Practical Language Testing
Glenn Fulcher


Practical Language Testing equips you with the skills, knowledge and principles necessary to understand and construct language tests.

This intensely practical book gives guidelines on the design of assessments within the classroom, and provides the necessary tools to analyse and improve assessments, as well as deal with alignment to externally imposed standards. Testing is situated both within the classroom and within the larger social context, and readers are provided the knowledge necessary to make realistic and fair decisions about the use and implementation of tests. The book explains the normative role of large scale testing and provides alternatives that the reader can adapt to their own context. This fulfils the dual purpose of providing the reader with the knowledge they need to prepare learners for tests, and the practical skills for using assessment for learning.

Practical Language Testing is the ideal introduction for students of applied linguistics, TESOL and modern foreign language teaching as well as practicing teachers required to design or implement language testing programmes.

• Individual and group activities consolodate learning and help readers put what they have learned into practice
• A glossary of key terms aids revision
• Examples from a variety of real life settings make the text relevant to all students and practitioners with an interest in language testing
• A guide to further reading promotes more indepth study
• All stages of test construction are covered from theory, through designing tests, to prototyping and piloting, analysis and dealing with external standards.