Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T06:29:27.551Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From mythical ‘standard’ to standard reality: The need for alternatives to standardized English language tests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2018

Jennifer Jenkins  and
Constant Leung
Jennifer Jenkins
Affiliation:
Centre for Global Englishes, University of Southampton, [email protected]
Constant Leung
Affiliation:
School of Education, Communication and Society, Kings College London, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This position paper builds on three of our earlier publications on the same subject (Jenkins & Leung 2014; Leung, Lewkowicz & Jenkins 2016; Jenkins & Leung 2017), as well as a number of conference papers we have given both jointly and individually. However, what we have not done up to this point is to propose alternatives to the large-scale standardized English tests administered by the major international examination boards, of which we have been so critical, despite the fact that we have been discussing other possibilities among ourselves for several years. The opportunity to publish a position paper on English language assessment therefore provided an ideal opportunity to present our alternatives, and this we do in the final part of the paper.

Type
First Person Singular
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 86 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, & Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (US) (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing.Google Scholar
Bachman, L. & Palmer, A. (2010). Language assessment in practice: Developing language assessments and justifying their use in the real world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bachman, L. F. & Palmer, A. (1996). Language testing in practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Batziakas, V. (2016). Investigating meaning-making in English as a lingua franca (ELF). Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, King's College London, London.Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Brooks, L. & Swain, M. (2014). Contextualizing performances: Comparing performances during TOEFL iBT and real-life academic speaking activities. Language Assessment Quarterly 11.3, 353–373.Google Scholar
Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1.1, 1–47.Google Scholar
Carlsen, C. (2018). The adequacy of the B2-level as university entrance requirement. Language Assessment Quarterly 15.1, 75–79.Google Scholar
Cogo, A. & Dewey, M. (2012). Analysing English as a lingua franca. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Cho, Y. & Bridgeman, B. (2012). Relationship of TOEFL iBT® scores to academic performance: Some evidence from American universities. Language Testing 29.1, 421–442.Google Scholar
Cotton, F. & Conrow, F. (1998). An investigation of the predictive validity of IELTS amongst a group of international students at the University of Tasmania. IELTS Research Reports (vol. 1), 72–115. Retrieved from https://www.ielts.org/teaching-and-research/research-reports/volume-01-report-4.Google Scholar
Cumming, A., Kantor, R., Powers, D., Santos, T. & Taylor, C. (2000). TOEFL 2000 writing framework: A working paper. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.Google Scholar
Ducasse, A. M. & Brown, A. (2009). The role of intereactive communication in IELTS speaking and its relationship to candidates’ preparedness for study or training contexts. IELTS Research Reports (vol. 12), www.ielts.org.Google Scholar
Edwards, J. (1994). Multilingualism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ekiert, M. (2017). What interlanguage analysis reveals about L2 referent tracking. Talk given in UCL IoE Centre for Applied Linguistics Research Seminar Series, 20 November 2017.Google Scholar
García, O. & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gray, J. (2010). The branding of English and the culture of the new capitalism: Representations of the world of work in English Language textbooks. Applied Linguistics 31.5, 714–733.Google Scholar
Green, A. (2014). Exploring language testing and assessment. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harding, L. & McNamara, T. (2018). Language assessment. The challenge of ELF. In Jenkins, J., Baker, W. & Dewey, M. (eds.), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca. Abingdon: Routledge, 570–582.Google Scholar
Harrington, M. & Roche, T. (2014). Identifying academically at-risk students in an English-as-a-lingua-franca university setting. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 15, 37–47.Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (2004). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. Michigan: Michigan University Press.Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (2016). Academic publishing and the myth of linguistic injustice. Journal of Second Language Writing 31, 58–69.Google Scholar
Hyland, K. & Hamp-Lyons, L. (2002). EAP: Issues and directions. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 1.1, 1–12.Google Scholar
Ingram, D. & Bayliss, A. (2007). IELTS as a predictor of academic language performance Part 1. IELTS Research Reports (vol. 7). London: British Council.Google Scholar
James, M. (2006). Assessment, teaching and theories of learning. In Gardner, J. (ed.), Assessment and learning. London: Sage, 47–60.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. (2015). Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a lingua franca. Englishes in Practice 2/3: 49–85. De Gruyter Open. https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/eip.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. (2018). Not English but English-within-multilingualism. In Coffey, S. & Wingate, U. (eds.), New directions in foreign language education. Abingdon: Routledge, 65–78.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. & Leung, C. (2014). English as a lingua franca. In Kunnan, A. (ed.), The companion to language assessment. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 1607–1616.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. & Leung, C. (2017). Assessing English as a lingua franca. In Shohamy, E., Or, I. & May, S., Language testing and assessment (vol. 7) (3rd edn.) of May, S. (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education. Heidelberg: Springer, 103–117.Google Scholar
Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. In Quirk, R. & Widdowson, H. G. (eds.), English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11–30.Google Scholar
Kane, M. (2006). Validation. In Brenman, R. (ed.), Educational measurement (4th edn.).Westport, CT: American Council on Education and Praeger, 17–64.Google Scholar
