Reflecting on assessing young foreign language learners

Abstract

Keywords

Assessment editorial foreign language special issue young learners

In 2000, Language Testing featured a Special Issue (Rea-Dickins, 2000a) on assessing young learners of additional languages. That Special Issue, a seminal early contribution in the area of young learner (YL) language assessment, featured nine papers that focused on young language learners predominantly in the context of primary education in Europe. The papers Rea-Dickins edited provided key insights into assessments conducted in primary schools in Scotland (Johnstone, 2000), the Netherlands (Edelenbos & Vinjé, 2000), England (Rea-Dickins & Gardner, 2000), Austria (Zangl, 2000), Norway (Hasselgren, 2000), and Italy (Gattullo, 2000), showing how summative and formative assessments were implemented and how they began to shape foreign language instruction in the early grades. In her editorial remarks, Rea-Dickins (2000b) concluded that the field was still in its infancy, and hoped that

the discussions and the analyses offered by the contributors stimulate further work across the range of challenges they raise and that, in some way, this Special Issue in the first year of the new millennium might assist in the shaping of a still somewhat embryonic research and development agenda for the assessment of the younger language learner. (p. 120)

Now, two decades later, the field of assessing young learners of additional languages, in particular English, has indeed grown considerably. A quick and crude search on Google Scholar using four keywords—young learners, EFL, test, and assessment—came back with over 13,000 results between 2001 and 2020. This result, compared to less than 200 results between 1980 and 2000, speaks to the fact that the population of young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners has generated a great deal of research interest and endeavor over the past two decades. Overall, research on young language learners has proliferated in size and expanded in scope not only geographically but also with regard to the learner population and research topics—a scope that we hope to highlight in this Special Issue.

Before providing a historical overview of the YL assessment field, we need to consider briefly the YL population, its unique characteristics, and the specific focus of this Special Issue. In foreign and second language (L2) education, the term “young learners” has been used to refer to children from about 3 to 17 years of age, including very young children in preschool and kindergarten, children at the elementary or primary¹ school level, and those in the context of secondary education, including middle- and high-school levels (Hasselgreen & Caudwell, 2016; McKay, 2006; Pinter, 2017). Hence, not only does the field of assessing YLs span a considerable age range, but, more importantly, the age range includes a time of rapid physical, socio-affective, and cognitive development in the population.

In addition, there is a variety of different L2 learning settings in which YLs are being assessed (see, e.g., Nikolov & Timpe-Laughlin, 2021 for a brief review). L2 learners are broadly divided into two groups based on their L2 learning context: (1) learners who acquire an additional language in a majority language context (e.g., immigrant children learning English as a second language in the United States); and (2) foreign language (FL) learners who primarily learn an additional language in a formal school setting. The two groups differ in the input they receive, their learning process, as well as their learning outcomes. In this Special Issue, we focus on young learners who learn a foreign language at the levels of primary and secondary education, thus complementing the recently published Special Issue (Huang & Butler, 2020) in Language Assessment Quarterly titled “Validity Considerations for Assessing Language Proficiency in Young Language Minority Students,” which mainly features studies carried out with second language learners.

From infancy to adolescence: A burgeoning and increasingly diverse field

Over the past two decades, the widespread implementation of early teaching and learning of foreign languages, particularly English, has possibly become “the world’s biggest policy development in education” (Johnstone, 2009, p. 33). As a result, more and more kindergartens as well as elementary and secondary schools have been implementing FL programs, in particular, English as a foreign language (EFL), making EFL a required subject area in formal YL education worldwide. This global increase in early FL education programs has not only diversified the population of young L2 learners (Nikolov & Mihaljević Djigunović, 2011), but it has also generated the need to assess and evaluate YLs’ progress and achievements in learning the FL. Therefore, we have also witnessed a steady increase in the assessment of young FL learners over the past 20 years.

The steady increase in YLs’ language assessment research began in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Rea-Dickins and Rixon (1997) and the 2000 Special Issue in Language Testing (Rea-Dickins, 2000a) are two publications that tend to be viewed as the starting point for research in the area of YL assessment (Nikolov & Timpe-Laughlin, 2021). Previously, assessment research was mainly conducted with adult L2 learners and was largely characterized by a traditional focus on standardized summative classroom assessments. At the time, little was known about young students as FL learners and test takers (Rea-Dickins & Rixon, 1997). As a result, early studies in the field of assessing young FL learners, such as those featured in the 2000 Special Issue, aimed to explore this particular test taker population and obtain a better understanding of assessments for YLs.

