Post admission Language Assessment

of University Students 1st Edition John

Read (Eds.)
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/post-admission-language-assessment-of-university-st
udents-1st-edition-john-read-eds/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Imagining Youth Futures University Students in Post

Truth Times Rosalyn Black

https://textbookfull.com/product/imagining-youth-futures-
university-students-in-post-truth-times-rosalyn-black/

Educational Assessment of Students 6th Edition Anthony

J. Nitko

https://textbookfull.com/product/educational-assessment-of-
students-6th-edition-anthony-j-nitko/

Educational Assessment of Students 8th Edition Susan M.

Brookhart

https://textbookfull.com/product/educational-assessment-of-
students-8th-edition-susan-m-brookhart/

Meritocracy and the university selective admission in

England and the United States Mountford-Zimdars

https://textbookfull.com/product/meritocracy-and-the-university-
selective-admission-in-england-and-the-united-states-mountford-
zimdars/
Basics of Translation A Textbook for Arab University
Students 1st Edition Mahmoud Altarabin

https://textbookfull.com/product/basics-of-translation-a-
textbook-for-arab-university-students-1st-edition-mahmoud-
altarabin/

Admission Matters What Students and Parents Need to

Know About Getting into College Sally P. Springer

https://textbookfull.com/product/admission-matters-what-students-
and-parents-need-to-know-about-getting-into-college-sally-p-
springer/

Assessment in Second Language Pronunciation 1st Edition

Okim Kang

https://textbookfull.com/product/assessment-in-second-language-
pronunciation-1st-edition-okim-kang/

ENGLISH LANGUAGE MODULE FOR MUSIC STUDENTS DEPARTME

1st Edition Thobias Sarbunan

https://textbookfull.com/product/english-language-module-for-
music-students-department-1st-edition-thobias-sarbunan/

Chinese as a Second Language Assessment 1st Edition

Dongbo Zhang

https://textbookfull.com/product/chinese-as-a-second-language-
assessment-1st-edition-dongbo-zhang/
English Language Education

John Read Editor

Post-admission
Language
Assessment
of University
Students
English Language Education

Volume 6

Series Editors
Chris Davison, The University of New South Wales, Australia
Xuesong Gao, The University of Hong Kong, China

Editorial Advisory Board

Stephen Andrews, University of Hong Kong, China
Anne Burns, University of New South Wales, Australia
Yuko Goto Butler, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Jim Cummins, OISE, University of Toronto, Canada
Christine C. M. Goh, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technology
University, Singapore
Margaret Hawkins, University of Wisconsin, USA
Ouyang Huhua, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China
Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University, Australia
Michael K. Legutke, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany
Constant Leung, King’s College London, University of London, UK
Bonny Norton, University of British Columbia, Canada
Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Qiufang Wen, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China
Lawrence Jun Zhang, University of Auckland, New Zealand
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11558
John Read
Editor

Post-admission Language
Assessment of University
Students
Editor
John Read
School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics
University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand

ISSN 2213-6967 ISSN 2213-6975 (electronic)

English Language Education
ISBN 978-3-319-39190-8 ISBN 978-3-319-39192-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39192-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948219

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
Preface

This volume grew out of two conference events that I organised in 2013 and 2014.
The first was a symposium at the Language Testing Research Colloquium in Seoul,
South Korea, in July 2013 with the title “Exploring the diagnostic potential of post-
admission language assessments in English-medium universities”. The other event
was a colloquium entitled “Exploring post-admission language assessments in uni-
versities internationally” at the Annual Conference of the American Association for
Applied Linguistics (AAAL) in Portland, Oregon, USA, in March 2014. The AAAL
symposium attracted the attention of the Springer commissioning editor, Jolanda
Voogt, who invited me to submit a proposal for an edited volume of the papers
presented at one conference or the other. In order to expand the scope of the book,
I invited Edward Li and Avasha Rimbiritch, who were not among the original
presenters, to prepare additional chapters. Several of the chapters acquired an extra
author along the way to provide specialist expertise on some aspects of the
content.
I want to express my great appreciation first to the authors for the rich and stimu-
lating content of their papers. On a more practical level, they generally met their
deadlines to ensure that the book would appear in a timely manner and they will-
ingly undertook the necessary revisions of their original submissions. Whatever my
virtues as an editor, I found that as an author I tended to trail behind the others in
completing my substantive contributions to the volume.
At Springer, I am grateful to Jolanda Voogt for seeing the potential of this topic
for a published volume and encouraging us to develop it. Helen van der Stelt has
been a most efficient editorial assistant and a pleasure to work with. I would also
like to thank the series editors, Chris Davison and Andy Gao, for their ongoing sup-
port and encouragement. In addition, two anonymous reviewers of the draft manu-
script gave positive feedback and very useful suggestions for revisions.

v
vi Preface

The concerns addressed in this book are of increasing importance to English-

medium universities and other institutions which are admitting students from
diverse language backgrounds. We hope that these contributions will help to clarify
the issues and offer a range of concrete solutions to the challenge of ensuring that
students’ language and literacy needs are being met.

Auckland, New Zealand John Read

April 2016
Contents

Part I Introduction
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment . . . . . . . . . . 3
John Read

Part II Implementing and Monitoring Undergraduate Assessments

2 Examining the Validity of a Post-Entry Screening
Tool Embedded in a Specific Policy Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Ute Knoch, Cathie Elder, and Sally O’Hagan
3 Mitigating Risk: The Impact of a Diagnostic Assessment
Procedure on the First-Year Experience in Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Janna Fox, John Haggerty, and Natasha Artemeva
4 The Consequential Validity of a Post-Entry Language
Assessment in Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Edward Li
5 Can Diagnosing University Students’ English Proficiency
Facilitate Language Development? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Alan Urmston, Michelle Raquel, and Vahid Aryadoust

Part III Addressing the Needs of Doctoral Students

6 What Do Test-Takers Say? Test-Taker Feedback
as Input for Quality Management of a Local Oral
English Proficiency Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Xun Yan, Suthathip Ploy Thirakunkovit, Nancy L. Kauper,
and April Ginther
7 Extending Post-Entry Assessment to the Doctoral Level:
New Challenges and Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
John Read and Janet von Randow

vii
viii Contents

Part IV Issues in Assessment Design

8 Vocabulary Recognition Skill as a Screening Tool
in English-as-a-Lingua-Franca University Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Thomas Roche, Michael Harrington, Yogesh Sinha,
and Christopher Denman
9 Construct Refinement in Tests of Academic Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Albert Weideman, Rebecca Patterson, and Anna Pot
10 Telling the Story of a Test: The Test of Academic Literacy
for Postgraduate Students (TALPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Avasha Rambiritch and Albert Weideman

Part V Conclusion
11 Reflecting on the Contribution of Post-Admission Assessments . . . . 219
John Read

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Contributors

Natasha Artemeva School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton

University, Ottawa, Canada
Vahid Aryadoust National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, Republic of Singapore
Christopher Denman Humanities Research Center, Sultan Qaboos University,
Muscat, Oman
Cathie Elder Language Testing Research Centre, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, Australia
Janna Fox School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada
April Ginther Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN,
USA
John Haggerty Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Michael Harrington School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland,
Brisbane, Australia
Nancy L. Kauper Oral English Proficiency Program, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN, USA
Ute Knoch Language Testing Research Centre, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, Australia
Edward Li Center for Language Education, The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology, Hong Kong, China
Sally O’Hagan Language Testing Research Centre, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, Australia

ix
x Contributors

Rebecca Patterson Office of the Dean: Humanities, University of the Free State,
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Anna Pot Office of the Dean: Humanities, University of the Free State,
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Avasha Rambiritch Unit for Academic Literacy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria,
South Africa
Michelle Raquel Centre for Applied English Studies, University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, China
John Read School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, University of Auckland,
Auckland, New Zealand
Thomas Roche SCU College, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia
Yogesh Sinha Department of English Language Teaching, Sohar University, Al
Sohar, Oman
Suthathip Ploy Thirakunkovit English Department, Mahidol University,
Bangkok, Thailand
Alan Urmston English Language Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hong Kong, China
Janet von Randow Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment, University
of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Albert Weideman Office of the Dean: Humanities, University of the Free State,
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Xun Yan Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
 Part I
Introduction
Chapter 1
Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language
Assessment

John Read

Abstract This chapter introduces the volume by briefly outlining trends in English-
medium higher education internationally, but with particular reference to post-entry
language assessment (PELA) in Australian universities. The key features of a PELA
are described, in contrast to a placement test and an international proficiency test.
There is an overview of each of the other chapters in the book, providing appropri-
ate background information on the societies and education systems represented:
Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the USA, New Zealand, Oman and South Africa.
This is followed by a discussion of three themes running through several chapters.
The first is how to validate post-admission language assessments; the second is the
desirability of obtaining feedback from the test-takers; and the third is the extent to
which a PELA is diagnostic in nature.

