The testing and examination history in China can be traced back to the imperial period nearly two thousand years ago. The existence of English language testing (tests), on the other hand, has a much shorter history. These English tests, developed and administered over the past 20 years, however, are taken by billions of learners of the English language in China. To many of these learners, doing well on these tests are the key to their academic success as well as the success of their life in general. The paper will first introduce major tests and examinations of English designed and administered in China, then provide an overview of the current research in language testing that has been conducted by Chinese researchers and published in Chinese academic journals over the past 10 years. This paper will focus on the discussion of the issues and concerns of language testing within the Chinese context.

Student assessment plays a central and important role in teaching and learning. Teachers devote a large part of their preparation time to creating instruments and observation procedures, marking, recording, and synthesizing results in informal and formal reports in their daily teaching. A number of studies of the assessment practices used by teachers in regular school classrooms have been undertaken (e.g., Rogers, 1991; Wilson, 1998; 2000). In contrast, less is known about the assessment practices employed by instructors of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL), particularly at the tertiary level. This article reports a comparative survey conducted in ESL=EFL contexts represented by Canadian ESL, Hong Kong ESL=EFL, and Chinese EFL in which 267 ESL or EFL instructors participated, and documents the purposes, methods, and procedures of assessment in these three contexts. The findings demonstrate the complex and multifaceted roles that assessment plays in different teaching and learning settings. They also provide insights about the nature of assessment practices in relation to the ESL=EFL classroom teaching and learning at the tertiary level.

The aggressive internationalization of Canadian universities and increased immigration to Canada over the past 20 years have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of second language (L2) students in Canadian universities. However, little is known about the factors that influence academic acculturation of L2 students or about the role of English for academic purposes (EAP) instruction in their acculturation process. This study examined L2 university students' perceptions of academic acculturation and the role of EAP instruction by means of interviews conducted with 56 L2 students at three Canadian universities. Findings suggest that the students who characterized their academic engagement as successful had typically developed more strategic learning and social skills as part of their acculturation process. Implications are drawn for the importance of aligning students' agendas for learning (i.e., their perceptions of needs) with EAP programs.

School-based assessment (SBA) has recently been introduced into the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examinations (HKCEE) in English. The present study was conducted within the context of this assessment change to investigate students’ and parents’ perceptions of the impact of SBA. Two surveys were employed to explore students’ and parents’ perceptions of SBA and their perceptions of the impact of SBA on learning. The results from the student survey demonstrated a relationship between students’ perceptions of SBA-related learning activities and their perceptions of their own language competence. The results also showed significant differences between students’ perceptions of the learning activities they had taken part in during the previous school year and those they were currently engaging in. In addition, parents’ perceptions of SBA and the opportunities for them to know about SBA significantly and positively predicted their support for their children’s SBA learning. Parents’ education level and the amount of time they spent with their child daily also predicted their support for their children’s SBA learning, though to a lesser extent. Further, parents’ perceptions about the SBA are directly and significantly related to their children’s perceptions about SBA. Taking the results from both students’ and parents’ surveys together, we have gained a better understanding of the complexity of the impact of SBA within the Hong Kong educational context, as perceived by students and their parents.