This book responds to the call for praxis in L2 education by documenting recent and ongoing projects around the world that see partnership with classroom teachers as the essential driver for continuing to develop both classroom assessment practice and conceptual frameworks of assessment in support of teaching and learning. Taken together, these partnerships shape the language assessment literacy, the knowledge and skills required for theorizing and conducting assessment activities, of both practitioners and researchers. While united by their orientation to praxis, the chapters offer considerable diversity with regard to languages taught, learner populations included (varying in age and proficiency level), specific innovations covered, research methods employed, and countries in which the work was conducted. As a whole, the book presents a way of engaging in research with practitioners that is likely to stimulate interest among not only language assessment scholars but also those studying second language education and language teacher education as well as language teaching professionals themselves.

This edited book documents practices of learning-oriented language assessment through practitioner research and research syntheses. Learning-oriented language assessment refers to language assessment strategies that capitalise on learner differences and their relationships with the learning environments. In other words, learners are placed at the centre of the assessment process and its outcomes. The book features 17 chapters on learning-oriented language assessment practices in China, Brazil, Turkey, Norway, UK, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. Chapters include teachers’ reflections and practical suggestions. This book will appeal to researchers, teacher educators, and language teachers who are interested in advancing research and practice of learning-oriented language assessment.

The Concise Companion to Language Assessment provides a state-of-the-art overview of the crucial areas of language assessment, teaching, and learning. Edited by one of the foremost scholars in the field, The Concise Companion combines newly commissioned articles on innovations in assessment with a selection of chapters from The Companion to Language Assessment, the landmark four-volume reference work first published in 2013. Presented in eight themes, The Concise Companion addresses a broad range of language assessment methods, issues, and contexts. Forty-five chapters cover assessment conceptualization, development, research, and policy, as well as recent changes in language assessment technology, learning-oriented assessment, teacher-based assessment, teacher assessment literacy, plurilingual assessment, assessment for immigration, and more. Exploring the past, present, and future possibilities of the dynamic field, The Concise Companion to Language Assessment: Contains dedicated chapters on listening, speaking, reading writing, vocabulary, pronunciation, intercultural competence, and other language skills Describes fundamental assessment design and scoring guidelines, as well as advanced concepts in scenario-based assessment and automated performance scoring Provides insights on different assessment environments, such as classrooms, universities, employment, immigration, and healthcare Covers various qualitative and quantitative research methods, including introspective methods, classical reliability, and structural equation modeling Discusses the impacts of colonialism and discrimination on the history of language assessment Explores the use of AI in writing evaluation, plagiarism and cheating detection, and other assessment contexts Sure to become a standard text for the next generation of applied linguistics students, The Concise Companion to Language Assessment is an invaluable textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in applied linguistics, language assessment, TESOL, second language acquisition, and language policy.

This collection brings together research on learning-oriented language assessment from scholars working across geographic and educational contexts, highlighting the opportunities of assessment practices which seek to better align assessment and learning tasks and support effective learning. The volume begins by introducing learning-oriented assessment (LOA) and the context around its growing popularity, especially in accountability-oriented settings which favor summative large-scale tests. The first part of the book charts the development of LOA’s theoretical and conceptual underpinnings, outlining the ways in which they have been informed by theories of learning and key elements. The second part demonstrates LOA in practice, drawing on examples from different countries and instructional settings to explore such topics as the role of technology in LOA and developing feedback materials based around LOA principles and developed for core literacy skills. Offering a holistic view of learning-oriented assessment and the real-world affordances and challenges of its implementation, this book is key reading for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in language testing and assessment, TESOL, and language education.

This volume encompasses the range of issues encountered by language scholars who teach and research in departments of languages and cultures within the higher education system, predominantly in Australia, but touching other universities worldwide. Related studies on language planning, methodology or pedagogy have focused on one or more of these same issues, but rarely on their totality. Intersections as a metaphor running discreetly through the essays in this volume, connects them all to a lived reality. The field of languages and cultures, as it is practised and reflected upon in Australian universities, is essentially an interdisciplinary and interconnecting space - one in which linguistic and disciplinary diversities meet and join forces, rather than collide or disperse along different pathways. The international and local studies featured here focus on language planning, new pedagogies and language reclamation and link to meeting points and commonalities. They show that language scholars are increasingly finding themselves on common ground as they tackle issues of policy and practice affecting their field, whether within their institutions, within the tertiary system, or within the framework of government policy.

This second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Language Testing provides an updated and comprehensive account of the area of language testing and assessment. The volume brings together 35 authoritative articles, divided into ten sections, written by 51 leading specialists from around the world. There are five entirely new chapters covering the four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking, as well as a new entry on corpus linguistics and language testing. The remaining 30 chapters have been revised, often extensively, or entirely rewritten with new authorship teams at the helm, reflecting new generations of expertise in the field. With a dedicated section on technology in language testing, reflecting current trends in the field, the Handbook also includes an extended epilogue written by Harding and Fulcher, contemplating what has changed between the first and second editions and charting a trajectory for the field of language testing and assessment. Providing a basis for discussion, project work, and the design of both language tests themselves and related validation research, this Handbook represents an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and practitioners working in language testing and assessment and the wider field of language education.