Search

In the present study I describe the 150-year history of school-based English language assessment in Japan. The history is divided into four major periods according to the purposes of English language education set by the government in the different periods: (1) 1860 to 1945, when English was first introduced and taught in schools mainly for elite classes; (2) 1945 to 1970, when English became part of the compulsory education for the first time; (3) 1970 to 1990 when English began to be regarded as the most effective means to communicate with foreign people in the rapidly shrinking world; and (4) 1990 to the present, when several innovative policies have been introduced into classroom measurement systems. I describe how assessment practices for English education at schools in each of these periods were and still are affected by various factors, including political, economic, and demographic changes in society, as well as academic paradigm shifts in the fields of education and applied linguistics.

The present study investigated how schemata activated by culturally familiar words might have influenced students’ cloze test-taking processes. Sixty Japanese EFL students were divided into two groups with equivalent English reading proficiency. They completed either a culturally familiar or an unfamiliar version of a cloze test. Partially replicating Chihara et al.’s (1989) experiment, several unfamiliar words in the original cloze test passage were changed to more familiar ones in the modified version. Unlike in Chihara et al. (1989), however, students were asked to give verbal reports of their test-taking processes, and to recall the passage after they had completed the tests. Thus, the two groups’ test-taking activities were compared in terms of: 1) item performance; 2) expressing correct understanding of the key terms while solving the items and recalling; 3) the amount of text information they used to complete the items; and 4) the quantities and qualities of the final recalls. Results demonstrated that those who read the culturally familiar cloze text tried to solve more items and generally understood the text better, which resulted in better performances than those of the students who read the original text. These results also support the claim that cloze tests can measure higher-order processing abilities.

The present study developed an analytic rating scale for Japanese university students’ first language (L1) expository writing. Research proceeded in four stages. In Stage 1, we devised a questionnaire to investigate Japanese L1 teachers’ criteria for evaluating expository writing. A total of 102 teachers responded to the questionnaire, and rated the 35 related descriptions according to their importance. In Stage 2, based on the questionnaire results, we either eliminated or reorganized these 35 descriptions under six analytic criteria: 1) Clarity of the theme; 2) Appeal to the readers; 3) Expression; 4) Organization; 5) Knowledge of language forms; and 6) Social awareness. Then, in Stage 3, we attempted to investigate possible weighting of these six criteria. We asked 106 teachers to rate two to four compositions with varied profiles using both a holistic scale and the obtained analytic scale. The results showed that the explanatory power of each criterion can vary from composition to composition, and thus we concluded that the six criteria should have equal weighting. Finally, in Stage 4, we pilot-tested the obtained scale using a new set of 69 compositions. The results indicate that the present scale is both valid and reliable, and that it is superior to a traditional analytic scale in capturing such composition qualities as appeal to the readers and social awareness.

This paper compares two approximation techniques for detecting differential item functioning (DIF) in an English as a second language (ESL) placement test when the group sizes are too small to use other possible methods (e.g., the three parameter item response theory method). An application of the Angoff delta- plot method (Angoff and Ford, 1973) utilizing the one parameter Rasch model adopted in Chen and Henning (1985), and Scheuneman's chi-square method (Scheuneman, 1979) were chosen because they are among the few methods appropriate for a sample size smaller than 100. Two linguistically and culturally diverse groups (Chinese and Spanish speaking) served as the subjects of this study. The results reveal that there was only marginal overlap between DIF items detected by Chen and Henning's method and Scheuneman's method; the former detected fewer DIF items with less variety than the latter. Moreover, Chen and Henning's method tended to detect easier items with smaller differ ences in p-value between the two groups whereas Scheuneman's method tended to detect items with the opposite features. Implications of these results are discussed.

Summmy.AZ Japanese preschoolers were administered tasks of copying, reading, and writing of Japanese kana (cursive syllabic letters) and simple forms. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine whether two kanacopying measures, speed and span, make significant contributions to children's reading and writing achievement after a conventional form-qualiry measure had been conuolled. Analysis showed that speed or span accounts uniquely for a significant and sizable amount of the variance of reading and writing, suggesting that kana-copying is a good predictor of reading and writing for Japanese preschoolers. Substantial evidence supports the view that visual-motor skill, as measured by standardized tests like the Bender-Gestalt and Primary Visual Motor Test, is a good predictor of reading achievement of young children (Koppitz, 1964; Keogh & Smith, 1967; Haworch, 1970). However, letter-copying, which also involves a visual-motor skill, does not appear to be associated with reading. De Hirsch, Jansky, and Langford ( 1966), for example, showed that preschool letter-copying did not predict reading scores at the end of the second grade although it did predict writing and spelling scores. More recently, Jorm, Share, McLean, and Matthews ( 1986), using a letter-copying task and controlling intelligence, found no difference in retarded 5-yr.-olds on reading as compared to their normal peers. One reason for these negative findings about reading may be that the letter-copying test, administered individually or in groups, has focused mainly on the end product, i.e., the form quality of the copy and so may involve only one aspect of the visual-motor skill. There may exist more revealing measures of letter-copying for predicting reading sl