There are now significant numbers of children who speak a language other than English when they enter the formal school system in Australia. Many of these children come from a language background that is entirely different from the school language. Many Indigenous children, however, come from… read more
The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) assessments are designed to assess literacy and numeracy of all Australian school children in years 3, 5, 7 and 9, and to act as diagnostics as to whether children are meeting intended educational outcomes. Tests began in May 2008,… read more
In today’s second language classrooms, students are often asked to work in pairs or small groups. Such collaboration can take place face-to-face, but now more often via computer mediated communication. This paper reports on a study which investigated the effect of the medium of communication on the… read more
Lack of inter-rater agreement in the assessment of oral tests is wellknown. In this paper, multi-faceted Rasch analysis was used to determine whether any bias was evident in the way a group of raters (N=13) rated two different versions of an oral interaction test, undertaken by the same candidates… read more
In our introductory discussion to this Series S volume on language and gender in Australia we argue for the recognition of gender research in a broadened interpretation of applied linguistics. We forecast the place of feminist (applied)1 linguists within a wider understanding of the applications… read more