The field of multilingual testing and assessment has grown rapidly in recent years due to the widespread need to integrate immigrant populations into mainstream education and to provide fair and equitable forms of assessment for all students. However, a continuing emphasis on bilingual students has created a significant gap in testing and assessment research. This book addresses the need for research and guidance on testing multilingual students: at its heart is the difference between designing multilingual tests and testing multilingual individuals. The author introduces an integrated approach to testing and assessment, a flexible approach that combines information about multilingual learners' knowledge, skills and abilities with information about their language background and living environment. The book provides an overview of existing research conducted with multilingual populations; provides guidelines for test-writers, teachers and educators that outline the steps involved in the design, administration, scoring and interpretation of tests for multiple language speakers; and demonstrates how to use the integrated approach to testing and assessment in a multilingual educational context.

The field of multilingual testing and assessment has grown rapidly in recent years due to the widespread need to integrate immigrant populations into mainstream education and to provide fair and equitable forms of assessment for all students. However, a continuing emphasis on bilingual students has created a significant gap in testing and assessment research. This book addresses the need for research and guidance on testing multilingual students: at its heart is the difference between designing multilingual tests and testing multilingual individuals. The author introduces an integrated approach to testing and assessment, a flexible approach that combines information about multilingual learners' knowledge, skills and abilities with information about their language background and living environment. The book provides an overview of existing research conducted with multilingual populations; provides guidelines for test-writers, teachers and educators that outline the steps involved in the design, administration, scoring and interpretation of tests for multiple language speakers; and demonstrates how to use the integrated approach to testing and assessment in a multilingual educational context.

Which strategies do multilingual learners use when confronted with languages they don't yet know? Which factors are involved in activating prior linguistic knowledge in multilingual learning? This volume offers valuable insights into recent research in multilingualism, crosslinguistic influence and crosslinguistic interaction. Experts in the field examine the role of background languages in multilingual learning. All the chapters point to the heart of the question of what the "multilingual mind" is. Does learning one language actually help you learn another, and if so, why? This volume looks at languages and scenarios beyond English as a second language - Italian, Gaelic, Dutch and German, amongst others, are covered, as well as instances of third and additional language learning. Research into crosslinguistic influence and crosslinguistic interaction essentially contributes to our understanding of how language learning works when there are three or more languages in contact.

This book presents the latest developments in crosslinguistic influence (CLI) and multilingualism research. The contributors, both veteran researchers and relative newcomers to the field, situate their research in current debates in terms of theory and data analysis and they present it in an accessible way. The chapters investigate how and when native and non-native language knowledge is used in language production. They focus on lexis, syntax, tense-aspect, phonology of multilingual production and link it to a range of concepts such as redundancy, affordances, metalinguistic awareness and L2 status. The empirical data have been collected from participants with a wide combination of languages: besides English, German, French and Spanish, there is Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Chinese and Catalan.

Third or Additional Language Acquisition examines research on the acquisition of languages beyond the L2 withing four main areas of inquiry: crosslinguistic influence, multilingual speech production models, the multilingual lexicon and the impact of bi/multilingualism on cognitive development. The book critically examines the evidence available keeping two main questions in mind. The first is whether multilinguals should be considered as learners and speakers in their own right and, consequently, whether the distinction between Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism, and Third or Additional Language Acquisition and Multilingualism is fully warranted. The second is how proficient in a non-native language learners are supposed to be before they can begin to be classified as multilingual learners in empirical research

It is clearly illogical to search for one good, universal solution for multilingual education when educational contexts differ so widely due to demographic and social factors. The situation is further complicated by the motivations of learners and teachers, and by attitudes towards multilingualism and 'otherness'. The studies in this volume seek to investigate not only whether certain solutions and practices are 'good', but also when and for whom they make sense. The book covers a wide range of Western multilingual contexts, and uncovers common themes and practices, shared aims and preoccupations, and often similar solutions, within seemingly diverse contexts. In addition to chapters based on empirical data, this book offers theoretical contributions in the shape of a discussion of the appropriateness of L1-Ln terminology when discussing complex multilingual realities, and looks at how the age factor works in classroom settings.

Which strategies do multilingual learners use when confronted with languages they don't yet know? Which factors are involved in activating prior linguistic knowledge in multilingual learning? This volume offers valuable insights into recent research in multilingualism, crosslinguistic influence and crosslinguistic interaction. Experts in the field examine the role of background languages in multilingual learning. All the chapters point to the heart of the question of what the "multilingual mind" is. Does learning one language actually help you learn another, and if so, why? This volume looks at languages and scenarios beyond English as a second language - Italian, Gaelic, Dutch and German, amongst others, are covered, as well as instances of third and additional language learning. Research into crosslinguistic influence and crosslinguistic interaction essentially contributes to our understanding of how language learning works when there are three or more languages in contact.

It is clearly illogical to search for one good, universal solution for multilingual education when educational contexts differ so widely due to demographic and social factors. The situation is further complicated by the motivations of learners and teachers, and by attitudes towards multilingualism and 'otherness'. The studies in this volume seek to investigate not only whether certain solutions and practices are 'good', but also when and for whom they make sense. The book covers a wide range of Western multilingual contexts, and uncovers common themes and practices, shared aims and preoccupations, and often similar solutions, within seemingly diverse contexts. In addition to chapters based on empirical data, this book offers theoretical contributions in the shape of a discussion of the appropriateness of L1-Ln terminology when discussing complex multilingual realities, and looks at how the age factor works in classroom settings.