Keywords English-medium higher education • Post-entry language assessment

(PELA) • Post-admission language assessment • Validation • Test-taker feedback •
Language diagnosis

1 Overview of the Topic

In a globalised world universities in the major English-speaking countries have for

some time been facing the challenges posed by student populations which have
become linguistically very diverse. There are several trends which account for this
diversity (see Murray 2016, for a comprehensive account). One is certainly the
vigorous recruitment of international students, on whose tuition fees many univer-
sity budgets are now critically dependent. In addition, the domestic population in
these countries is much more multilingual as a result of immigration inflows, includ-
ing many parents who migrate specifically to seek better educational opportunities
for their children. A third influence is the adoption of national policies to broaden

J. Read (*)
School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, University of Auckland,
Auckland, New Zealand
e-mail: ja.read@auckland.ac.nz

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3

J. Read (ed.), Post-admission Language Assessment of University Students,
English Language Education 6, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39192-2_1
4 J. Read

participation in higher education by underrepresented groups in the society, such as

ethnic minorities or those from low-income backgrounds.
A complementary development is the growth in the number of universities in
other countries where the instruction is partly or wholly through the medium of
English. This reflects the status of English as the dominant language of international
communication (Crystal 2003; Jenkins 2007; Phillipson 2009), and in academia in
particular. Given the worldwide reach of the British Empire in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, English-medium education is not a new phenomenon, at least
for colonial elites, but it has spread more widely in recent decades. Phillipson (2009)
gives a useful overview of countries outside the traditionally English-speaking ones
where English-medium universities are to be found:
1. Of mature vintage in some former ‘colonies’ (South Africa, the Indian sub-
continent, the Philippines)
2. Younger in other postcolonial contexts (Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong,
Singapore, South Pacific)
3. Well established for some elites (Turkey, Egypt)
4. Recent in parts of the Arab world (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates)
5. Even more recent in continental Europe. (2009, p. 200; Italics in original)
Other nations like China, South Korea and Japan can certainly be added to the
list.
In all these countries, whether “English-speaking” or not, it cannot be assumed
that students entering the university are adequately prepared to cope with the
language and literacy demands of degree studies through the medium of English.
There are obviously a number of ways in which institutions can respond to this
challenge, but the one which is the focus of this book is the introduction of a lan-
guage assessment to be administered to students entering the university, in order to
identify those who have significant academic language needs (to the extent that they
are at risk of failure or not achieving their academic potential), and to guide or direct
such students to appropriate forms of academic language development as they
pursue their studies.
In Australia, the term “post-entry language assessment”, or PELA, has come to
be used for this kind of assessment programme. Australia is one of the major recipi-
ent countries of international students, as a result of the energetic recruiting strate-
gies of its marketing organisation, IDP Education, and individual tertiary institutions
throughout the country. IDP is also the Australian partner in the International
English Language Testing System (IELTS), which is the preferred English profi-
ciency test in Australia and has grown to be the market leader worldwide. Although
international students routinely need to achieve a minimum IELTS score for entry,
there have been ongoing concerns about the adequacy of their English proficiency
to cope with the language demands of their degree programmes. Matters came to a
head with the publication of an article by Birrell (2006), an Australian academic
specialising in immigration research, who produced evidence that students were
graduating with degrees in accounting and information technology, yet were unable
to obtain the minimum score of 6.0 on IELTS needed for permanent residence and
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 5

employment in Australia. This score (or 6.5 in many cases) is the standard require-
ment for direct admission to undergraduate degree programmes, but the problem
was that many students were following alternative pathways into the universities
which allowed them to enter the country originally with much lower test scores, and
they had not been re-tested at the time they were accepted for degree-level study.
Media coverage of Birrell’s work generated a large amount of public debate
about English language standards in Australian universities. A national symposium
(AEI 2007) organised by a federal government agency was held in Canberra to
address the issues and this led to a project by the Australian Universities Quality
Agency (AUQA) to develop the Good Practice Principles for English Language
Proficiency for International Students in Australian Universities (AUQA 2009). The
principles have been influential in prompting tertiary institutions to review their
provisions for supporting international students and have been incorporated into the
regular cycle of academic audits conducted by the AUQA and its successor, the
Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). In fact, the promotion
of English language standards (or academic literacy) is now seen as encompassing
the whole student body, rather than just international students (see, e.g., Arkoudis
et al. 2012).
From an assessment perspective, the two most relevant Good Practice Principles
are these:
1. Universities are responsible for ensuring that their students are sufficiently com-
petent in English to participate effectively in their university studies.
2. Students’ English language development needs are diagnosed early in their stud-
ies and addressed, with ongoing opportunities for self-assessment (AUQA 2009,
p. 4).
A third principle, which assigns shared responsibility to the students themselves,
should also be noted:
3. Students have responsibilities for further developing their English language pro-
ficiency during their study at university and are advised of these responsibilities
prior to enrolment. (ibid.)
These principles have produced initiatives in many Australian institutions to
design what have become known as post-entry language assessments (PELAs).
Actually, a small number of assessments of this kind pre-date the developments of
the last 10 years, notably the Diagnostic English Language Assessment (DELA) at
the University of Melbourne (Knoch et al. this volume) and Measuring the Academic
Skills of University Students at the University of Sydney (Bonanno and Jones
2007). The more recent developments have been documented in national surveys by
Dunworth (2009) and Dunworth et al. (2013). The latter project led to the creation
of the Degrees of Proficiency website (www.degreesofproficiency.aall.org.au),
which offers a range of useful resources on implementing the Good Practice
Principles, including a database of PELAs in universities nationwide.
In New Zealand, although the term PELA is not used, the University of Auckland
has implemented the most comprehensive assessment programme of this kind, the
6 J. Read

Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA), which has been in

operation since 2002 (see Read and von Randow this volume). Currently all first-
year undergraduate students and all doctoral candidates are screened through
DELNA, regardless of their language background. The impetus for the develop-
ment of the programme came from widespread perceptions among staff of the uni-
versity in the 1990s that many students were inadequately prepared for the language
and literacy demands of their studies. Attention was focused not simply on interna-
tional students but a range of other groups in the student population, including per-
manent residents who had immigrated relatively recently; mature students with no
recent experience of formal study; and ethnic minority students admitted on equity
grounds. Even mainstream students could no longer be assumed to have an accept-
able level of academic literacy. There were legislative constraints on singling out
particular groups of domestic students for English assessment, and so the University
eventually required that all incoming students should be screened.
Dunworth’s surveys in Australia have revealed that PELAs and the institutional
policies associated with them take rather different forms from one institution to
another. Nevertheless, it is possible to list a number of distinctive features that this
kind of assessment may have, in the original context of Australia and New Zealand.
• Although international students are often the primary target group for assess-
ment, some PELAs are administered more widely to incoming students with
English as an additional language, whether they be international or domestic in
origin. Given the diversity of language backgrounds and educational experiences
among today’s students, any division according to the old dichotomies of non-
native vs. native or non-English- vs. English-speaking background may be quite
problematic and seen rightly or wrongly as discriminatory.
• A related issue is whether it should be made mandatory for the targeted students to
undertake the assessment, with sanctions for non-compliance – or whether the PELA
should be made available to students with varying degrees of encouragement or per-
suasion to take it. There is often some resistance from academics to the idea of com-
pulsion, on the basis that it is unreasonable to oblige students who have already met
the university’s matriculation requirements to take a further assessment.
• In any event the assessment is administered after students have been admitted to
the university and, no matter how poorly they perform, they will not be excluded
from degree study on the basis of the PELA result.
• A PELA is usually developed within the institution where it is used, although
some universities have pooled their expertise and others have licensed the assess-
ment from another university. It is funded by the university, or in some cases by
a particular faculty, at no cost to the student.
• PELAs typically target reading, writing and listening skills, but often include
measures of language knowledge (vocabulary or grammar items; integrated for-
mats such as the cloze procedure), which are seen as adding diagnostic value to
the assessment.
• The assessment should be closely linked to the opportunities available on cam-
pus for students to enhance their academic language proficiency or literacy,
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 7

