Language Testing

This book is very short. That is a good and a bad thing. It is good because the book strips down the elements of language testing to the bare essentials. Most of the important issues are dealt with, and all are dealt with succinctly and in plain language. It is bad if, as a reader, you are hoping for an in-depth discussion of testing-related issues. I read the book because it was a core text for a course I took as part of an MA Applied Linguistics. Each chapter served as a bare-bones introduction to the topic of the week. It served this purpose well, but it was necessary for my lecturer to supplement each chapter with other readings. The book is a good introduction to language testing in the EFL/ESL environment, and did a good job of structuring the university course that I took. I'd recommend it for both of those purposes.

Like all of the "Oxford Introductions to Language Study", I found "Language Testing" to be both accessible and an informative, yet brief, introduction to the whole area of testing in language. Written with the absolute ignoramus in mind, (that would include me), McNamara's book is simply excellent. Although it is not an in-depth analysis of the field, there is enough substance to give you a good overview and equip you with some of the more salient terminology and concepts. Lots of the terminology is printed in bold face, which makes it easy to highlight those words that will be used again and again throughout the book, and other books should you read more. The book itself covers some of the history that has gone before us in testing, as well as chapters that discuss some of the issues facing test designers today. These include aspects like test design cycles, test validation, the rating process and more. There is also a good section of selected readings at the rear that relate to the chapters in the previous section. Overall, if you are looking at beginning some reading on language testing, I would seriously recommend this book as the launching point. Pithy, concise and without a shred of waffling tripe, McNamara cuts to the chase effectively. It is a great book.