This second edition remains the most practical guide to testing language. It has a new chapter on testing young learners.

This second edition remains the most practical guide to testing language. It has a new chapter on testing young learners.

The main objective of this text is to assist language teachers in writing better tests. The author defines a good test as one that contains validity, reliability, practicality and a positive reaction. Hughes offers practical and realistic guidance on how to create a good test. The author pays special attention to the effect of testing on teaching - a test should not only be reliable and valid but should also have a positive effect on teaching. Chapters on the testing of writing, oral ability, reading, listening, grammar and vocabulary, and test administration are included. Also included are testing techniques that have been proven to be useful for teachers, and statistics that enable teachers to interpret test results. Reader activities can be found at the end of each chapter.

This book contains 40 tasks of two types: discussion tasks and classroom-based tasks.

A practical guide taking the reader through the testing process, giving practical examples and discussing the issues involved at each stage.

This book provides teachers with an entirely new approach to developing and using classroom-based language assessments. This approach is based on current theory and practice in the field of language assessment and on an understanding of the assessment needs of classroom teachers. The following key questions are addressed: • Why do I need to assess? What beneficial consequences do I want to help bring about? How can my assessments help my students learn better and help me improve my teaching? • When and how often do I need to assess? What decisions do I need to make to help bring about these beneficial consequences? • What do I need to assess? How can I define the abilities that I want to assess? • How can I assess my students? What kinds of assessment tasks should I create? How can I score my students’ responses to these tasks? The authors guide the reader step-by-step through the process of developing and using classroom-based assessments with clear explanations and definitions of key terms, illustrative examples, and activities for applying the approach in practice. Extra resources are available on the website: www.oup.com/elt/teacher/lact Lyle Bachman is Professor Emeritus of Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He serves as a consultant in language testing research projects and in developing language assessments for universities and government agencies around the world, and he conducts courses and training workshops in language assessment. Barbara Damböck was Director of Studies of the English Department at the Teacher Training Academy in Dillingen, Germany, from 2003 to 2011. From 2003 to 2017 she supervised the training of oral examiners for the certification examination for elementary school English teachers in Bavaria. She has extensive experience as a classroom teacher, teacher trainer, and teacher of teacher trainers. She conducts courses and workshops for teachers and teacher trainers around the world.

The field of language testing and assessment has recognized the importance and underlying theoretical and practical underpinnings of language assessment literacy (LAL), an area that is gradually coming to prominence. This book addresses issues that promote the concept of LAL for language research, teaching, and learning, covering a range of topics. It brings together 14 chapters based on high-stakes and classroom-based studies authored by academics, professionals and researchers in the field. The text examines diverse issues through a multifaceted approach, presenting high-quality contributions that fill a gap in a research area that has long been in need of theoretical and empirical attention.