Performance on integrated tasks requires candidates to engage skills and strategies beyond language proficiency alone, in ways that can be difficult to define and measure for testing purposes. While it has been widely recognized that stimulus materials impact test performance, our understanding of the way in which test takers make use of these…

This paper reports the findings of an empirical study on ESL/EFL teachers' evaluation and interpretation of oral English proficiency as elicited by the national College English Test-Spoken English Test (CET-SET) of China. Informed by debates on the issue of native speaker (NS) norms which have become the focus of attention in recent years, this…

The use of online rater self-training is growing in popularity and has obvious practical benefits, facilitating access to training materials and rating samples and allowing raters to reorient themselves to the rating scale and self monitor their behaviour at their own convenience. However there has thus far been little research into rater…

Investigated the impact of performance conditions on perceptions of task difficulty in a test of spoken language, in light of the cognitive complexity framework proposed by Skehan (1998). Candidates performed narrative tasks whose characteristics and the conditions under which they were performed were manipulated, and the impact of these on task…

Discusses issues identified by Douglas (2000) as problematic for language for specific purposes testing, making reference to a number of performance-based instruments designed to assess the language proficiency of teachers or intending teachers. Addresses the problems of specificity and authenticity. (Author)