State University, USA)11. Setting Language Standards for International Medical Graduates, Vivien Berry (British Council, UK) and Barry O’Sullivan (British Council, UK) 12. Fairness and Bias in Language Assessment, Norman Verhelst (European Association for Language Testing and Assessment, The Netherlands), Jayanti Banerjee (Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments, USA) and Patrick McLain (Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments, USA)13. ACCESS for ELLs: Access to the Curriculum, Jennifer Norton (Center for Applied Linguistics, USA) and Carsten Wilmes (University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA)14. Using Technology in Language Assessment, Haiying Li, Keith T. Shubeck, and Arthur C. Graesser (University of Memphis, USA)15. Future Prospects and Challenges in Language Assessments, Sauli Takala (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), Gudrun Erickson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), Neus Figueras (Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain), and Jan-Eric Gustafsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)Index

This edited book offers a panoramic view of current thinking in second language assessment. The fifteen substantive chapters cover conceptual and operational challenges in assessment design and test development. Assessment professionals, researchers and students alike will find the up-to-the-minute discussions in this volume highly informative.