Those early studies in YL assessment, which focused exclusively on YLs in primary schools, were largely descriptive accounts of formative and summative YL assessments in different European contexts (e.g., Edelenbos & Vinjé, 2000; Gattullo, 2000; Hasselgren, 2000; Johnstone, 2000). Johnstone (2000), for example, described two national assessments in Scotland that aimed to capture the FL attainment of elementary school children. Along with an overview of the nationally and locally developed assessments, he provided accounts of the challenges that test developers faced, including vast differences in local school contexts (e.g., variability in the number of contact hours, a lack of achievement targets, etc.), YLs’ relative lack of knowledge of the target culture, and their levels of engagement and attention. Hasselgren (2000) outlined a novel approach to developing assessment materials for YLs in Norway. She noted that in their assessment development efforts, she and her team in Norway tried to account for children’s relatively short attention span, their development of writing skills, and their need to play and have fun. Like Johnstone, she pointed out challenges such as the lack of assessment knowledge and experience among FL teachers at elementary schools—issues that were also highlighted by Gattullo (2000)—and the lack of established benchmarks and criteria for the proficiency of young FL learners—a point also raised by Edelenbos and Vinjé (2000). Although most of these early publications did not provide findings based on experimentally designed research, they all strove to identify ways of designing and administering more child-appropriate summative and formative assessments. In doing so, they were highly valuable insofar as they identified a number of critical issues in YL assessment that shaped the field in subsequent years.

Among the identified issues and areas in need of research were the following: (1) the variability and diversity in the YL population and their educational contexts; (2) how YLs’ FL proficiency develops across different language skills and how their developmental characteristics may impact assessments; (3) the need to establish reasonable expectations, benchmarks, and achievement targets for YLs; and (4) the lack of language assessment literacy among teachers and other stakeholders. Within these broader areas, researchers have started to explore a variety of aspects over the past two decades, consequently contributing to a steady growth in the field of YL assessment.

Diversity in educational contexts and the YL population

The early accounts provided a glimpse into different local educational contexts across Europe, showcasing how FL programs in elementary schools varied in terms of age of onset, types of programs, and number of contact hours and how these aspects impacted assessments. For example, Edelenbos and Vinjé (2000) reported that children in the Netherlands generally started to receive formal EFL instruction at 10 years of age, receiving one hour of instruction per week. However, they also noted that EFL was neither part of an official curriculum nor a compulsory subject in Dutch primary schools. This lack of policy created considerable variability in teaching contexts, therefore making it challenging for large-scale assessment. By contrast, Gattullo (2000) noted that in Italy students began to learn EFL at school at 8 years of age, with varying numbers of contact hours per week. Thus, not only did these accounts show how FL instruction differed across European countries, but they also showed considerable variability within the same country.

In investigating additional local contexts, much of the research related to YLs’ FL learning and assessment over the past 20 years has continued to focus on European settings (see, e.g., Nikolov, 2016). Only recently has the field seen publications featuring YL-related studies in non-European contexts such as North America (Curtain, 2009), Asia (e.g., Butler & Lee, 2010; Galikyan et al., 2019; Kondo-Brown, 2004), and Africa (e.g., Hsieh et al., 2017). Butler and Lee (2010), for instance, investigated the effectiveness of self-assessments among 254 sixth-grade EFL learners in South Korea. In Japan, Kondo-Brown (2004) examined interactions from an oral proficiency interview conducted by an interlocutor with 30 fourth-graders who had been learning English since kindergarten. In Armenia, Galikyan et al. (2019) explored the perceptions of 202 young learners towards the TOEFL Junior Standard test, a large-scale standardized assessment. These students between the ages of 11 and 16 were attending EFL classes as part of an afterschool program. In Africa, Hsieh et al. (2017) administered the TOEFL Primary^® tests to 4,768 young learners at 51 primary schools in Kenya where English was a foreign language, but also the medium of instruction, finding large discrepancies in what children were expected to do in English and what they were in fact able to do. Overall, these studies highlight that research in YLs’ FL assessment has begun to expand geographically, providing insights into a variety of FL assessment contexts that feature different groups of YLs.