through credit courses in ESL, academic English or academic writing; short

courses and workshops; online study resources; tutoring services; peer mentor-
ing; and so on. In some academic programmes, language support is embedded in
the teaching of particular first-year subject courses.
• In some cases, students are required to take a credit course if their PELA results
are low. Otherwise (or in addition), the assessment is seen as more diagnostic in
nature, and the reporting of their results is accompanied by advice on how to
improve their language skills.
This cluster of characteristics shows how a PELA is distinct from the major pro-
ficiency tests like IELTS and TOEFL, which govern the admission of international
students to English-medium universities.
A PELA may be more similar to a placement test administered to students at a
particular institution. However, many placement tests are designed simply to assign
incoming students to a class at the appropriate level of an English language or writ-
ing/composition programme as efficiently as possible, which means that they lack
the range of features – and the underlying philosophy – of a PELA, as outlined
above. It is worth noting that two major recent survey volumes on language assess-
ment (Fulcher and Davidson 2012; Kunnan 2014) barely mention placement tests at
all, whereas the chapter by Green (2012) in a third volume states that “Ultimately,
for a placement test to fulfill its purpose its use must result in a satisfactory assign-
ment of learners to classes – at least in terms of language level” (p. 166). A PELA
mostly has broader ambitions than this.
The phenomenon of post-entry language assessment is discussed in much greater
depth in my book Assessing English proficiency for university study (Read 2015),
including both the Australian and New Zealand experience and case studies of
similar assessments in other countries as well. The present volume complements the
earlier one by presenting a series of research studies on these kinds of assessment
from universities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Hong
Kong, Oman and South Africa. I have chosen to use the term “post-admission
assessment” for the title to make the point that this volume is not primarily about the
Australian experience with PELA but rather it ranges more widely across a variety
of national contexts in which English-medium higher education occurs.

2 Structure of the Volume

2.1 Implementing and Monitoring Undergraduate Assessments

The first four chapters of the book, following this one, focus on the assessment of
students entering degree programmes in English-medium universities at the under-
graduate level. The second chapter, by Ute Knoch, Cathie Elder and Sally
O’Hagan, discusses recent developments at the University of Melbourne, which
has been a pioneering institution in Australia in the area of post-admission
8 J. Read

assessment, not only because of the high percentage of students from non-English-
speaking backgrounds on campus but also because the establishment of the
Language Testing Research Centre (LTRC) there in 1990 made available to the
University expertise in test design and development. The original PELA at
Melbourne, the Diagnostic English Language Assessment (DELA), which goes
back to the early 1990s, has always been administered on a limited scale for various
reasons. A policy was introduced in 2009 that all incoming undergraduate students
whose English scores fell below a certain threshold on IELTS (for international
students) or the Victorian matriculation exams (domestic students) would be
required to take DELA, followed by an academic literacy development programme
as necessary (Ransom 2009). However, it has been difficult to achieve full compli-
ance with the policy. This provided part of the motivation for the development of a
new assessment, now called the Post-admission Assessment of Language (PAAL),
which is the focus of the Knoch et al. chapter.
Although Knoch et al. report on a trial of PAAL in two faculties at Melbourne
University, the assessment is intended for use on a university-wide basis and thus it
measures general academic language ability. By contrast, in Chap. 3 Janna Fox,
John Haggerty and Natasha Artemeva describe a programme tailored specifi-
cally for the Faculty of Engineering at Carleton University in Canada. The starting
point was the introduction of generic screening measures and a writing task licensed
from the DELNA programme at the University of Auckland in New Zealand
(discussed in Chap. 7), but as the Carleton assessment has evolved, it was soon
recognised that a more discipline-specific set of screening measures was required to
meet the needs of the faculty. Thus, both the input material and the rating criteria for
the writing task were adapted to reflect the expectations of engineering instructors,
and recently a more appropriate reading task and a set of mathematical problems
have been added to the test battery. Another feature of the Carleton programme has
been the integration of the assessment with the follow-up pedagogical support. This
has involved the embedding of the assessment battery into the delivery of a required
first-year engineering course and the opening of a support centre staffed by
upper-year students as peer mentors. Fox et al. report that there is a real sense in
which students in the faculty have taken ownership of the centre, with the result
that it is not stigmatised as a remedial place for at-risk students, but somewhere
where a wide range of students can come to enhance their academic literacy in
engineering.
The term academic literacy is used advisedly here to refer to the discipline-
specific nature of the assessment at Carleton, which distinguishes it from the other
programmes presented in this volume; otherwise, they all focus on the more generic
construct of academic language proficiency (for an extended discussion of the two
constructs, see Read 2015). The one major example of an academic literacy assess-
ment in this sense is Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students
(MASUS) (Bonanno and Jones 2007), a procedure developed in the early 1990s at
the University of Sydney, Australia, which involves the administration of a
discipline-specific integrated writing task. This model requires the active involve-
ment of instructors in the discipline, and has been implemented most effectively in
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 9

professional fields such as accountancy, architecture and pharmacy. However,

PELAs are generally designed for students entering degree programmes across the
university and often target those who are linguistically at risk through their limited
competence in the lexical, grammatical and discoursal systems of the language –
hence the diagnostic function of the assessment tasks.
We next move beyond the traditional English-speaking countries. The fourth and
fifth chapters focus on post-admission assessments in Hong Kong, now a Special
Administrative Region of China but under British administration for more than a
century until 1997. Thus, English has had a primary role in the public domain and
the commercial life of Hong Kong, even though the population is predominantly
Cantonese-speaking. Both before and after the transfer of sovereignty, the issue of
the medium of instruction in Hong Kong schools has been a matter of ongoing
debate and controversy (Evans 2002; So 1989). From 1997, mother tongue educa-
tion in Cantonese was strongly promoted for most schools but, faced with ongoing
demand from parents for English-medium education, in 2010 the Government dis-
continued the practice of classifying secondary schools as English-medium or
Chinese-medium in favour of a “fine-tuning” policy which allowed schools to adopt
English as a medium to varying degrees, depending on the students’ ability to learn
through English, the teachers’ capability to teach through English and the availabil-
ity of support measures at the school (Education Bureau 2009). However, the debate
continues over the effectiveness of the new policy in raising the standard of English
among Hong Kong secondary students (Chan 2014; Poon 2013).
This obviously has flow-on effects at the university level, as Hong Kong has
moved to broaden participation in higher education beyond the elite group of stu-
dents from schools with a long tradition of English-medium study. There are now
eight public universities in the SAR, and all but one (the Chinese University of
Hong Kong) are English-medium institutions. Responding to the concerns of
employers about the English communication skills of graduating students, there has
been a focus on finding an appropriate and acceptable exit test for those completing
their degree studies (Berry and Lewkowicz 2000; Qian 2007), but clearly the situa-
tion also needs to be addressed on entry to the university as well. Another recent
change has been the introduction of 4-year undergraduate degree programmes,
rather than the traditional 3-year British-style degrees, and a consequent reduction
in senior secondary schooling from 4 years to 3. The expectation is that this will
increase the need for Hong Kong students to devote much of their first year of uni-
versity study to enhancing their academic English skills.
This then is the background to the two chapters on Hong Kong. Chapter 4, by
Edward Li, introduces the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA),
which has been developed for students entering the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology. Li emphasises the close link between the assessment and
the coursework in academic English which the students undertake in their first year
of study, as part of a major institutional commitment to improving English language
standards. As he writes, “ELPA is curriculum-led and curriculum-embedded”. Thus,
it is a relatively comprehensive instrument, in its coverage of the four skills as well
as vocabulary knowledge – comparable in scope to a communicative proficiency
10 J. Read

test. Although it is not primarily designed as a diagnostic test battery, it is similar to

other post-admission assessments in this volume in that, after the test results are
released, students have an individual consultation with their class teacher to negoti-
ate a plan for their English study for the remainder of the academic year. ELPA has
also provided opportunities for teachers at the Center for Language Education to
enhance their professional skills in assessment and to see for themselves the links
between what is assessed and what they teach in the classroom.
Whereas most post-admission assessments are administered on a one-off basis at
the beginning of the academic year, ELPA also functions as a higher-stakes achieve-
ment measure for HKUST students at the end of the first year. The other Hong Kong
measure, the Diagnostic English Language Tracking Assessment (DELTA), is even
more longitudinal in nature, in that it is intended to be taken by the students in each
year of their undergraduate study, as a tool for them to monitor their progress in
enhancing their language knowledge and receptive skills for study purposes. As
Alan Urmston, Michelle Raquel and Vahid Aryadoust explain in Chap. 5, the
Hong Kong Polytechnic University is the lead institution in implementing DELTA,
along with three other partner universities in Hong Kong. Policies vary from one
participating university to another on whether students are required to take DELTA
and how the assessment is linked to the academic English study programmes which
each institution provides. This means that the design of the instrument is not tied to
a particular teaching curriculum, as ELPA is, but it draws on key components of the
construct of language knowledge, as defined by Bachman and Palmer (2010), within
an academic study context. DELTA is a computer-based assessment which makes
sophisticated use of the Rasch Model to evaluate the quality of the test items and to
provide a basis for interpreting the scores for the students and other stakeholders.
This includes a DELTA Track, which takes account of the student’s past performance
and maps the trajectory to a new target level of achievement which the student
can set. Thus, it is designed to facilitate individualised learning, to complement the
students’ formal course work in English.

