Search

Im Rahmen des von 1993 bis 1996 durchgeführten „European Language Proficiency Survey (ELPS)“ wurden bei über 25000 Studierenden verschiedener Fremdsprachen in mehreren Ländern Europas mit Hilfe von C-Tests die allgemeine Sprachbeherrschung in der jeweiligen Fremdsprache gemessen sowie mit einem informellen Fragebogen Daten zur Sprachlerngeschichte, zur Fremdsprachenverwendungsangst (foreign language anxiety), zur Sprachlernmotivation und zu speziellen Einstellungen gegenüber dem eigenen und dem zielsprachlichen Land erfasst und analysiert. [2]

As measures of general language proficiency, C-tests are ubiquitous in language testing. Speeded C-tests are quite recent developments in the field and are deemed to be more discriminatory and provide more accurate diagnostic information than power C-tests especially with high-ability participants. Item response theory modeling of speeded C-tests has not been discussed in the literature, and current approaches for power C-tests based on ordinal models either violate the model assumptions or are relatively complex to be reliably fitted with small samples. Count data models are viable alternatives with less restrictive assumptions and lower complexity. In the current study, we compare count data models with commonly applied ordinal models for modeling a speeded C-test. It was found that a flexible count data model fits equally well in absolute and relative terms as compared with ordinal models. Implications and feasibility of count data models for the psychometric modeling of C-tests are discussed.

What C-tests actually measure has been an issue of debate for many years. In the present research, the authors examined the hypothesis that C-tests measure general language proficiency. A total of 843 participants from four independent samples took a German C-test along with the TestDaF (Test of German as a Foreign Language). Rasch measurement modelling and confirmatory factor analysis provided clear evidence that the C-test in question was a highly reliable, unidimensional instrument, which measured the same general dimension as the four TestDaF sections: reading, listening, writing and speaking. Moreover, the authors showed that language proficiency was divisible into more specific constructs and that examinee proficiency level differentially influenced C-test performance. The findings have implications for the multicomponentiality and fluidity of the C-test measurement construct.

Inhalt: Rudiger Grotjahn: Der C-Test: Aktuelle Tendenzen. Einleitung und Ubersicht uber den Band - Yuki Asano: C-Tests und "allgemeine Sprachkompetenz": Theoretische Uberlegungen und empirische Analysen - Mick Sumbling/Carme Viladrich/Eduardo Doval/Laura Riera: C-test as an indicator of general language proficiency in the context of a CBT (SIMTEST) - Monique Reichert/Martin Brunner/Romain Martin: Do test takers with different language backgrounds take the same C-test? The effect of native language on the validity of C-tests - Thomas Eckes: Die onDaF-TestDaF-Vergleichsstudie: Wie gut sagen Ergebnisse im onDaF Erfolg oder Misserfolg beim TestDaF vorher? - Purya Baghaei/Rudiger Grotjahn: The validity of C-Tests as measures of academic and everyday language proficiency: A multidimensional item response modeling study - Hella Klemmert: Messaquivalenz von klassischem C-Test und computergestutztem Multiple-Choice C-Test im Rasch-Modell - Verena Wockenfuss/Ulrich Raatz: Zur Validitat von muttersprachlichen C Tests: Bedeutung von verbaler Intelligenz und Informationsverarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit unter Berucksichtigung des Lebensalters - Markus Linnemann/Jurgen Wilbert: Do C-tests measure language comprehension of learning disabled students? - Gabriele Kniffka/Markus Linnemann: A German C-test for migrant children - Esmat Babaii/Mosayeb Fatahi-Majd: Failed restorations in the C-test: Types, sources, and implications for C-test processing - Rudiger Grotjahn/Cordula S. Schiller: Zur Rolle des Makrokontexts bei der Bearbeitung spanischer C-Test-Texte: Fehleranalysen ausgewahlter Luckenworter - Cordula S. Schiller/Rudiger Grotjahn: Der C-Test im Spanischen: Konstruktions- und Auswertungsspezifika - Purya Baghaei: Construction and validation of a C-Test in Persian - Claudia Harsch/Konrad Schroder: Der C-Test und sein schulischer Wert: Eine Lanze fur mehr C-Tests in der Schule - Rudiger Grotjahn: The C-Test bibliography: version January 2014.

One of the things methods in second language (SL) research and teaching have in common is that they are elusive to the question, “What is best?” The best teaching method is the one that produces the best learning outcomes, and the best research, the one that is most capable of fulfilling a given research purpose. In both cases, the reply to the optimal method question thus depends on the specific teaching/research goal and a range of contextual factors.

Subjective theories are very complex cognitive structures: they are highly individual, relatively stable, and relatively enduring. Examples are learners' and teachers' general beliefs about language, and about learning and teaching. In psychology and educational science it has been demonstrated that subjective theories are an important tool for the explanation and prediction of human action and thinking, and a special methodology for their analysis has been developed. It is characteristic of this methodology that it is based on both hermeneutics and empiricism, which are integrated into a coherent framework. In the present article, it is argued that the concept of subjective theory and the corresponding methodology have a considerable potential for second language research. The methodology is discussed at some length, and its application to second language research is shown.

L'A. examine le facteur de l'âge dans l'apprentissage d'une langue etrangere, en revisitant les idees preconcues a ce sujet (comme l'existence d'une phase critique, au-dela de laquelle on ne peut plus apprendre aussi bien une langue). Il relativise ces idees par l'analyse de certains resultats en neurolinguistique, en sciences cognitives, en acquisition du langage et en gerontologie, notamment au niveau de la comparaison entre l'acquisition par l'enfant et par l'adulte, et d'autre part entre des adultes jeunes et plus âges. Ces constatations ne sont pas sans consequences au niveau didactique, notamment pour la prise en compte d'apprenants plus âges.

The distribution of word length is a linguistic phenomenon which has often been investigated. Since word distribution data are very easily available, they have attracted not only the interest of linguists, but also of physicists, psycholinguists and statisticians.

[This article focuses on attempts to go beyond traditional methods of construct validation to introspective validation, with particular reference to the C-Test.]