In recent years, school-based assessment (SBA) has been incorporated into the English Language subject of a traditional high-stakes public examination, the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. As reactions from various stakeholder groups have been mixed, it was necessary to review this new practice. This paper reports on a study of 33 English language teachers who have been frontline SBA assessors. The study aimed to better understand (1) teacher-assessors' perceptions of the English SBA, (2) their professional development needs in relation to implementing SBA, (3) their perceptions of how students could benefit from SBA and (4) the pressing issues arising from the SBA implementation. The study found that, while many participants agreed that SBA could be beneficial to students' English learning, there was much room for improvement in all four aspects investigated. In particular, some problems identified at the very beginning of the implementation of the English SBA have still persisted.
[Copyright of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2014.915207]

In recent decades, with an increasing application of computer technology to the delivery of oral language proficiency assessment, there have been renewed debates over the appropriateness of two different testing modes, namely, (a) face-to-face, or direct, testing, and (b) person-to-machine, or semi-direct, testing. Previous research conducted in various geographical regions has produced mixed results as to which format is more acceptable to test takers. The present investigation, carried out in the context of a university setting in Hong Kong, compared the popularity of two testing modes by analyzing reactions and perceptions of a group of test takers who had just sat for a direct test as well as a semi-direct test. The results indicate that, although a large proportion of the participants had no particular preference in terms of the testing mode, the number of participants who strongly favored direct testing far exceeded the number strongly favoring semi-direct testing. The participants' main reason cited for disliking semi-direct testing was its inability for the examiner and examinee to interact during the test, which appears to have created a psychological barrier for the test taker.
[Copyright of Language Assessment Quarterly is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15434300902800059]