Useful Assessment and Evaluation in Language Education

The specific — and varied — ways in which assessment and evaluation can impact learning and teaching have become an important language education research concern, particularly as educators are increasingly called on to implement these processes for improvement, accountability, or curricular development purposes. Useful Assessment and Evaluation in Language Education showcases contemporary research that explores innovative uses of assessment and evaluation in a variety of educational contexts.

Divided into three parts, this volume first examines theoretical considerations and practical implementations of assessment conducted for the purpose of enhancing and developing language learning. Part 2 addresses novel assessment development and implementation projects, such as the formative use of task-based assessments, technology-mediated language performance assessment, validation of educational placement tests for immigrant learners, and the use of assessment to help identify neurolinguistic correlates of proficiency. The final section of the book highlights examples of argument-based approaches to assessment and evaluation validation, extending this critical framework to quality assurance efforts in new domains. Adding to research on traditional and conventional uses of testing and evaluation in language education, this volume captures innovative trends in assessment and evaluation practice that explicitly aim to better inform and enhance language teaching and learning.

John McE. Davis is Evaluation Specialist at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State (Contractor with Yorktown Systems Group). His research interests include language program evaluation, language assessment, and questionnaire research methods.

John M. Norris is Senior Research Director of the Center for English Language Learning and Assessment at the Educational Testing Service, USA. His primary research interests include educational uses of language assessment, program evaluation, task-based language teaching, and research synthesis.


Margaret E. Malone is Director of the Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center (AELRC) and Research Professor at Georgetown University and Director of the Center for Assessment, Research and Development at ACTFL. Her current research focuses on language assessment literacy, oral proficiency assessment and the relative difficulty of learning different languages.

Todd H. McKay is a Ph.D. candidate in applied linguistics and research assistant with the AELRC at Georgetown University. His research interests include language assessment, language program evaluation, and applied measurement, with emphases on the less commonly taught languages and language programs in South Asia.

Young-A Son is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research interests include the assessment of foreign and heritage language learners. More specifically, her work examines validation of language tests and other indicators of language proficiency for research as well as instructional purposes.