Developments in Glocal Language Testing : The Case of the Greek National Foreign Language Exam System

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.