Foreign language proficiency development in YLs

How YLs’ FL proficiency develops across different language skills, given their unique characteristics, has been an area of increasing empirical investigation over the past 20 years. Following the studies in the early 2000s, some research in assessing young FL learners focused on conceptualizing and exploring the development of YLs’ FL proficiency to (a) obtain a better understanding of the construct of child foreign language learning, and (b) determine realistic, age-appropriate achievement targets (Cameron, 2003; Johnstone, 2009; Nikolov, 2016). For example, Cameron (2003, p. 109) put forth a multidimensional “model of the construct ‘language’ for child foreign language learning.” In that model, she proposed how oral and written language should be taught and assessed. Additionally, frameworks emphasized the need to account for individual differences in assessments relative to aspects such as age, socio-affective, and cognitive development (e.g., Nikolov, 2016), as well as FL educational contexts in order to align better the assessments and outcome expectations for particular YL groups (see Hasselgreen & Caudwell, 2016 for a discussion of YL characteristics).

Following the development of frameworks conceptualizing YL’s FL proficiency, the field has seen a number of empirical investigations, including longitudinal studies that have provided insight into the FL proficiency development of YLs. With an increasing number of young EFL learners being subject to language assessments, learners’ test performances over an extended period of time have become available, allowing researchers to analyze young EFL learners’ performance longitudinally. For example, Bae and Lee (2012) reported a study in which they investigated how 8–12-year-old Korean EFL students’ writing skills developed over a year and a half. They observed that young EFL learners’ developmental trajectories in writing were not uniform across the multiple components of writing ability in their study context. Longitudinal data have also arisen from international testing contexts, enabling us to examine empirically the development of young EFL learners’ English skills in different educational contexts. For example, an analysis of over 5,000 EFL test records from repeat test takers in Turkey and Japan—assessing the children’s reading, speaking, and listening skills—showed that, contrary to the commonly held view that children’s language development is faster than that of adults, young EFL learners’ test scores do not increase rapidly over a short period, although there was a great deal of variability at the individual student level (Cho & Blood, 2020). The same data also suggested the effects of educational contexts on the amount of score change. Longitudinal studies such as these provide us with empirical information concerning the amounts and patterns of young EFL learners’ development in acquiring English skills, thereby helping to refine our assumptions and understanding of how young students learn an additional language.

Moreover, we have seen efforts in more recent years to gain empirical data related to young EFL learners’ developmental characteristics in relation to language assessments. Although there is a continued dearth of empirical evidence on YLs’ characteristics, researchers and test developers have started to pay more attention to this topic (e.g., Cho & So, 2014; Habók & Magyar, 2019; Kormos et al., 2020). For example, Winke et al. (2018) used stimulated-recall interviews to show children’s experience in responding to the test tasks on an international English language proficiency test designed for young EFL learners. Although the researchers interviewed young English as a second language (ESL) students in the United States in lieu of EFL students, they reported several task design-related issues that could adversely affect young EFL test takers as well. For instance, children found it unnatural and cognitively challenging to see and order scrambled letters. Winke et al. (2018) also questioned whether it was developmentally appropriate and fair to expect correctly spelled English words from young EFL learners in assessing their English skills, when phonetically spelled words are common for native English-speaking peers. The researchers warned that testing practices commonly used for adults may be at odds with the cognitive development of young test takers. Children’s developmental characteristics have long been recognized as a challenge to understand and appropriately include them in the domain analysis and domain modeling of the framework. As there has been little empirical evidence that could guide practitioners on this issue, studies focusing on interaction between YLs’ characteristics and test task characteristics provide practical implications for test developers and users.

Establishing reasonable expectations, benchmarks, and achievement targets for YLs

