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Full-Text Articles in Education
Experimenting With Uncertainty: Essays In Honour Of Alan Davies
Experimenting With Uncertainty: Essays In Honour Of Alan Davies
Dr Tom Lumley
This festschrift brings together 28 invited papers surveying the state of the art in language testing from a perspective which combines technical and broader applied linguistics insights. The papers cover issues ranging from construct definition to the design and applications of language tests, including their importance as a means of exploring larger issues in language teaching, language learning and language policy. The volume locates work in language testing in a context of social, political and ethical issues at a time when testing is increasingly expected to be publicly accountable
Specific-Purpose Language Performance Tests : Task And Interaction, Tom Lumley, Annie Brown
Specific-Purpose Language Performance Tests : Task And Interaction, Tom Lumley, Annie Brown
Dr Tom Lumley
Oral performance tests designed to assess candidates' ability to function in a particular professional role typically involve role plays which simulate aspects of professional interaction between a candidate, in his/her professional role, and an interlocutor, in the role of client or consumer of the professional services. This paper reports on an investigation into the role which expert professional informants can play in providing post hoc content validation of tasks used in this kind of occupation-specific test, focusing on both the content of the tasks and the behaviour of the interlocutors. The study draws on data from the oral interaction component …