2.2 Addressing the Needs of Doctoral Students

The second section of the book includes two studies of post-admission assessments
for postgraduate students, and more specifically doctoral candidates. Although
international students at the postgraduate level have long been required to achieve a
minimum score on a recognised English proficiency test for admission purposes,
normally this has involved setting a somewhat higher score on a test that is other-
wise the same as for undergraduates. However, there is growing recognition of the
importance of addressing the specific language needs of doctoral students, particularly
in relation to speaking and writing skills. Such students have usually developed
academic literacy in their discipline through their previous university education but,
if they are entering a fully English-medium programme for the first time, their
doctoral studies will place new demands on their proficiency in the language.
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 11

In major US universities with strong programmes in the sciences and engineer-

ing, International Teaching Assistants (ITA) have had a prominent position since at
least the 1980s, taking instructional roles in undergraduate courses in return for
financial support to pursue their own graduate studies. This means that they need
good oral-aural ability as well as basic teaching skills. In fact, in numerous US
states the legislature has mandated the assessment and training of prospective ITAs
in response to public concerns about their competence to perform their teaching
roles. Some universities use existing tests, such as the speaking section of the
internet-based TOEFL (iBT) (Xi 2008), but others have developed their own in-
house instruments. One well-documented case is the Oral English Proficiency Test
(OEPT) at Purdue University in Indiana, which is the focus of Chap. 6 by Xun Yan,
Suthathip Ploy Thirakunkovit, Nancy L. Kauper and April Ginther. The test is
closely linked to the Oral English Proficiency Program (OEPP), which provides
training in the necessary presentational and interactional skills for potential ITAs
whose OEPT score indicates that they lack such skills.
The OEPT is the only post-admission assessment represented in this volume
which tests oral language ability exclusively. Generally, speaking is assigned a
lower priority than other skills, having regard for the time and expense required to
assess oral skills reliably. However, an oral assessment is essential for prospective
ITAs and the solution adopted for the OEPT, which is administered to 500 graduate
students a year, was to design a computer-based semi-direct test in which the
test-takers respond to prompts on screen rather than interacting with a human inter-
locutor. An important feature of the assessment for those students placed in the
OEPP on the basis of a low test score is an individual conference with an instructor
to review the student’s performance on the test and set instructional goals for the
semester. The close relationship between the assessment and the instruction is
facilitated by the fact that OEPP instructors also serve as OEPT raters.
The OEPT is also distinct from the other assessments in that it assesses profes-
sional skills rather than ones required for academic study. Of course, the employ-
ment context for the ITAs is academic, and developing good oral skills will
presumably stand them in good stead as graduate students, but they are primarily
being assessed on their employability as instructors in the university, not their abil-
ity to cope with the language demands of their studies.
The following Chap. 7, by John Read and Janet von Randow, discusses a more
general application of post-admission assessment to all incoming doctoral candidates
at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. This involved not the development of
a new instrument but the extension of the existing Diagnostic English Language
Needs Assessment (DELNA), which was already well established for undergraduate
students. DELNA is unusual among PELAs in Australian and New Zealand universi-
ties in that for several years it has been administered to all domestic and international
first-year undergraduates, regardless of their language background. Since 2011, the
same policy has been applied to all new doctoral students. The only innovation in the
assessment for them has been an extended writing task.
As in the case of the OEPT at Purdue, the DELNA programme includes an
individual advisory session for students whose assessment results show that they
12 J. Read

are at risk of language-related difficulties in their studies. For doctoral candidates

the advising process is more formal than for undergraduates and it results in the
specification of language enrichment objectives which are reviewed at the end of
each student’s provisional year of registration, as part of the process to determine
whether their candidacy should be confirmed. The DELNA requirement has been
complemented with an augmented range of workshops, discussion groups, online
resources and other activities tailored to the academic language needs of doctoral
students. Interestingly, although speaking skills are not assessed in DELNA, Read
and von Randow highlight the need for international doctoral candidates to develop
their oral communication ability as a means to form what Leki (2007) calls “socio-
academic relationships” through interaction with other students and with university
staff. Both the literature and the interview data presented in Chap. 7 attest to the
isolation that international PhD students can experience, especially when their
studies do not involve any course work.
A third postgraduate assessment, the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate
Students (TALPS) in South Africa, is discussed later in Chap. 10.

2.3 Issues in Assessment Design

In the third section of the book, there are three chapters which shift the focus back
to English-medium university education in societies where (as in Hong Kong) most
if not all of the domestic student population are primary speakers of other lan-
guages. These chapters are also distinctive in the attention they pay to design issues
in post-admission assessments.
Chapter 8, by Thomas Roche, Michael Harrington, Yogesh Sinha and
Christopher Denman, investigates the use of a particular test format for the pur-
poses of post-admission assessment at two English-medium universities in Oman, a
Gulf state which came under British influence in the twentieth century but where
English remains a foreign language for most of the population. The instrument is
what the authors call the Timed Yes/No (TYN) vocabulary test, which measures the
accuracy and speed with which candidates report whether they know each of a set
of target words or not. Such a measure would not normally be acceptable in a
contemporary high-stakes proficiency test, but it has a place in post-admission
assessments. Vocabulary sections are included in the DELTA, DELNA and ELPA
test batteries, and the same applies to TALL and TALPS (Chaps. 9 and 10). Well-
constructed vocabulary tests are highly reliable and efficient measures which have
been repeatedly shown to be good predictors of reading comprehension ability and
indeed of general language proficiency (Alderson 2005). They fit well with the
diagnostic purpose of many post-admission assessments, as distinct from the more
communicative language use tasks favoured in proficiency test design. Roche et al.
argue that a TYN test should be seriously considered as a cost-effective alternative
to the existing resource-intensive placement tests used as part of the admission
process to foundation studies programmes at the two institutions.
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 13

The TYN test trial at the two institutions produced promising results but also
some reasons for caution in implementing the test for operational purposes. The
vocabulary test was novel to the students not only in its Yes/No format but also
the fact that it was computer-based. A comparison of student performance at the two
universities showed evidence of a digital divide between students at the metropoli-
tan institution and those at the regional one; there were also indications of a gender
gap in favour of female students at the regional university. This points to the need
to ensure that the reliability of placement tests and other post-admission assess-
ments is not threatened by the students’ lack of familiarity with the format and the
mode of testing. It also highlights the value of obtaining feedback from test-takers
themselves, as several of the projects described in earlier chapters have done.
The other two chapters in the section come from a team of assessment specialists
affiliated to the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment
(ICELDA), which – like the DELTA project in Hong Kong – involves collaboration
among four participating universities in South Africa to address issues of academic
literacy faced by students entering each of the institutions. The work of ICELDA is
informed by the multilingual nature of South African society, as well as the ongoing
legacy of the political and educational inequities inflicted by apartheid on the major-
ity population of the country. This makes it essential that students who will struggle
to meet the language demands of university study through the media of instruction
of English or Afrikaans should be identified on entry to the institution and should be
directed to an appropriate programme of academic literacy development.
Two tests developed for this purpose, the Test of Academic Literacy Levels
(TALL) and its Afrikaans counterpart, the Toets van Akademiese Geletterdheidsvlakke
(TAG), are discussed in Chap. 9 by Albert Weideman, Rebecca Patterson and
Anna Pot. These tests are unusual among post-admission assessments in the extent
to which an explicit definition of academic literacy has informed their design. It
should be noted here that the construct was defined generically in this case, rather
than in the discipline-specific manner adopted by Read (2015) and referred to in
Chap. 3 in relation to the Carleton University assessment for engineering students.
The original construct definition draws on current thinking in the applied linguistic
literature, particularly work on the nature of academic discourse. The authors
acknowledge that compromises had to be made in translating the components of
the construct into an operational test design, particularly given the need to employ
objectively-scored test items for practical reasons in such large-scale tests. The
practical constraints precluded any direct assessment of writing ability, which many
would consider an indispensable element of academic literacy.
In keeping with contemporary thinking about the need to re-validate tests peri-
odically, Weideman et al. report on their recent exercise to revisit the construct,
leading to some proposed new item types targeting additional components of aca-
demic literacy. One interesting direction, following the logic of two of the additions,
is towards the production of some field-specific tests based on the same broad con-
struct. It would be useful to explore further the diagnostic potential of these tests
through the reporting of scores for individual sections, rather than just the total
score. To date this potential has not been realised, largely again on the practical
14 J. Read

