Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:38:17.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Assessing academic writing in foreign and second languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

Alister Cumming
Alister Cumming*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto, Canadaacumming@oise.utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Academic writing and education in foreign and second languages both have lengthy histories. Their histories have diverged but also intersected. Matsuda (2005), for example, described the convergence in policies that led to a distinctive discipline of ‘L2 writing’ in higher education in the U.S.A. during the latter part of the 20th century. Assessment is a key point of their mutual intersection. Approaches to language testing that involve writing for academic purposes – or conversely, writing assessments that involve second or foreign languages – have appeared at certain times, supported by particular policies, rationales, and modes of inquiry or reasoning. The present timeline focuses on the development and elaboration of these rationales and research about them.

Type
Research Timeline
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 95 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnwell, D. (1996). A history of foreign language testing in the United States: From its beginning to the present. Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press.Google Scholar
Canagarajah, S. (ed.) (2005). Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumming, A. (1997). The testing of second-language writing. In Clapham, C. (volume ed.) & Corson, D. (series ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education (vol. 7): Language assessment. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 51–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumming, A. (2008). Assessing oral and literate abilities. In Shohamy, E. (volume ed.) & Hornberger, N. (series ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd edn.) (vol. 7): Language testing and assessment. New York: Springer, 3–18.Google Scholar
Hamp-Lyons, L. (2002). The scope of writing assessment. Assessing Writing 8.1, 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, L. G. (1969). 25 centuries of language teaching: 500 B.C. – 1969. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Leki, I., Cumming, A. & Silva, T. (2008). A synthesis of research on writing in a second language in English. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Matsuda, P. (2005). Historical inquiry in second language writing. In Matsuda, P. & Silva, T. (eds.), Second language writing research: Perspectives on the process of knowledge construction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 33–46.Google Scholar
Spolsky, B. (1995). Measured words: The development of objective language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weir, C. & Milanovic, M. (eds.) (2003). Continuity and innovation: Revising the Cambridge Proficiency in English Examination 1913–2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar