In contrast to most publications in language testing and assessment, which address research and developments of international, monolingual exam batteries, this volume aims to present research studies focusing on a locally developed multilingual exam suite known as KPG (The Greek National Foreign Language Exam System). The KPG exams, which represent a «glocal» multilingual examination battery, are the first of their kind in Europe, and take into account local needs, global conditions of knowledge and production, and international concerns regarding testing and assessment.
The chapters included in this volume highlight many of the innovative features of the KPG exam suite and focus on various issues relating to the reliability and validity of glocal language tests. These include the effect of text and reader variables on reading comprehension, different world representations and ideologies in reading texts, interlocutor performance variability, source text regulated written mediation performance, writing and listening task difficulty, and the effect of task and assessment variables and corpus-based research of text grammar on KPG candidates' scripts - all of which have important implications for global language testing and practices.
About the Author: Evdokia Karavas is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Deputy Director of the RCeL (Research Centre for Language Teaching, Testing and Assessment). She holds a PhD from the University of Warwick, where she taught for a number of years as lecturer at the Centre for English Language Teacher Education. Her research interests include language teacher education and development, language testing and assessment, curriculum/programme evaluation and implementation research.
Bessie Mitsikopoulou is Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is the Director of the Centre of Self-Access Learning and Materials Development and she has co-ordinated various projects in the areas of language education, curriculum reform, critical literacies and the production of digital interactive materials for foreign language education. Her research interests are in the areas of critical discourse analysis, applied and educational linguistics, new media and digital technologies in education, critical and academic literacies, and writing theories and practices.