grounds that more than 30,000 students need to be assessed annually, and thus over-
all cut scores are simply used to determine which lower-performing students will be
required to take a 1-year credit course in academic language development.
This brings us to Chap. 10, by Avasha Rambiritch and Albert Weideman,
which complements Chap. 9 by giving an account of the other major ICELDA
instrument, the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS). As
the authors explain, the development of the test grew out of a recognition that post-
graduate students were entering the partner institutions with inadequate skills in
academic writing. The construct definition draws on the one for TALL and TAG but
with some modification, notably the inclusion of an argumentative writing task. The
test designers decided that a direct writing task was indispensable if the test was to
be acceptable (or in traditional terminology, to have face validity) to postgraduate
supervisors in particular.
The last point is an illustration of the authors’ emphasis on the need for test
developers to be both transparent and accountable in their dealings with stakehold-
ers, including of course the test-takers. At a basic level, it means making informa-
tion easily available about the design of the test, its structure and formats, and the
meaning of test scores, as well as providing sample forms of the test for prospective
candidates to access. Although this may seem standard practice in high-stakes
testing programmes internationally, Rambiritch and Weideman point out that such
openness is not common in South Africa. In terms of accountability, the test
developers identify themselves and provide contact details on the ICELDA website.
They are also active participants in public debate about the assessment and related
issues through the news media and in talks, seminars and conferences. Their larger
purpose is to promote the test not as a tool for selection or exclusion but as one
means of giving access to postgraduate study for students from disadvantaged
backgrounds.
Although universities in other countries may not be faced with the extreme
inequalities that persist in South African society, this concern about equity of access
can be seen as part of the more general rationale for post-admission language
assessment and the subsequent provision of an “intervention” (as Rambiritch and
Weideman call it), in the form of opportunities for academic language development.
The adoption of such a programme signals that the university accepts a responsibil-
ity for ensuring that students it has admitted to a degree programme are made aware
of the fact that they may be at risk of underachievement, if not outright failure, as a
result of their low level of academic language proficiency, even if they have met the
standard requirements for matriculation. The institutional responsibility also
extends to the provision of opportunities for students to enhance their language
skills, whether it be through a compulsory course, workshops, tutorial support,
online resources or peer mentoring.
The concluding Chap. 11, by John Read, discusses what is involved for a par-
ticular university in deciding whether to introduce a post-admission language
assessment, as part of a more general programme to enhance the academic language
development of incoming students from diverse language backgrounds. There
are pros and cons to be considered, such as how the programme will be viewed
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 15

externally and whether the benefits will outweigh the costs. Universities are paying
increasing attention to the employability of their graduates, whose attributes are
often claimed to include effective communication ability. This indicates that both
academic literacy and professional communication skills need to be developed not
just in the first year of study but throughout students’ degree programmes. Thus,
numerous authors now argue that language and literacy enhancement should be
embedded in the curriculum for all students, but there are daunting challenges in
fostering successful and sustained collaboration between English language specialists
and subject teaching staff. The chapter concludes by exploring the ideas associated
with English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and how they might have an impact on the
post-admission assessment of students.

3 Broad Themes in the Volume

To conclude this introduction, I will identify three themes which each go across
several chapters in the volume.

3.1 Validation of Post-Admission Assessments

As with any assessment, a key question with PELAs is how to validate them. The
authors of this volume have used a variety of frameworks and conceptual tools for
this purpose, especially ones which emphasise the importance of the consequences
of the assessment. This is obviously relevant to post-admission assessment pro-
grammes, where by definition the primary concern is not only to identify incoming
students with academic language needs but also to ensure that subsequently they
have the opportunity to develop their language proficiency in ways which will
enhance their academic performance at the university.
In Chap. 2, Knoch, Elder and O’Hagan present a framework which is specifically
tailored for the validation of post-admission assessments. The framework is an
adapted version of the influential one in language testing developed by Bachman
and Palmer (2010), which in turn draws on the seminal work on test validation of
Samuel Messick and more particularly the argument-based approach advocated by
Michael Kane. It specifies the sequence of steps in the development of an argument
to justify the interpretation of test scores for a designated purpose, together with the
kinds of evidence required at each step in the process. The classic illustration of this
approach is the validity argument for the internet-based TOEFL articulated by
Chapelle et al. (2008). Knoch and Elder have applied their version of the framework
to several PELAs and here use it as the basis for evaluating the Post-entry Assessment
of Academic Language (PAAL) at the University of Melbourne.
An alternative approach to validation is Cyril Weir’s (2005) socio-cognitive
model, which incorporates the same basic components as the Bachman and Palmer
16 J. Read

framework, including an emphasis on consequential validity as part of a consider-

ation of the social context in which the assessment occurs. Weir’s model is pro-
moted as being a more practical tool for operational use in test development projects
than the more academically-oriented Bachman and Palmer framework. It has been
prominent in British language testing, particularly for validating the main suite
examinations of Cambridge English Language Assessment. While acknowledging
the influence of Messick’s ideas, Li has used the Weir model in Chap. 4 as the basis
for identifying relevant evidence for the consequential validity of the English
Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA) at the Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology.
At Purdue University the Oral English Proficiency Program (as described by Yan
et al. in Chap. 6) has adopted a quality management process to facilitate a periodic
review of the quality of its assessment procedures. Here again Cambridge English
Language Assessment have been leaders internationally in introducing quality con-
trol principles into the evaluation of their examination programmes and, as Saville
(2012) explains, it complements the validation process by focusing on the
operational areas of test production and administration. The OEPP case illustrates
in particular how feedback from test-takers can serve the ongoing process of quality
control.
A fourth framework, which is not specific to language assessment, has been
employed in Chap. 3 by Fox, Haggerty and Artemeva. They evaluated the diagnos-
tic assessment procedure for engineering students by means of John Creswell’s
multistage evaluation design. Not surprisingly, given Creswell’s long-term promo-
tion of mixed-methods research, this involved gathering both quantitative and qual-
itative evidence through a longitudinal series of projects over a 6-year period.
Technically, this can be seen as a programme evaluation rather than simply a valida-
tion of the assessment, but the fact that the assessment is embedded so fully in first-
year engineering studies in the faculty means that it is an appropriate approach to
take.
Finally, the other main viewpoint on test validity is provided by Weideman,
Patterson and Pot in their work on the construct definition of academic literacy,
which underlies the design of the Test of Academic Language Levels (TALL) and
its companion instruments (Chap. 9).

3.2 Feedback from Test-Takers

A notable feature of several studies in the volume is the elicitation of feedback from
students who have taken the assessment. This can be seen as a form of validity
evidence or, as we have just seen in the case of the OEPP at Purdue University, as
input to a quality management procedure. Although an argument can be made for
obtaining test-taker views at least at the development stage of any language testing
programme, it is particularly desirable for a post-admission assessment for three
reasons. First, like a placement test, a PELA is administered shortly after students
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 17

arrive on campus and, if they are uninformed or confused about the nature and
purpose of the assessment, it is less likely to give a reliable measure of their aca-
demic language ability. The second reason is that the assessment is intended to alert
students to difficulties they may face in meeting the language demands of their stud-
ies and often to provide them with beneficial diagnostic feedback. This means that
taking the assessment should ideally be a positive experience for them and anything
which frustrates them about the way the test is administered or the results are
reported will not serve the intended purpose. The other, related point is that the
assessment is not an end in itself but should be the catalyst for actions taken by the
students to enhance their academic language ability. Thus, feedback from the stu-
dents after a period of study provides evidence as to whether the consequences of
the assessment are positive or not, in terms of what follow-up activities they engage
in and what factors may inhibit their uptake of language development
opportunities.
Feedback from students was obtained in different ways and for various purposes
in these studies. In the development of the PAAL (Chap. 2), a questionnaire was
administered shortly after the two trials, followed later by focus groups. A similar
pattern of data-gathering was conducted in the studies of the two Hong Kong tests,
ELPA (Chap. 4) and DELTA (Chap. 5). On the other hand, the Post Test Questionnaire
is incorporated as a routine component of every administration of the OEPT (Chap.
6), to monitor student reactions to the assessment on an ongoing basis. A third
model is implemented for DELNA (Chap. 7). In this case, students are invited to
complete a questionnaire and then participate in an interview only after they have
completed a semester of study. Although this voluntary approach greatly reduces
the response rate, it provides data on the students’ experiences of engaging (or not)
in academic language enhancement activities as well as their reactions to the assess-
ment itself.

