Several English and Spanish language tests currently used in bilingual education and some less known tests are reviewed, looking at both historic and psychometric factors. It is suggested that practitioners have commonly assumed that all language tests are basically valid, which contributed to the commercial success of some tests of questionable validity, ill-suited to the purpose of educationa...

What are the processes underlying the judgments of translation? And what is the role of language proficiency? This study addresses these questions by examining how Chinese-English bilinguals evaluate poetry translations. Participants were shown haikus in Chinese and the corresponding English translations and were asked to rate the translation quality. The English translations ranged from litera...

This study investigated how Min proficiency influenced the realization of Mandarin tones in Mandarin-Min bilinguals. Forty subjects recruited were divided into the high and the low Min proficiency groups. Isolated Mandarin syllables carrying one of the four Mandarin tones were recorded. Results showed that Min proficiency was roughly in negative correlation with pitch height for high tonal targ...

Leaders Is the proficiency test in cervical cytology proficient? It is accepted that internal quality control and external quality assurance are necessary elements in ensuring high standards in the reporting of cervical smears. A major component of external quality assurance in the United Kingdom in recent years has been the proficiency test in cervical cytology. Participation in regional profi...

Drawing upon sociocultural theory of Vygotsky, the current study aims to investigate the effect of dyadic interaction in mixed and matched level proficiency pairings on comprehension and production of request and apology speech acts. The participants were 125 EFL learners who were randomly assigned to control and experimental (interaction) groups. Based on their scores in the pretest including ...

This study investigated the effects of two perceptually-based training paradigms in both the perception and production of English /e/ and /æ/ by Cantonese ESL learners with high and low listening and oral proficiency levels. Sixty-four subjects participated in the study, in which 22 (9 with high proficiency, H-HV; 13 with low proficiency, L-HV) were trained under High Variability Phonetic Train...

research on l2 learners’ success at development and appropriate use of pragmatic ability and knowledge has mostly approached the issue from a cognitive or social perspective, and less attention has been devoted to the problem from the equally important emotional or individual-psychological lenses. this study sought to explore, first, the interplay between iranian advanced efl learners’ pragmati...

The present study was carried out to investigate whether there is any relationship between the language learners' general language proficiency level and language learning strategies at elementary and intermediate level in Iran. The research tried to find out how learners’ proficiency level influences language learning strategies employed by learners. In addition the study seeks to identify the ...