Practical Language Testing

by Glenn Fulcher

Practical Language Testing equips you with the skills, knowledge and principles necessary to understand and construct language tests. This practical guide offers step-by-step guidelines on the design of assessments within the classroom and provides the necessary tools to analyse and improve assessments, as well as deal with alignment to externally imposed standards. Testing is situated both within the classroom and within the larger social context, and readers are provided with the knowledge necessary to make realistic and fair decisions about the use and implementation of tests.

Now in its second edition, this respected text has been substantially revised and updated, including a new chapter on validity drawing from the author's Messick Award for innovation in validity theory and practice. It also includes expanded coverage of standardised testing and learning-oriented assessment, and introduces task design features, including authenticity, and automated assessment.

With its frequently updated online resources to support language assessment ( this book is the ideal introduction for students of applied linguistics, TESOL and modern foreign language teaching, as well as practising teachers required to design or implement language testing programmes.

Genres: Linguistics

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books on language testing I've read. It explains the use of language tests in society, and approaches it from both historical and philosophical perspectives, placing practices in the context of the history of thought. The critical insights are very challenging. The book achieves more than this though. It explains how language tests are designed and created. It also has really good practical activities to help teachers and applied linguistics students practice the skills they'll need to develop useful tests and assessments. Lots of teachers are afraid of the numbers that language testers use. This book kind of demystifies all of that. One of the things I liked was that the author has a website that supports reading and learning with this text. It seems to be updated on a daily basis! Some achievement. It's worth visiting: http://languagetesting.info