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This volume documents international, national, and small-scale testing and assessment projects of English language education for young learners, across a range of educational contexts. It covers three main areas: age-appropriate ´can do statements´ and task types for teaching and testing learners between the ages of 6 to 13; innovative approaches to self-assessment, diagnostic testing, self- perception, and computer-based testing; and findings on how young learners perform on vocabulary, listening, speaking, pronunciation, and reading comprehension tests in European and Asian contexts.

Early language learning has become a major trend in English language education around the globe. As a result of the spread of teaching English to a growing number of young children, assessment of and for learning have emerged as key issues. In line with this development, there is a clear and emerging need to make early language programs accountable and to assess both the progress children make over time and to quantify their achievement at various stages of development. This volume informs stakeholders about the realistic goals of early language learning, their efficiency, and how much progress children make over time.

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Trends, Issues and Challenges in Assessing Young Language Learners by Marianne Nikolov.- Do Developments in Assessment Represent the ´Coming of Age´ of Young Learners English Language Teaching Initiatives? The International Picture by Shelagh Rixon.- A CEFR-Based Inventory of YL Descriptors: Principles and Challenges by Veronica Benigno and John de Jong.- A Framework for Young EFL Learners´ Diagnostic Assessment: Can Do Statements and Task Types by Marianne Nikolov.- Examining Content Representativeness of a Young Learner Language Assessment: EFL Teachers´ Perspectives by Ching-Ni Hsieh.- Developing and Piloting Proficiency Tests for Polish Young Learners by Magdalena Szpotowicz and Dorota E. Campfield.- The Development and Validation of a Computer-Based Test of English for Young Learners: Cambridge English Young Learners by Szilvia Papp and Agnieszka Walczak.- Learning EFL from Year 1 or Year 3? A Comparative Study on Children´s EFL Listening and Reading Comprehension at the End of Primary Education by Eva Wilden and Raphaela Porsch.- A Longitudinal Study of a School´s Assessment Project in Chongqing, China by Jing Peng and Shicheng Zheng.- Individual Differences and Young Learners´ Performance on L2 Speaking Tests by Jelena Mihaljevic Djigunovic.- The Role of Individual Differences in the Development of Listening Comprehension in the Early Stages of Language Learning by Éva Bacsa and Csaba Csíkos.- Self-Assessment of and for Young Learners´ Foreign Language Learning by Yuko Goto Butler.- The Relationships between Peer- and Self-Assessment and Teacher Assessment of Young EFL Learners´ Oral Presentations by Yu-ju Hung, Beth Lewis Samuelson, and Shu-cheng Chen

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