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<DIV><SPAN class=875361805-01112004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>That
is the point. Beliefs are very important in this area (which I why I treat
beliefs as the second component of language policy (see <FONT
face=Arial>Spolsky, Bernard. (2004). <I>Language Policy</I>. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.) Your question "what do you want to measure?"
is critical.</FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=875361805-01112004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>But
having spent a decade or more as chair of the English committee for the Israeli
Ministry of Education, and failing on numerous occasion to persuade a Minister
of Education that amateur tests with no calibration are essentially
uninterpretable, I am not surprised at your difficulty.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=875361805-01112004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>But
your own prejudice against local Englishes is also a questioned
belief.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=875361805-01112004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Hope
we will have a chance to discuss all this quietly some day (I am off to the Asia
TEFL Conference in Seoul tonight, but via Bangkok rather than
HK).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=875361805-01112004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Bernard</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
[mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu] <B>On Behalf Of </B>R. A.
Stegemann<BR><B>Sent:</B> Monday, November 01, 2004 7:05 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B> Measuring human language
proficiency<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>Bernard,<BR><BR>Thank you for the
bibliographical references. I will attempt to explore them in some detail, as
I am very interested in finding a way to demonstrate that East Asian UEL
requirements are wasteful and not achieving their stated goals. Certainly
these are very deeply felt notions about the reality of East Asia, as I have
experienced it. Nevertheless, however well I support these notions with
empirical inference and discursive logic, they are ultimately received as
opinion that move contrary to collectively held belief that is constantly
reaffirmed by eschewing the assumptions or scientific investigation that never
seems to ask the right questions. By demonstrating that significant 2nd
language attrition is taking place among post-secondary citizens, I believe
that I can at least start the ball rolling.<BR><BR>When you state that
"language scales have not been validated", I am not entirely sure what you
mean. For example, when the Hong Kong government found it necessary to select
a standard scale for measuring English language proficiency among Hong Kong
secondary students, they selected their own domestically developed HKCEE
English language syllabus over the IELTS. My response was straightforward,
"What is it that you want to measure? Hong Kongers ability to communicate in
English with the outside world, or how effective is the Hong Kong educational
system at transmitting recycled HK English?" <BR><BR>Hamo<BR><BR>On 1 Nov
2004, at 04:35, Bernard Spolsky wrote:<BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE><?fontfamily><?param Arial><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFE><?smaller>Briefly,
no. At more length, see Spolsky, Bernard. (1995). <I>Measured words:
the development of objective language testing</I>. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.<?/smaller><?/color><?/fontfamily><BR><?fontfamily><?param Arial><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFE><?smaller>For
a programmatic explanation what would be involved in answering the question,
see Bachman, Lyle G. (2004). <I>Building and supporting a case for test
use.</I> Paper presented at the Language Testing Research Colloquium,
Temecula CA.<?/smaller><?/color><?/fontfamily><BR><?fontfamily><?param Arial><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFE><?smaller>"Fairly
good idea" is not the same as accurate measure. <?/smaller><?/color><?/fontfamily><BR><?fontfamily><?param Arial><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFE><?smaller>The
belief in a scale was strongly urged by Thorndike (and of course it
pragmatically adapted by bureaucrats), but language scales have not been
validated.<?/smaller><?/color><?/fontfamily><BR><?fontfamily><?param Arial><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFE><?smaller>Plurilingual
proficiency, as the Common European Framework (Council of Europe. (2001).
<I>Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching,
assessment</I>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) makes clear is a high
complex matter, with variation on a great number of dimensions. While
it does suggest a scale, it certainly does not try to define a point at
which someone is bilingual.<?/smaller><?/color><?/fontfamily><BR><?fontfamily><?param Arial><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFE><?smaller>Bernard<?/smaller><?/color><?/fontfamily></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>