Albert Weideman

Assessing and developing academic literacy

This paper argues that there is much to learn from an external, peer or expert evaluation by a department that concerns itself with the assessment and development of academic literacy. Such an evaluation provides an opportunity to step back and reflect on the foundations of one’s work, and redefine its operational focuses. Taking the response to one such evaluation as an example, the paper shows how the external input led to the alignment of the two main aims of our work: (1) testing academic literacy levels, and (2) course design and teaching. The paper concludes by highlighting the numerous opportunities that are now opening up for inter-institutional co-operation on a national scale. Sharing the results and insights gained from an evaluation is not normally done outside of the institution that was evaluated. We hope that by making our information about this more freely available, it will further stimulate such co-operation.

Transparency and accountability in applied linguistics

The designed solutions to language problems that are the stock-in-trade of applied linguistics affect the lives of growing numbers of people. By calling for these designs to be accountable, applied linguistics has, in its most recent postmodern form, added an ethical dimension that is lacking in earlier work. Postmodern understandings of the field echo many valid concerns that were first raised several decades ago in other fields (cf Stafleu, 2004: 107): the non-neutrality of science, and a critique of progressivism and scientific hubris. The paper shows how this discipline has struggled with issues of continuity, integrity and validation, before analysing the ideas of transparency and accountability as an ethical concern in current applied linguistics. Illustrations are given of attempts at greater transparency and accountability for a typical applied linguistic artefact, the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) that is used by three South African universities.

The refinement of a test of academic literacy

To ensure fairness, test designers and developers strive to make their instruments for assessing the language abilities of learners as accurate and reliable as possible, and have traditionally used a number of techniques to ensure this. From a post-modern, and especially critical perspective, however, these measures are not enough to ensure fairness. In these approaches, fairness is redefined and reconceptualised. This article demonstrates that it is still possible to use conventional techniques to achieve the goal of, for example, increasing the accessibility of a test. Using several statistical analyses of the results of a test of academic literacy as examples, the article concludes that traditional, quantitative measures enhance and complement, rather than undermine, current concerns.

Constitutive and regulative conditions for the assessment of academic literacy

Abstract If we characterise language tests as applied linguistic instruments, we may argue that they therefore need to conform to the conditions that apply to the development of responsible applied linguistic designs. Conventionally, language tests are required to possess both validity and reliability; these are necessary conditions for such tests, and so is their theoretical defensibility (‘construct validity’). The new orthodoxy, however, is that test designers must also seek consequential validity for their instruments, in that they have to consider test impact. Using an emerging framework for a theory of applied linguistics, this paper outlines how a number of constitutive or necessary conditions for test design (their instrumental power, their consistency and theoretical justification) relate to other current concepts. These recently articulated notions include the ideas of test acceptability, utility, and alignment with both the instruction that follows and with the real or perceived language needs of students; as well as their transparency, accountability and care for those taking them. The latter set of ideas may be defined as regulative or sufficient conditions for language tests. These concepts will be illustrated with reference to the design of a test of academic literacy levels that is widely used in South African universities.

The redefinition of applied linguistics: modernist and postmodernist views

The lack of debate about what constitutes applied linguistics brings with it an uncritical acceptance of views that deserve to be contested. Moreover, it leads to an ignorance of the historical influence of such views, which directly affects the basis of applied linguistics research and the training of professionals in the field. Since attempts to use more inclusive and desirable terms have been unsuccessful, Young (2005: 43) has now suggested that we revisit the idea of characterising applied linguistics as a discipline of design (Weideman, 1983; 1987; 1999; 2003). This characterisation of applied linguistics is itself not wholly uncontroversial, however, and calls up valid points of critique. The paper will discuss the reasons why such criticism is valid with reference to the various traditional (modernist) definitions of applied linguistics, and the variety of postmodernist definitions that have emerged. The paper will argue, finally, that, while modernist definitions of the field have emphasised the theoretical, scientific basis of the discipline, and postmodernist definitions identify (social and political) accountability as the critical feature of the endeavour, the discipline of applied linguistics finds its characteristic feature in the moment of design. The paper concludes with how one might give a systematic explanation of this characterisation, in terms of a foundational, philosophical perspective. It finds that the contributions of both modernist and postmodernist approaches to applied linguistics can be honoured, and that this will allow us both to train professional applied linguists responsibly, and to do research that takes each of the various emphases into account.