3.3 The Diagnostic Function

One characteristic of post-admission assessments which has already been referred

to is their potential for providing diagnostic information about the students’ aca-
demic language ability. In fact, three of the assessments (DELA, DELNA and
DELTA) include the term “diagnostic” in their names. Diagnosis has become a hot
topic in language assessment in the last 10 years, stimulated by the work of Charles
Alderson and his colleagues (2014, 2015) and by Alderson (2005), as well as other
scholars (see e.g. Lee 2015). There is continuing debate about the nature of diagno-
sis and how it should be carried out in language teaching and assessment. A test
administered to thousands of students is on the face of it diagnostic in a different
sense than a procedure conducted one-on-one in a classroom setting by a teacher
with special skills.
In Chap. 3, Fox et al. stress the importance of the connection between the assess-
ment and pedagogical intervention. They argue that “a diagnostic assessment proce-
18 J. Read

dure cannot be truly diagnostic unless it is linked to feedback, intervention, and

support” (p. xx). For them, this entails the production of a learning profile which
leads to individually tailored language support for the engineering students.
Similarly, for Knoch et al. (Chap. 2), a key diagnostic element is a subskill profile,
which goes beyond a single overall score and provides the basis for subsequent
student advising. They report that student participants in their trials of PAAL
complained that the reported results lacked detail about their strengths and
weaknesses.
The analytic rating scales that are typically used for writing and speaking assess-
ment lend themselves well to diagnostic reporting and advising, as noted by Knoch
et al. and by Yan et al. in Chap. 6, with regard to the Oral English Proficiency Test
(OEPT). Although the OEPT score is reported on a single scale, the class teachers
in the OEPP have access to the analytic ratings, which they review in individual
conferences with students in their class. In the case of ELPA at Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology (Chap. 4), Li writes that the assessment was
not designed to be diagnostic, but the results are reported as criterion-referenced
levels of performance in the skill areas using can-do statements and, as happens
with the assessments which are more explicitly diagnostic in nature, the perfor-
mance descriptors are used in consultations between class teachers and students
about English learning plans for the first year of study. On the other hand, in Chap.
10 Rambiritch and Weideman explain that the Test of Academic Literacy for
Postgraduate Students has diagnostic potential, in that its clusters of multiple-choice
items each assess one component of the authors’ academic literacy construct;
however, the potential is currently not realised in practice because of resource con-
straints. The results are reported simply on a scale of the level of risk the student
faces as a result of inadequate literacy.
The most comprehensive statement of the diagnostic nature of the assessment is
found in Chap. 5, where Urmston et al. explain how DELTA adheres to five tentative
principles of language diagnosis articulated by Alderson et al. (2014, 2015). These
include: providing an interactive report for users to interpret for their own purposes;
offering a user-friendly computer interface; incorporating diverse stakeholder
views, and student self-assessment in particular; embedding the assessment in a
whole diagnostic process which leads to decisions negotiated between student and
lecturer; and making a strong link between the assessment and appropriate learning
activities in the future.
Overall, the various conceptions of diagnosis serve to highlight the fundamental
point that a post-admission language assessment is not an end in itself but a means
of encouraging, if not requiring, students at risk of poor academic performance to
enhance their academic language proficiency through the various resources avail-
able to them.
1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment 19

References

Alderson, J. C. (2005). Diagnosing foreign language proficiency. London: Continuum.

Alderson, J. C., Brunfaut, T., & Harding, L. (2015). Towards a theory of diagnosis in second and
foreign language assessment: Insights from professional practice across diverse fields. Applied
Linguistics, 36, 236–260.
Alderson, J. C., Haapakangas, E.-L., Huhta, A., Nieminen, L., & Ullakonoja, R. (2014). The
diagnosis of reading in a second or foreign language. New York: Routledge.
Arkoudis, S., Baik, C., & Richardson, S. (2012). English language standards for higher education:
From entry to exit. Camberwell: ACER Press.
Australian Education International (AEI). (2007). Final report. Outcomes from a national sympo-
sium: English language competence of international students. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from:
http://aei.gov.au/AEI/PublicationsAndResearch/Publications/NS_Outcomes_Syposium_pdf.
pdf
Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). (2009, March). Good practice principles for
English language proficiency for international students in Australian Universities. Retrieved
21 Jan 2014 from: http://www.aall.org.au/sites/default/files/Final_Report-Good_Practice_
Principles2009.pdf.
Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (2010). Language assessment in practice. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Berry, V., & Lewkowicz, J. (2000). Exit tests: Is there an alternative? Hong Kong Journal of
Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 19–49.
Birrell, B. (2006). Implications of low English standards among overseas students at Australian
universities. People and Place, 14(4), 53–64. Melbourne: Centre for Population and Urban
Research, Monash University.
Bonanno, H., & Jones, J. (2007). The MASUS procedure: Measuring the academic skills of univer-
sity students. A resource document. Sydney: Learning Centre, University of Sydney. http://
sydney.edu.au/stuserv/documents/learning_centre/MASUS.pdf
Chan, J. Y. H. (2014). Fine-tuning language policy in Hong Kong education: Stakeholders’ percep-
tions, practices and challenges. Language and Education, 28(5), 459–476.
Chapelle, C. A., Enright, M., & Jamieson, J. (Eds.). (2008). Building a validity argument for the
test of english as a foreign language. New York: Routledge.
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Dunworth, K. (2009). An investigation into post-entry English language assessment in Australian
universities. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 3(1), 1–13.
Dunworth, K. Drury, H., Kralik, C., Moore, T., & Mulligan, D. (2013). Degrees of proficiency: Building a
strategic approach to university students’ English language assessment and development. Sydney:
Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from www.olt.gov.
au/project-degrees-proficiency-building-strategic-approach-university-studentsapos-english-
language-ass
Education Bureau. (2009). Fine-tuning the medium of instruction for secondary schools (Education
Bureau Circular No. 6/2009). Hong Kong: Government of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region. Retrieved April 16, 2015, from http://www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/
primary-secondary/applicable-to-secondary/moi/
Evans, S. (2002). The medium of instruction in Hong Kong: Policy and practice in the new English
and Chinese streams. Research Papers in Education, 17(1), 97–120.
Fulcher, G., & Davidson, F. (Eds.). (2012). The Routledge handbook of language testing. London:
Routledge.
Green, A. (2012). Placement testing. In C. Coombe, P. Davidson, B. O’Sullivan, & S. Stoynoff
(Eds.), The Cambridge guide to second language assessment (pp. 164–170). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Delight and
power in speech
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Delight and power in speech

A universal dramatic reader; a new, complete and
practical method of securing delight and efficiency in
silent and oral reading and private and public speech;
together with a large and varied collection of carefully
chosen selections in prose and poetry, with chapters
on "The cultivation of the memory" and "After dinner
speaking."

Author: George Wharton James

Leonard G. Nattkemper

Release date: October 3, 2023 [eBook #71798]

Language: English

Original publication: Pasadena, California: The Radiant Life

Press, 1919

Credits: ellinora, MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIGHT

AND POWER IN SPEECH ***
 DELIGHT and POWER
IN SPEECH
A UNIVERSAL DRAMATIC READER

BY

LEONARD G. NATTKEMPER
Polytechnic High School, Long Beach, Cal.
Formerly Professor of Public Speaking,
University of Southern California
AND

GEORGE WHARTON JAMES, Litt. D.

Author of “California, Romantic and Beautiful,”
“Arizona, the Wonderland,” “In and Out
of the Old Missions of California,”
“Reclaiming the Arid West,”
Etc., Etc.

A New, Complete and Practical Method of

Securing Delight and Efficiency in
Silent and Oral Reading and
Private and Public Speech

TOGETHER WITH A LARGE AND VARIED COLLECTION

OF CAREFULLY CHOSEN
SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND POETRY,
WITH CHAPTERS ON “THE CULTIVATION OF THE
MEMORY” AND “AFTER DINNER SPEAKING”

THE RADIANT LIFE PRESS

Pasadena, California
1919

Copyright, 1919,
By The Radiant Life Press

J. F. TAPLEY CO.
NEW YORK
 INTRODUCTION
Speech is one of God’s greatest gifts to man, yet, comparatively
speaking, how few there are whose speech is pleasing to hear, clear
and understandable, impressive and stimulative to action.
From the cradle to the grave every person, perforce, uses speech,
just as he eats, breathes, drinks, sleeps. It is one of the important,
ever exercised functions of life. Upon it all our social, business and
professional intercourse is based. Without it, life as we know it,
would be impossible. With it, developed to its natural, normal, proper,
and readily attainable efficiency, there are few limits to what man
may aspire to attain.
Recognizing to the full the truth of the aphorism that “the things we
enjoy doing are the things we do best,” it is the purpose of this book
so to present its subject as to create in its readers a firm resolve to
so thoroughly enjoy good reading that they will do it well.
The aim is twofold: first, to stimulate a natural desire on the part of
the student for the proper use of voice and body in the oral
interpretation of literature; and second, to present a natural and
practical scheme for the attainment of this end.
After a number of years of experience and observation the authors
have come to believe that when even the most diffident pupil has
once had aroused in him a real enjoyment in the acts of speaking
and reading aloud, he is destined to become not only an intelligent,
but an intelligible reader.
It is no longer necessary to argue for the recognition of vocal
expression as a worthy and definite part of the curriculum of High
School and College. Training in the spoken word is to-day, as never
before, looked upon as a prerequisite to professional and business
success. Henry Ward Beecher, speaking of the rightful place of
speech culture, says:

A living force that brings to itself all the resources of the

imagination, all the inspirations of feeling, all that is influential
in body, in voice, in eye, in gesture, in posture, in the whole
animated man, is in strict analogy with the divine thought and
the divine arrangement ... and so regarded, it should take its
place among the highest departments of education.

