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Language Assessment Principles and Class PDF

This document summarizes a book on linguistics for language teachers. It discusses how the book provides an accessible overview of key linguistic concepts like phonology, morphology, and syntax. It also explains how the book shows teachers how to apply linguistic knowledge to teaching reading, spelling, phonics, grammar, and other areas for both first and second language learners. The review praises how the book bridges linguistic theory and practical classroom applications to help students develop literacy skills.

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78 views

Language Assessment Principles and Class PDF

This document summarizes a book on linguistics for language teachers. It discusses how the book provides an accessible overview of key linguistic concepts like phonology, morphology, and syntax. It also explains how the book shows teachers how to apply linguistic knowledge to teaching reading, spelling, phonics, grammar, and other areas for both first and second language learners. The review praises how the book bridges linguistic theory and practical classroom applications to help students develop literacy skills.

Uploaded by

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Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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L2 students and teachers who are interested in the central issues of

CALL as seen from multiple perspectives. Although this book does not
explain those perspectives in detail, making it difficult for readers with
little or no background knowledge of CALL, it provides a great deal of
information about how CALL can be used effectively in language
learning environments.

MINORU KATAOKA
Nishitsubushi Nagitsuji Yamashina-ku
Kyoto, Japan

Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices.


H. Douglas Brown. White Plains, NY: Longman, 2004. Pp. xii + 324.

■ This textbook for pre- and in-service language teachers is the third in
a series, preceded by Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (Brown,
2000) and Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy (Brown, 2001). In this new book, Brown very ably and compre-
hensively discusses basic principles of second language assessment,
providing a solid foundation for language educators that will likely
improve their teaching as well as their assessment practices. The author
goes beyond the typical definitions and descriptions to raise thought-
provoking issues in the field of assessment, providing readers with a
balanced summary of current perspectives. The text is filled with
references to research, and Brown reviews several commercial tests. One
of the strengths of this excellent resource is its practicality; Brown gives
examples throughout the text, as well as guidelines for implementing the
information presented. In addition, each chapter includes an annotated
bibliography of relevant resources and exercises that give readers an
opportunity to interact with the material and apply it to real-life
situations. Brown has achieved an excellent balance in this text for
classroom assessors of language by treating technical issues in a manner
that is guided by the real needs of teachers.
Chapters 1 and 2 provide readers with an overview of key aspects of
testing, connecting them to classroom assessment. Chapter 3, after
discussing various types of tests, presents principles related to developing
and scoring classroom tests. In chapter 4, Brown gives an excellent
overview of standardized test development and validation and reviews
four large-scale tests: Test of English as a Foreign Language, Michigan
English Language Assessment Battery, International English Language
Testing System, and Test of English for International Communication.
Chapter 5 addresses standards-based assessment, discussing the develop-
ment of standards, several standards-based tests, the consequences of

344 TESOL QUARTERLY


standards-based and standardized assessment, and critical language
testing.
Chapters 6–9 provide detailed and well-organized discussions of the
assessment of listening, speaking, reading, and writing and a variety of
tasks types and examples. Brown begins chapter 6 by explaining why he
intentionally incorporated grammar and vocabulary testing into the
chapters on skills assessment. He goes on to outline the various types and
micro/macro skills of listening and details how to test them, providing
many useful examples. Chapters 7–9 follow this same format, addressing
speaking, reading, and writing, respectively. In chapter 7, Brown dis-
cusses the PhonePass, Test of Spoken English, and Oral Proficiency
Interview while he exemplifies ways to assess speaking. This chapter also
includes several example rating scales. Chapter 8 addresses the chal-
lenges associated with assessing literacy and proposes many reading
assessment formats. Chapter 9 discusses the Test of Written English and
includes its rating scale before addressing holistic, primary trait, and
analytic scoring and how to respond to extensive writing, all in a very
straightforward and accessible manner.
In chapter 10, Brown discusses alternate assessment, including the use
of portfolios, journals, conferences and interviews, observations, and
self- and peer-assessments, again with a wealth of practical examples.
Finally, in chapter 11, Brown outlines various ways to grade and evaluate
students, giving readers very useful guidelines for systematizing their
own grading and evaluation procedures. This chapter makes Language
Assessment stand apart from other assessment texts written for classroom
language teachers.
The volume contains very few points requiring critique, but Brown’s
unconventional definitions of interrater and intrarater reliability in chapter
2 and his omission of Jayanti Banerjee as an author of the Language
Teaching articles (p. 41) merit mention. In addition, a volume of this
nature, with its discussion of standardized testing, would be an excellent
place to introduce teachers to the Standards for Educational and
Psychological Measurement developed by the American Educational
Research Association, American Psychological Association, and the Na-
tional Council on Measurement in Education (1999); discussion of the
responsibilities of test users would be quite relevant to Brown’s readers,
as would references to the discussion of validity and other topics in these
standards.
As a whole, Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices is a
comprehensive and user-friendly treatment of the intricacies of language
assessment. The presentation of philosophical and practical issues, the
many superb examples, and the up-to-date references make this volume
an excellent resource for pre- and in-service teachers and those who
teach them.

REVIEWS 345
REFERENCES
American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association,
National Council on Measurement in Education. (1999). Standards for educational
and psychological measurement. Washington, DC: American Educational Research
Association.
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). White
Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman.
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy
(2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman.

SHELLEY B. FAIRBAIRN
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa, United States

Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach


Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, and Grammar.
David E. Freeman and Yvonne S. Freeman. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 2004. Pp. xvi + 263.

■ This book is a user-friendly guide to linguistic theory with practical


teaching applications. Teachers can use this foundation to help their first
(L1) or second language (L2) students learn to read and write in
English. As the students develop this literacy, they become involved in
linguistic inquiry to investigate how language works.
The authors contend that understanding basic linguistics helps teach-
ers make reasoned pedagogical decisions regarding the development of
their students’ language proficiency. Chapter 1 traces the history of the
study of first language acquisition (FLA) from behaviorism to cognitive
science and then looks at the contributions of developmental psychol-
ogy, sociology, anthropology, education, and linguistics (especially
Chomsky’s language theory of generative grammar) to current views on
the development of FLA. Chapter 2 investigates second language acqui-
sition (SLA), including written language acquisition, and concludes that
second and written languages can be acquired, that is, they do not have
to be learned. Chapter 3 describes English phonology, and chapter 4
proposes phonological applications for teaching reading and teaching
L2, including allophonic variation, dialect differences, and language
differences. Chapter 5 first deals with the history of writing development
from Sumerian cuneiform to Egyptian hieroglyphics to alphabetic writ-
ing systems, including Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic, and then follows the
development of the English spelling system from Old English to Middle
English to Modern English. Chapter 6 relates phonology and spelling
through phonics rules learned from direct instruction and graphophonics

346 TESOL QUARTERLY

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