Measures of improvement in academic literacy

This article considers the analysis of the results of a re-administration of a test of academic literacy, specifically with a view to determining whether this analysis yields insight into the improvement of levels of academic literacy over time. The article postulates that, if improvement occurs, the level of improvement will be uneven across different categories of ability, and across different levels of academic literacy as measured by various sub-tests. An attempt is made to offer explanations for the kinds of improvement that are evident, as well as to identify factors that may play a role in such improvement, such as the time of being exposed to a compulsory academic literacy development intervention, the mother tongue of the testee, and the initial level of academic literacy.

Uncharted territory : a complex systems approach as an emerging paradigm in applied linguistics

Developing a theory of applied linguistics is a top priority for the discipline today. The emergence of a new paradigm - a complex systems approach - in applied linguistics presents us with a unique opportunity to give prominence to the development of a foundational framework for this design discipline. Far from being a mere philosophical exercise, such a framework will find application in the training and induction of new entrants into the discipline within the developing context of South Africa, as well as internationally.

A responsible agenda for applied linguistics: Confessions of a philosopher

When we undertake academic, disciplinary work, we rely on philosophical starting points. Several straightforward illustrations of this can be found in the history of applied linguistics. It is evident from the history of our field that various historically influential approaches to our discipline base themselves upon different academic confessions. This paper examines the effects of basing our applied linguistic work on the idea that applied linguistics is a discipline concerned with design. Such a characterisation does justice to both modernist and postmodernist emphases in applied linguistics. Conceptualisations of applied linguistics that came with the proposals for communicative language teaching (CLT) some thirty to forty years ago propelled the discipline squarely into postmodern times. To account for this, we need to develop a theory of applied linguistics which shows what constitutive and regulative conditions exist for doing applied linguistic designs. A responsible agenda for applied linguistics today has as its first responsibility to free the users of its designs from toil and drudgery, as well as from becoming victims of fashion, ideology or theory. Secondly, it should design solutions to language problems in such a way that the technical imagination of the designer is not restricted but supported by theory and empirical investigation, and that the productive pedagogical fantasy of the implementers of such plans is set free. Thirdly, it must seek to become accountable by designing theoretically and socially defensible solutions to language problems, solutions that relieve some of the suffering, pain, poverty and injustice in our world.

Assessing academic literacy: A task-based approach

Abstract The Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) used by three South African universities (Pretoria, Stellenbosch and North-West) provides a reliable and affordable alternative means of assessing the academic literacy of new entrants into the higher education sector. A close alignment is sought between the test, the task-based language instruction that follows its administration, and the learning and acquisition aimed for. The article critically examines the construct of the test as well as its task types in light of various current discussions about authenticity. The article is concluded by suggesting a number of possible alternative task types that may achieve a closer alignment with the goals embodied in the construct. Various developmental, contextual, administrative and logistical constraints appear, however, to affect the level of resemblance to academic discourse of the test task types.

Resistance to change in language teaching: some African case studies

A number of recent studies of language teaching on the African continent (Shaalukeni, 2000; Tesfamariam, 2000) have investigated how teachers manage to retain old styles of language teaching in the face of new approaches that have been introduced by the education authorities that employ them. The conviction with which teachers justify their traditional styles of teaching suggests that they do not teach without deliberation. This presentation looks in some detail at two investigations that serve as case studies for this phenomenon. Is resistance to change in language teaching unique to the African continent? It appears not, for there are other studies from further afield that yield similar results. The paper suggests that a coherent reason or set of reasons for this has up to now eluded us, and that we may need to look elsewhere for an explanation.