The majority of mankind, however, seems to feel that beautiful,

powerful, and effective speech or the ability to read well and
acceptably is the gift or attainment of the chosen few. Nothing can be
further from the fact. Beauty is the normal condition in the universe in
every realm of nature, and is attained by the simple effort of each
thing to express itself in natural and spontaneous fashion. Likewise,
clear, impressive, delight-giving, thought-provoking speech, and the
power to read well are as easy to attain, and may be obtained in the
same natural, spontaneous, unaffected manner.
Unfortunately in the past the teachers of these simple and natural
arts befogged the whole subject by their artificialities, formalities,
conventionalities and pretenses. Their text-books were filled with
unnecessary and injurious rules, mandates, and requirements. And
thus the pseudo-science of “Elocution,” with its stilted expressions,
its fixed gestures, its artificial inflections, came into being. And the
students who were eager to acquire the mastery of effective speech,
—than which there is no greater accomplishment,—were intimidated,
frightened away by the multiplicity of rules and theories.
Let us be thankful that the day is dawning when instruction in
correct spoken language comes through the easy avenues of
naturalness, spontaneity, simplicity and normal enthusiasm. Too long
have we been discouraged by the glib aphorism that there is no easy
road to learning. It is not true, if by learning we mean the attainment
of the real intellectual things, instead of the sham, pretentious things
that men in the past too often have called learning.
 The authors of this book venture the affirmation that hardly one of
the great readers, public speakers of power, or orators of influence
have ever taken a lesson in the so-called art of “elocution” or heeded
any of its straight-jacket rules. Daniel Webster has well expressed
the difference between the man with a heart full of burning thoughts
demanding utterance, and the one with a mouth full of carefully
chosen words, and exquisitely modulated phrases, meaning little or
nothing to the soul of him:

True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It

cannot be brought from afar. Labor and learning may toil for it,
but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be
marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must
exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected
passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all
may aspire after it,—they cannot reach it. It comes, if it comes
at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the
bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original,
native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly
ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and
disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives,
their children, and their country hang on the decision of the
hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is in vain, and
all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then
feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher
qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is
eloquent. The clear conception, out-running the deductions of
logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit,
speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing
every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right
onward to his object,—this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is
something greater and higher than all eloquence: it is action,
—noble, sublime, God-like action.

The natively-eloquent learned to speak with power because they

had a message, because they felt, were deeply moved, saw a vision,
experienced a deep emotion, had a thought they strongly desired to
communicate to others, and with a few fundamental, simple, readily-
grasped principles before them, generally unconsciously exercised,
they said their say, and convinced the world.
To state these basic principles with the simplicity and naturalness
they call for, and to show the pleasure and power that come from
their development is the purpose of the authors of this book.
By following these self-evident steps one who has something
worth saying, whose heart is deeply stirred, will become a good
reader, a fluent, convincing public speaker with little or no conscious
effort. Just as a few simple exercises, regularly persisted in, produce
glowing, radiant health and physical strength, so will these simple,
enjoyable exercises, kept ever in mind and daily used, bring to one
the glowing delight of reading to oneself with appreciation and
intelligence, reading publicly with intelligibility and effectiveness, and
speaking to a large or small audience with convincing power.

The Selections of the Book

While there are many and varied text-books that deal with this
important subject in a more or less modern fashion, they all use, to a
greater or lesser extent, the same old selections from well-known
authors and orators, which, unfortunately, were used by the teachers
of the stilted, artificial, sophomoric and altogether discredited
“elocution.” Hence, the authors and editors of this volume have
made an almost entirely new choice of Selections for illustrative
purposes and for public reading. But few will be found that have
been used elsewhere. References are made to the writings of
standard authors which may be obtained in any ordinary library, but
a large percentage of the prose and poetry of this collection is taken
from the more modern and popular American writers.
It is neither the intent nor the desire of the editors to limit the field
of thought of their readers or students to any one field of English
literature. Our aim is quite the contrary. We would so emphasize the
worth of the literature of the West, however, that those who have
hitherto deemed that “no good can come out of Nazareth,” may be
led to search for literary good in other Nazareths.
Literature is as wide as civilized human life, and according to the
intensity with which life is lived, and the desire of those who live to
express that intensity, will literature of strength and power be
produced. The West lives intensely, rapidly, urgently, individually,
hence its literature is intense, strong and powerful.
Just as sure as history records the existence of an early West—a
West where the gun and knife settled men’s heated controversies, a
West where, for many years, there was a dearth of woman’s soft
voice and tender smile—just so sure are the writings of the Western
poets, philosophers and storytellers of this period a vital part of our
early American literature. The literature of the West, as with the
literature of any country, needs only be a true, sincere, worthy
expression of the life it professes to portray.
The greater one’s knowledge of the literatures of the various
peoples of the world, the deeper one’s sympathies become, and the
easier it is to grasp the divine principles of human brotherhood.
The authors also wish to call attention to what they deem another
important feature of their work. It will be seen from the outline plan of
the book that it is divided into four parts, viz.: Intelligible Reading,
Sympathetic Reading, Melodious Reading, Oratorical Reading.
The selections have been arranged, in the main, under these
respective headings, that they may accompany the explanations,
serve to elucidate the principles laid down, and afford copious
examples for their practice.
There is also an important and practical chapter on the
Development and Use of the Memory.
That this book will fill a long felt and continuously expressed want
on the part of teachers of Oral Reading is the confident assurance of
the editors.
In the preparation of the technical part of the book the authors
have been immeasurably aided by their large and personal
knowledge of, and acquaintance or friendship with, leading orators in
politics, the law, the church, on the lecture platform, and at public
dinners and other functions. They have also availed themselves of
the same knowledge of the great interpreters in the theater. A long,
intimate study of the essential characteristics which made for the
success of many masters in the art of using the spoken word has
been made. Thus the authors are assured that no factor that leads
towards, and assures, success in dramatic or private reading or
speaking has been ignored. All academic and purely theoretical
matter has been rigorously excluded.
The old methods of sophomoric oratory are gone, never to return.
Men and women of purpose have learned that simplicity, directness,
naturalness, are the most potent factors in conveying their ideas to
others. It is gratifying to know that modern methods of teaching Oral
Reading and Private and Public Speaking seek to emphasize these
fundamental principles and reduce to the lowest possible minimum
all introductions of the artificial.
Leonard G. Nattkemper,
George Wharton James.
 PART ONE
Intelligent and Intelligible Reading
FIRST STEP. Getting the author’s thought. Discussing
INTELLIGENT reading. Giving material for training the pupil in
getting the thought from the printed page. Reading at sight and
reproducing in his own words. Making outlines of simple selections,
principally prose selections.
SECOND STEP. Discussion of INTELLIGIBLE reading. Two-fold
purpose: Thought-getting and thought-giving in the author’s words.
General and Special preparation. Exercises in Enunciation,
Pronunciation, Articulation, Vocabulary.
 CHAPTER I
READING AND PUBLIC SPEECH