Closely related to the discussion of proficiency development is the third main area that arose from the studies in the 2000 Special Issue: the need for quantifiable targets that describe in detail what children are able to do at certain stages in their FL development. This need for benchmarks in both national and international assessments resulted primarily in standard-setting and corpora-based research (e.g., Baron & Papageorgiou, 2014; Benigno & de Jong, 2016, 2017; Hasselgreen, 2003, 2005; Papp & Salamoura, 2009; Papp & Walczak, 2016; Pižorn, 2009; Szabo, 2018a, 2018b). Baron and Papageorgiou (2014), for example, conducted a standard-setting study to map scores from the large-scale standardized TOEFL Primary^® test to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). With 18 educators from 15 countries, they deployed a yes–no Angoff standard-setting approach and a type of performance-profile approach to the reading and listening as well as the speaking sections of the test, respectively, in order to derive benchmarks and descriptors for the target YL population. A corpus-based approach to setting benchmarks was taken by Benigno and de Jong (2016, 2017). They documented the development of performance descriptors and the development of an international vocabulary corpus for young EFL learners. Moreover, researchers also reported the development of regional corpora for young EFL learners (Hasselgreen & Sundet, 2017; Sundh, 2016). As young learner corpora are increasingly available, corpus-based studies are on the rise in order to understand the development of young EFL learners’ English skills (Jiang et al., 2019; Seog & Choi, 2018).

As this large data-driven approach utilizes a substantial collection of learners’ language samples, it enables researchers to conduct more fine-grained analyses of YLs’ language use, thereby (a) enhancing our understanding of how young learners develop L2 skills and (b) informing the development of language performance benchmarks for YLs. For instance, Sego and Choi (2018), using two corpora, demonstrated that Korean elementary school students acquire certain English modals such as “can” and “will” much more quickly than modals such as “should” and that the correct use of modals with the past tense was challenging for advanced learners. Similarly, Jiang et al. (2019), using a Chinese high-school EFL student corpus, showed that the developmental patterns of subordinate clauses and noun modifiers varied across types of grammatical structures.

Language assessment literacy among teachers and other stakeholders

The rather limited language assessment literacy (LAL) among instructors who teach YLs was highlighted as one of the challenges in various contexts represented in the 2000 Special Issue (e.g., Hasselgren, 2000; Johnston, 2000; Rea-Dickins & Gardner, 2000). Since then, the field has witnessed growing research interest in LAL. A symposium at the 2011 Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC) was dedicated to the theme of “assessment literacy” and only six years later, in 2017, the theme of the entire LTRC conference in Bogotá was focused on LAL. Various frameworks were proposed to define the construct and the components of assessment literacy or LAL (Davies, 2008; Fulcher, 2012; Taylor, 2013). Empirical investigations also sought to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what constitutes LAL for teachers and other stakeholders such as policy makers (Crusan et al., 2016; Pill & Harding, 2013).

In recent years, researchers have begun to investigate the level of LAL for teachers of YLs in various contexts. For example, Vogt and Tsagari (2014) surveyed 853 teachers in seven European countries, many of whom were teachers of primary and secondary school students, in order to understand the teachers’ current LAL levels and needs. A more recent example is the study by Lan and Fan (2019) who surveyed 334 EFL teachers of middle-school students in China. Vogt and Tsagari (2014) as well as Lan and Fan (2019) reported that teachers wished to be better prepared for assessment-related issues in the classroom. This trend of focusing LAL research on YL contexts is encouraging, as it could reveal LAL issues that are specific to instructors who teach YLs. However, findings from these studies show that the issue raised two decades ago still lingers, with many teachers feeling ill-equipped to understand the best way to assess their young students and use assessment results in their classrooms.

This Special Issue

Building upon the research of the past two decades, this Special Issue features five papers that touch upon a number of aspects related to the four strands outlined above. In terms of variability and diversity in educational contexts and the YL population, we have included studies conducted in Europe (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Patekar, 2021) and Asia (Butler et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021) in order to illustrate that the field is beginning to gain more traction at a global level. Similarly, we aimed to expand the initial focus on primary school learners that was featured in the 2000 Special Issue by incorporating studies that included FL learners in secondary school contexts (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2021) as well as those in elementary school (Butler et al., 2021; Patekar, 2021; Shin et al., 2021). With regard to how YLs’ FL proficiency develops across language skills, given their unique characteristics, the papers in this Special Issue cut across all four skills—reading (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021), listening (Shin et al., 2021), speaking (Huang et al., 2021), and writing (Patekar, 2021)—with a main focus on research related to YL cognition (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021) and other variables that impact EFL proficiency, including contact with English outside of school (Huang et al., 2021). Finally, the increasingly popular topic of LAL is represented by two papers (Butler et al., 2021; Patekar, 2021) to illustrate how this area is of key interest to the field. Overall, the Special Issue papers cover three main research areas: (1) cognition and other learner variables (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021); (2) validity research (Huang et al., 2021); and (3) language assessment literacy (Butler et al., 2021; Patekar, 2021).

