On Monteiro’s (2024) Review of “Local Language Testing: Design, Implementation, and Development”

Slobodanka Dimova, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark 
Xun Yan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA 
April Ginther, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

We welcome the opportunity to participate in the TESOL Applied Linguistics Forum in response to Newton Paulo Monteiro’s review (2024) of Local Language Testing: Design, implementation, and Development (2020). We were delighted by Monteiro’s recommendation of our monograph and continue the conversation with a theme we consider a natural outcome of local language testing efforts: the development of a community of practice. Indeed, we appreciate Monteiro’s suggestion that the development of a community of practice, while identified as one of the greatest benefits of engaging in a local language testing endeavor, is a theme that invites additional development.

We recommend the rich and extensive literature that is available on communities of practice (CoP) that, as Monteiro points out, is a natural corollary to our work. A straightforward CoP definition is provided by Wenger-Trayner and Wegner-Trayner (2015) who state: “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (p. 2). Given the intended audience for both the book and this response, it is important to highlight the most important group that is involved in any local testing enterprise: teachers, not only for the practical reasons we discuss in Local Language Testing, but also, and more importantly, because of the often-underutilized expertise that teachers can contribute to local language testing endeavors.

Test development is often portrayed as the proper and appropriate domain of testing experts, and the development of a reliable and valid language test does indeed require technical, specialist knowledge to a certain extent. However, the expertise of teachers is fundamental to the success of any local language testing undertaking for a simple and obvious reason: local language tests are designed to serve the needs of the instructional programs in which local tests, teachers, and students reside. While large-scale, industrial tests are intentionally designed to be context-free; local language tests are intentionally designed to be context-dependent. Because of the influence of large-scale, industrial tests, some assume that a good test must resemble a large-scale test. We argue that a local test should be designed to reflect the local instructional goals and values that a local program chooses to prioritize. This stance allows room to depart from large-scale norms and to develop locally appropriate tasks and content. No one knows more about local instructional contexts than the teachers who participate in local language programs.

Local Language Testing describes the activities required to design, implement, and develop a local test that is embedded in a local program. As we argue in the book, local experts’ continuous participation in these iterative activities allows them to collaborate, share knowledge, and build a collective testing identity. In our experience, such involvement naturally results in the emergence of strong CoPs in which teachers are the central players.

References:

Dimova, S., Yan, X. & Ginther, A. (2020). Local language testing: Design, implementation, and development. Routledge.

Monteiro, N. P. (2024, February 27). Book review of “Local language testing: Design, implementation, and development”. TESOL Applied Linguistics Forum. https://my.tesol.org/news/825226

Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015, June). Introduction to communities of practice: a brief overview of the concept and its uses. https://www.wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/15-06-Brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf

Slobodanka Dimova is a Professor of Multilingualism and Language Assessment at the University of Copenhagen, where she is also the coordinator of the Test of Oral English Proficiency for Academic Staff (TOEPAS) at the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP). She is currently the President of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA) and serves as an Editorial Board member of the Journal of English Medium Instruction. 

 Xun Yan is an Associate Professor of Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education, and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a faculty member at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. At UIUC, Xun is the director of the undergraduate program in Linguistics + TESOL and the supervisor of the English Placement Test and the Oral English Assessment Interview. He is a co-editor for Language Testing and the Brief Research Reports of TESOL Quarterly. He is also a past president of the Midwest Association of Language Testers in the US.

April Ginther, professor emerita at Purdue University, began her career in language testing as an Associate Research Scientist, at the Educational Testing Service. In 1997, she accepted an academic position at Purdue where she was a member of the English and Linguistics faculties and regularly taught seminars in language testing and quantitative research. In addition, she directed two English language programs: The Oral English Proficiency Program and The Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange. She served as the co-editor of the journal Language Testing from 2012-2017.