Category Archives: equivalence

Review of “Assessing Academic Literacy in a Multicultural Society”: “… an excellent collection of contemporary research”

We are very pleased with the review that Alan Urmston recently wrote in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. You can read it here: Book review: Assessing Academic Literacy in a Multilingual Society: Transition and Transformation.

Assessing Academic Literacy in a Multilingual Society: A whopping 40% discount …

… but only until 31 March!

There is a publisher’s discount on the book that I, John Read and Theo du Plessis have recently edited for Multilingual Matters. It is entitled Assessing academic literacy in a multilingual society: Transition and transformation.

Watch the video and then order the book!

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Fairness and credibility in high stakes examinations

The assessment of the 11 “home languages” at the end of secondary school in South Africa is patently unfair. That is the finding of a recent investigation that Colleen du Plessis (UFS), Sanet Steyn (NWU) and I report on in an article that has just been published on LitNet Akademies. The Grade 12 exit examinations are high stakes assessments, since the Home Language mark contributes disproportionately to the index on the basis of which access is granted to higher education (or entry into the world of work). They are unfair, because they are not equivalent: in some languages one has a much better chance to pass than in others. Continue reading