Tobie van Dyk and I continued this discussion on “Taaldinge”, the language programme on RSG, today.
Interested? Here is the podcast: https://omny.fm/shows/taaldinge/taaldinge-7-mei-2023
Language assessment is a subfield of applied linguistics. That sounds like a reasonably incontestable statement. But can we simply assume that language assessment is a subfield of applied linguistics? In examining what has been written about that, we find that the claim is widespread — in fact since the earliest times, when applied linguistics was being established by the likes of Pit Corder and Alan Davies more than 50 years ago. Even to this day, language assessment scholars like McNamara make the claim quite confidently.
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The journalist and scholar H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) once observed that “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” One would think that academic literacy, the ability to use academic language competently, would be the first and only language concern of the academic communities that make up the university. Such is the complexity of language problems, however, that not all solutions for them will have to do with making education and study more effective. Student communities may, for example, make language demands that are primarily politically inspired, and have little bearing on scholarship. When decision-makers yield to the politically expedient solution, that solution may be rationalized in many ways that might have the pretence of having to do with education, but that actually has no theoretical justification. There are at least two recent cases in South Africa where the language policies of universities were changed for reasons other than academic ones, with negative consequences that were foreseen, but ignored. Continue reading
What influence does the institutional, social or political landscape have on the way in which we test a person’s ability to handle academic language? And how should one go about it? What impact should the tests have on language planning, instruction, and development?
Responsible design of language plans, courses or tests starts with the employment of one’s technical imagination, while allowing the design to be guided by the following principles: Continue reading
The evaluation of language programme and instruction quality is highly relevant, everywhere. To test the effectiveness of a language intervention programme, one needs to take a holistic approach. For a language intervention to be effective, the designer has to bring into harmony five components: policy prescription, curriculum, instruction, learning and assessment When these are aligned, we have the golden pentagon of language intervention design. Where to begin? Continue reading
Albert Weideman 