Designing Second Language Performance Assessments

This technical report focuses on the decision-making potential provided by second language performance assessments. The authors first situate performance assessment within a broader discussion of alternatives in language assessment and in educational assessment in general. Then they discuss issues in performance assessment design, implementation, reliability and validity. Finally, they present a prototype framework for second language performance assessment, based on the integration of theoretical underpinnings and research findings from the task-based language teaching literature, the language testing literature, and the educational measurement literature. The authors outline test and item specifications, and present examples of prototypical language tasks. They also propose a research agenda based on performance assessments.