It is the first and last object of education “to teach people how to
think.” When we consider the vast wealth of great thoughts felt and
expressed by great men of all times and recorded for us in books,
should we not give serious reflection upon what we read and how we
read?
This book has to do primarily with how rightly to speak thoughts
and feelings hidden in great literature—yet it is strictly in keeping
with this purpose to give some attention to silent reading as
distinguished from oral reading. For how can one hope to become an
intelligible reader who is not first an intelligent one? This does not
argue that an intelligent reader is likewise intelligible, for the mere
comprehension of the author’s thought and mood does not in itself
insure a proper or adequate oral rendition of the same. In this sense
we think of the former act as a necessity, and of the latter as an
accomplishment.
Yet in this twentieth century we can hardly make the above
limitations, for he who is to become most useful to himself and to
others, must not only be able to understand what he reads, but must,
at the same time, be able effectively to communicate it to others. The
latter accomplishment, of course, necessitates systematic drill and
practice, and the greater portion of this book is devoted to a series of
lessons for carrying on such a course of instruction. In this
immediate chapter, however, we are concerned more particularly
with reading in general.
One of the first steps toward fitting oneself to become an
impressive reader and speaker is to acquire a real love for the best
literature. The only way to do this is by making the acquaintance of
great authors, and the best way to come into companionship with
noble writers is conscientiously to study their works. Because, at first
glance, an author may seem obscure, too many are fain to put the
book aside, or substitute for it one that does not require any effort to
enjoy. But, after all, is it not the books over which we struggle most
that yield us the most joy and the most good? When once we form
the friendship of great books and catch their vision, we cannot help
but pattern our lives, in a very large measure, in accordance with
those fundamental and lasting principles of right living and right
thinking which characterize the writings of all great men and women.
Their ideals become our ideals.
It seems, therefore, that if we hope to become agreeable speakers
or conversationalists we must, at the outset, realize it as imperative
that we, make ourselves familiar with the writings, in verse and
prose, of noble minds. It is by this close association with great
people, who have not only understood and felt the deeper meanings
of life, but who have put their experiences and knowledge into
permanent literature, that we may have our smaller souls kindled to
glow brighter and longer. It is by giving an attentive ear to the voices
that call to us from our bookshelves that our finer sensibilities are
quickened to fuller appreciation of nature, of art, and of the joy of
living.
We must realize that training in the development of oral
expression is primarily a cultural course, but, at the same time, a
practical one. Many people would invert the order of this statement,
but all are agreed that correct vocal expression aids immeasurably in
the development of taste and refinement, and, at the same time,
affords, in many ways, practical assistance in daily living.
Pure water is more likely to be drawn from a deep well than from a
shallow pool. So, also, he who possesses depth of feeling and
appreciation of noble thoughts and pure emotions is more likely to
give adequate and satisfactory oral expression to them than he
whose feeling is shallow and indifferent. Experience teaches that
nothing gives greater aid to a spontaneous, irresistible flow of
thought, revealing, through voice and body, the finer conceptions of
the human soul, than a constant familiarity with the deep wells of the
best literature.
 By listening eagerly to the best words great men of all times have
said to the world, we make our own natures responsive. Then, in
greater or lesser measure, as readers or speakers, we translate or
interpret these words for the enjoyment or uplift of others.
How can the man, the woman, of limited time and means, proceed
so as to find these treasures of literature?
Let us here set down, briefly and clearly, what seems to us the
most enjoyable and natural method to use. In the first place, ask
yourself if you are willing to be a hard worker, self-sacrificing and
humble. Unless you are, you will find that great spirits are slow to
share with you their richest treasures. You must first make yourself
worthy before you can expect to enter into their sanctum. In the
words of Ruskin:

You must be willing to work hard to find the hidden meaning

of the author. Ask yourself, “Am I inclined to work as an
Australian miner would? Are my pick-axes and shovels in
good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up
to my elbows, and my breath good, and my temper?” ... The
metal you are in search of being the author’s mind or
meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush
and smelt in order to get at it. And your pick-axes are your
own care, wit, and learning; your smelting furnace is your own
thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author’s
meaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need
sharpest, finest chiseling, and patientest fusing, before you
can gather one grain of the metal.

Then, too, you must be patient. An untrained reader is, as it were,

wandering in a great forest where he sees many paths, but he knows
not which to take. If he pursue a wrong path the first, second or the
third time, he should not lose hope, but seek again and again. By
such experiences he is sharpening his faculty of discrimination, and
erelong can, in a brief space, detect which paths he should follow.
No one but yourself can prescribe rightly a course of reading best
suited to your particular needs. It must be a voluntary search on your
own part, and an enjoyable one, if you are to get the most from it.
But here enters a serious consideration: Is what I enjoy most the
best for me? The answer is Yes and No! Yes, if you enjoy most what
appeals to the best in you; no, if you enjoy most what in your heart
you know appeals to what is the worst in you. Therefore, the
important question for you to answer is—does this book, article,
essay or poem merely interest me, or does it appeal to the best in
me?
Henry Van Dyke expresses the matter perfectly:

The person who wants to grow, turns to books as a means

of purifying his tastes, deepening his feelings, broadening his
sympathies, and enhancing his joy of life. Literature he loves
because it is the most humane of the arts. Its forms and
processes interest him as expressions of the human striving
towards clearness of thought, purity of emotion, and harmony
of action with the ideal. The culture of a finer, fuller manhood
is what this reader seeks. He is looking for the books in which
the inner meanings of nature and life are translated into
language of distinction and charm, touched with the human
personality of the author, and embodied in forms of
permanent interest and power. This is literature. And the
reader who sets his affections on these things enters the
world of books as one made free of a city of wonders, a
garden of fair delights. He reads not from a sense of duty, not
from a constraint of fashion, not from an ambition of learning,
but from a thirst of pleasure; because he feels that pleasure of
the highest kind,—a real joy in the perception of things lucid,
luminous, symmetrical, musical, sincere, passionate, and
profound,—such pleasure restores the heart and quickens it,
makes it stronger to endure the ills of life and more fertile in
all good fruits of cheerfulness, courage and love. This reader
for vital pleasure has less need of maps and directories, rules
and instructions, than of companionship. A criticism that will
go with him in his reading, and open up new meaning in
familiar things, and touch the secrets of beauty and power,
and reveal the hidden relations of literature to life, and help
him to see the reasonableness of every true grace of style,
the sincerity of every real force of passion,—a criticism that
penetrates, illuminates, and appreciates, making the eyes
clearer and the heart more sensitive to perceive the living
spirit in good books,—that is the companionship which will be
most helpful, and most grateful to the gentle reader.
 CHAPTER II
EFFECTIVE SPEECH

There are four definite steps in the mastery of effective speech:

It must be Intelligible
It must be Sympathetic
It must be Melodious
It must be Forceful

In seeking to accomplish these four aims, the pupil will not only
increase his culture but his practical mental power as well.
The first step has to do with whatever makes understandable what
he has to say. But before he can be intelligible in address, he must
be an intelligent reader. He must train himself to master the real
meaning of words. This means taking in—comprehending—and
translating the thought of others. This is an important part in
accomplishing the first step. The mind must be trained quickly and
accurately to comprehend the printed page.

The Basis for Good Oral Reading

Grasp this idea firmly: Before one may hope to read intelligibly, he
must first be an intelligent reader. You cannot express outwardly
what you have not received and do not feel inwardly. Therefore the
basis of good oral reading is understanding—intelligent silent
reading. Some one has well said, “Unless a child can read, he
cannot be educated.” How few can read at sight a short passage and
then close the book and relate its context. Why is this the case?
Because the pupil has not been properly trained to read.

The Basis for Good Silent Reading

 In the study of the printed word we must remember that its real
meaning depends altogether upon its relation to other words in the
same group. For instance, the word “fire” does not mean the same
thing at all times. The real meaning of this word depends upon its
kinship with other members of the same group. When we say, “The
house is on fire,” the word “fire” means an altogether different thing
from what it means when we say, “There is need of a fire in the stove
this morning.” We must continually take care that we do not isolate
words, but that we get their associated meaning. For too long a time
in our public schools the pupils have been taught to read words and
not ideas or thoughts. They have been taught to read word by word
and not group by group. For instance, the most elementary pupils
will read as follows: “The—cat—can—run—and—play—with—the—
ball.” The grouping is altogether overlooked. The children are
concentrating their attention upon single or isolated words instead of
upon thought groups made up of several words as follows: “The cat
can run—and play with the ball.”

Get the Author’s Thought

Whatever one reads, he must first determine for what purpose he
is reading. A definite aim or end in view must be had to serve as a
motive power. The pupil who can relate the successive events in a
narrative after having read it carefully, has trained his memory. But
memory training is not the highest aim or end. The thing of
paramount importance is: What is the application of the author’s
meaning? The value lies in what use the student can make of the
knowledge. This act of getting the author’s thought draws upon the
student’s stock of experience. All new matter comes to the pupil in
terms of his past experiences. The task of the teacher is to aid him in
identifying himself with the lesson taught by the author, so that he
can make practical use of it.

We Are Not Studying Style

In this present step in the development of the student in effective
speech the style of an author is nothing more than a means to an