Section 1: Cognition and other learner variables

Developmental characteristics, such as cognitive development, pose a unique challenge in assessing young learners. Therefore, it is an opportunity to shape in a better way an assessment’s relevance and validity argument. Research in this area barely scratched the surface of how YLs’ developmental characteristics interact with test characteristics (e.g., test-task design, delivery methods, etc.), thus affecting the validity of test procedures and the meaning of test scores (Cho & So, 2014; Winke et al., 2018). The authors of two studies in this Special Issue (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021) took into consideration YLs’ cognitive factors in explaining variance in test performance. The two studies are different in terms of their research foci and contexts, but their findings complement one another with regard to the role of working memory (WM) in the development of language skills. Given that WM plays an important role in explaining one’s mental processes and that it rapidly increases during childhood, Brunfaut et al. (2021) were interested in the role of WM in the development of YLs’ reading skills. They reported that, although statistically significant, the role of WM was considerably smaller than the random effect of between-subject variation when accounting for the development of reading skills of Hungarian EFL students in Grades 6 and 7. The researchers attributed this small variance explained by WM in their study to the possibility that factors more directly related to language skills might be at play. Similarly to Brunfaut et al. (2021), Shin et al. (2021) included WM in their study to investigate the role of learner variables in test performance (both in reading and listening). However, in contrast to WM in Brunfaut et al.’s (2021) study, which was independent of language, Shin et al.’s (2021) operationalization of WM was more directly related to language skills as it specifically looked at the role of phonological working memory (PWM) in reading and listening tests. The effect of PWM on test performance was shown to differ between reading and listening skills, with the impact of PWM being stronger for YLs’ listening skills. Neither of the studies is intended to provide a definitive answer to the role of WM, but the authors of the two studies invite readers to consider carefully how to define and capture WM in YL research.

Section 2: Validity research

With more students being subject to standardized English proficiency tests, the quality and impact of those assessments have garnered increasing attention. Huang et al. (2021) gathered multiple sources of evidence in order to evaluate the validity of the TOEFL Junior^® speaking test for adolescent EFL learners. Their investigation offers evidence that the test meets the psychometric quality expected from standardized assessments, as the test was shown to be internally consistent and its structure corresponds to the pre-specified construct. Externally, the researchers showed that adolescent EFL learners’ performance on the speaking test could be explained by relevant indicators outside the test. Converging evidence from another speaking test as well as teacher and student survey responses, together with the internal consistency of the test, supported the claim that the TOEFL Junior^® speaking test could reliably measure what it intends to assess. The findings from Huang’s et al.’s (2021) study are convincing in that the quality of the test supports score interpretations. However, the scope of their study did not address how scores were used and whether they were useful in their specific context, which are the aspects that are perhaps the most crucial to validating a test in the current era. The impact of test scores on decisions that affect users is an important area of inquiry in which YL research needs to expand.

Section 3: Language assessment literacy

Butler et al. (2021) made a clear case for including learners’ perspectives in the quest to understand the social impact of assessments. Children in their study were keenly aware of what assessments were intended to measure, why the assessments were constructed in the way they are, and how the assessments impacted students. Contrary to a common conception that children are not apt at articulating complex and abstract ideas, children in Butler et al.’s (2021) study gave their critical insights into how assessments should be designed in order to best serve students in learning English. It was refreshing to look at assessment through the lenses of YLs. The high level of awareness shown by the children in Butler et al.’s study may not be generalizable to the entire YL population. However, this study imparts an important question: whether and how to incorporate YLs’ perspectives in the current framework of language assessment literacy. In making a case for paying attention to YL’s perspectives on assessments, Butler et al. (2021) proposed a “bottom-up approach to LAL.” They argued that “in making a closer connection among instruction, learning, and assessment, learners’ voices should be more actively incorporated in discussions of LAL” (Butler et al., 2021, p. 450).