Kane, M. (2010). Validity and fairness. Language Testing 17.2, 177–182.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2010). The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural. Language Teaching. Retrieved from http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&pdftype=1&fid=7931790&jid=LTA&volumeId=-1&issueId=&aid=7931788.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. & Whiteside, A. (2008). Language ecology in multilingual settings: Towards a theory of symbolic competence. Applied Linguistics 29.4, 645–671.Google Scholar
Kunnan, A. J. (2018). Evaluating language assessments. New York/London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lea, M. R. & Street, B. (2006). The ‘Academic Literacies’ model: Theory and applications. Theory into Practice 45.4, 368–377.Google Scholar
Lee, Y.-J. & Greene, J. (2007). The predictive validity of an ESL placement test: A mixed methods approach. Journal of Mixed Research Methods 1.4, 366–389.Google Scholar
Leung, C. (2011). Language teaching and language assessment. In Wodak, R., Johnstone, B. & Kerswill, P. (eds.), The Sage handbook of sociolinguistics. London: Sage, 545–564.Google Scholar
Leung, C. (2013). The ‘Social’ in English language teaching: Abstracted norms versus situated enactments. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 2.2, 283–313.Google Scholar
Leung, C. & Jenkins, J. (2018). Farewell to the phantom of standardization. Paper given in the colloquium Transition, mobility, validity: English as a (multi)lingua franca perspectives on language assessment. Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC), Auckland, 4–6 July 2018.Google Scholar
Leung, C., Lewkowicz, J. & Jenkins, J. (2016). English for academic purposes: A need for remodelling. Englishes in Practice 3.3, 55–73. De Gruyter Open. https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/eip.Google Scholar
Leung, C. & Scarino, A. (2016). Reconceptualizing the nature of goals and outcomes in language/s education. Modern Language Journal 100 s1, 81–95.Google Scholar
Li, W. (2017). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics open access 00/0:1-23. doi:10.1093/applin/amx039.Google Scholar
Lillis, T. & Scott, M. (2007). Defining academic literacies research: Issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics 4.1, 5–32.Google Scholar
Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an accent (1st edn.). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Maringe, F. & Jenkins, J. (2015). Stigma, tensions and apprehension: The academic writing experience of international students. International Journal of Educational Management 29.5, 609–626.Google Scholar
Mauranen, A. (2003). The corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quarterly 37.3, 513–527.Google Scholar
Mauranen, A. (2012). Exploring ELF: Academic English shaped by non-native speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mauranen, A. (2018). Second language acquisition, world Englishes, and English as a lingua franca (ELF). World Englishes 37, 106–119.Google Scholar
McNamara, T. (2001). Language assessment as social practice: Challenges for research. Language Testing 18.4, 333–349.Google Scholar
McNamara, T. (2005). 21st century shibboleth: Language tests, identity and intergroup conflict. Language Policy 4.4, 351–370.Google Scholar
McNamara, T. (2014). 30 years on – evolution or revolution? Language Assessment Quarterly 11, 226–232.Google Scholar
McNamara, T. (2017). A challenge for language testing: The assessment of English as a lingua franca. Address given at Department of Education, University of Oxford, 11 December 2017.Google Scholar
McNamara, T., Morton, J., Storch, N. & Thompson, C. (2018). Students’ accounts of their first-year undergraduate academic writing experience: Implications for the use of the CEFR. Language Assessment Quarterly.Google Scholar
Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In Linn, R. L. (ed.), Educational measurement (3rd edn.). New York: ACE-NCME/MacMillan, 13–103.Google Scholar
Murray, N. (2018). Language education and dynamic ecologies in world Englishes. In Low, E. L. & Pakir, A. (eds.). World Englishes: Rethinking paradigms. Abingdon: Routledge, 47–63.Google Scholar
Newton, P. & Shaw, S. (2014). Validity in educational and psychological assessment. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pitzl, M-L. (2018). Creativity in English as a lingua franca: Idiom and metaphor. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness: A restatement (Kelly, E., ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schulz, M. (2006). Controlled chaos: European cities do away with traffic signs. Spiegel Online International, 16 November 2006.Google Scholar
Seidlhofer, B. (2001). Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11.2, 133–158.Google Scholar
Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics 10, 209–231.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E. (2001). Democratic assessment as an alternative. Language Testing 18.4, 373–391.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E. (2011). Assessing multilingual competencies: Adopting construct valid assessment policies. Modern Language Journal 95.3, 418–429.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E. (2017). Critical language testing. In Shohamy, E., Or, I. & May, S. (eds.), 441–454.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E., I. Or & May, S. (eds.) (2017). Language testing and assessment (3rd edn.). In May, S. (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1994). The politics of recognition. In Gutmann, A. (ed.), Multilculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Van Parijs, P. (2011). Linguistic justice for Europe & for the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.6, 1024–1054.Google Scholar
Weir, C. J. & O'Sullivan, B. (2017). Assessing English on the global stage: The British Council and English language testing, 1941–2016. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. (2005). Constructing measures: An item response modelling approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Wingate, U. (2015). Academic literacy and student diversity: The case for inclusive practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Wingate, U. (2016). Academic literacy across the curriculum: Towards a collaborative instrumental approach. Language Teaching First View. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444816000264.Google Scholar
Yen, D. & Kuzma, J. (2009). Higher IELTS score, higher academic performance? The validity of IELTS in predicting the academic performance of Chinese students. Worcester Journal of Learning and Teaching 3, 1–7.Google Scholar