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Assessing Second/Additional Language of Diverse Populations

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Language Testing and Assessment

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

Abstract

In this chapter we address second/additional language assessment from two perspectives. First, we look at assessment of linguistic minority students within a national context where their second/additional language is the predominant majority language or an important auxiliary language in the society. Then we look at other contexts where bi/multilingualism is strongly encouraged (e.g., in countries within the European Union) and second/additional language assessment plays an important role in determining educational success. In both cases, for reasons of our professional experience, we focus our discussion on English as the second/additional language, though we refer to other languages where appropriate. We present in turn the major developments related to each of the themes and consider some of the problems and difficulties associated with developing assessment frameworks that are appropriate for such diverse populations and contexts. We detail some of the advances in Europe as we believe they signal some of the likely future directions reflecting progressive societal recognition of the value of a person’s proficiencies in different languages within their linguistic repertoires. We also highlight the dangers of using language assessment criteria modeled on one kind of population for another inappropriately for reasons of administrative and policy expediency and context-insensitive public accountability.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication, School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, Waterloo Road, London, SE1 9NH, UK

    Constant Leung

  2. University Council for the Certification of Language Proficiency, University of Warsaw, ul. Dobra 55 (Room 2.045), 00-312, Warszawa, Poland

    Jo Lewkowicz

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  1. Constant Leung
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  2. Jo Lewkowicz
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Correspondence to Constant Leung .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Elana Shohamy

  2. School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Iair G. Or

  3. Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Stephen May

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Leung, C., Lewkowicz, J. (2017). Assessing Second/Additional Language of Diverse Populations. In: Shohamy, E., Or, I., May, S. (eds) Language Testing and Assessment. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02261-1_23

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