Patekar (2021) made a similar argument for LAL from the perspective of teachers of YLs in Croatia. Focusing on the writing domain, Patekar’s paper showed that the writing assessment tasks used in the Croatian elementary school context generally corresponded to the national curriculum. However, the study also revealed that some assessment tasks and grading practices were inadequate for accurately measuring children’s writing abilities. In addition, Patekar highlighted various challenges that Croatian teachers faced in teaching and assessing YLs. Among these were a lack of resources, issues related to managing children’s behaviors, and a dilemma between using grades to motivate students versus using the teachers' own standards. These challenges could adversely affect teachers’ instruction and assessment. The paper pointed out the need to pay attention to YLs in teacher training programs, thus substantiating the same issue already raised in the 2000 Special Issue. In this regard, Patekar’s paper confirmed and highlighted the continuing need to advance YL education in the context of formal teacher training programs in order to prepare educators better for challenges in the YL classroom.

Overall, we believe that these five papers provide insights into the current trends in YL assessment, while at the same time showing how the field at large has grown into a more diverse area of interest that can be characterized as being in its adolescence. This Special Issue on YL assessment is a notable step forward as it provides a platform for voices that may not always be heard. For instance, it allows for a presentation of research from relatively underrepresented contexts such as Croatia (Patekar, 2021). It gives a voice to children who, ironically, are the main stakeholder group in YL assessment but have so far been treated rather as the subject of research than as a stakeholder group (Butler et al., 2021). Furthermore, the Special Issue shows how the field has expanded into using more interdisciplinary approaches to investigating YL assessments (Brunfaut et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021) and how YL assessment has matured to seek validity evidence for and against large-scale standardized assessments (Huang et al., 2021). Thus, we hope that this Special Issue with its five studies constitutes a pathway forward in the development of the field of YL assessment.

Growing pains: Challenges and future directions

Although the field has grown considerably, it still has some distance to go in order to become a fully established area of inquiry, as many topics remain underexplored. For instance, YL assessment would benefit from the replication and refining of the studies featured in this Special Issue so that it could gain more generalizable insights. Moreover, the scope of YL assessment research could be broadened even further as we are far from having a complete picture of the diverse YL population. For example, assessment research has been conducted mainly in contexts where children learn a single foreign language, mostly English, in school. Research on assessing YLs who learn other foreign languages is also much needed. In addition, a further investigation of YLs’ assessment needs, practices, and challenges in multilingual contexts would pay tribute to the fact that a large number of YLs are plurilingual (see the 2020 Special Issue in Language Assessment Quarterly (LAQ), edited by Huang and Butler, for a first step in that direction). A similarly underrepresented area is the assessment needs and practices of YLs with learning difficulties. Further, investigating YLs’ English-language progressions in various contexts (e.g., in more/less intensive language-teaching programs; with more/less English exposure outside of school; in summer camps; in study-abroad programs) could inform benchmarks, descriptors, and achievement targets. Finally, we still see many traditional tests and assessments that are clearly recognizable, even to children, as ways to gauge their FL proficiency. Examining more innovative and integrated formats of language assessments, such as the use of video games or game-based applications, might address the need for children to be engaged first hand, to play, and to have fun—a need that was already highlighted by Hasselgren (2000).

In addition to these topics which constitute only a few suggestions for potential directions of future research, we would encourage more classroom-based research in general and action research in particular, two areas that seem very much underrepresented in the current YL assessment literature. To illustrate further, none of the studies in this Special Issue were conducted in the immediate context of the language classroom. In fact, we did not receive a single submission proposing that an assessment-related investigation should be carried out as part of actual FL teaching. Nevertheless, conducting classroom-based research or action research will require teachers who understand how to do research in their classrooms. This may require the reconceptualizing and broadening of LAL for teachers to incorporate the knowledge and skills needed to conduct research studies.

Finally, to advance experimental research and promote more classroom-based or action research, there is one particular piece that would be highly beneficial for the growing domain of YL assessment: a separate journal dedicated to the dissemination and promotion of research related to the assessment of young L2 learners. Although a few papers on YL assessment have been published in established language testing or educational research journals, a new journal focusing exclusively on assessing YLs’ additional languages would draw even more attention to the field. It could serve as a forum that brings together experts from various fields in order to advance YL assessment, henceforth giving YL language assessment a greater voice in the larger area of language testing. Such a journal would ultimately help the field to mature by fostering an interdisciplinary dialogue across different stakeholders, including teachers, policy makers, test providers, researchers, and young learners themselves.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Veronika Timpe-Laughlin

Yeonsuk Cho

Notes

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