JD Brown's Plenary Abstract and Biodata
The Perils of Language Testing and Curriculum Development: Mistakes Were Made, Lessons Learned
Kindly sponsored by Eiken
ABSTRACT
I reflect here on curriculum and assessment problems I've encountered over the years and lessons I've learned by solving those problems. At UCLA (1976-1980), I learned the importance of a priori standards setting, the value of matching placement tests with curriculum, and the immovability of curriculum. In China (1980-1982), I discovered the importance of listening to people and the value of multiple sources of information. At FSU (1982-1985), I discovered the importance of including all stakeholders in curriculum development and the dangers of territoriality. At UHM (1986-1991), I learned how to combine CRT and NRT principles for placement testing, the value of including both discrete-point and integrative tests, the usefulness of quantitative research methods as a weapon, and the impermanence of curriculum development. In a number of other large-scale curriculum projects (in Hawaii, Tunisia, Turkey, Fiji, Cyprus, and Japan, 1985-2009), I have learned how using the same research methods, I can get very different results.
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
James Dean ("JD") Brown, Professor on the graduate faculty of the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, specializes in the areas of language testing, curriculum design, program evaluation, and research methods. He has taught extensively in France, the People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States (in California, Florida, and Hawaii). He has served on the editorial boards of the TESOL Quarterly, JALT Journal, and Language Testing (among others) as well as on the TOEFL Research Committee, TESOL Advisory Committee on Research, and the Executive Board of TESOL. In addition to numerous book chapters and articles in TESOL Quarterly, TESOL Matters, Language Learning, Language Testing, Modern Language Journal, JALT Journal, The Language Teacher, System, and RELC Journal, he has published a number of books, among them: Understanding Research in Second Language Learning: A teacher's guide to statistics and research design (Cambridge, 1988; also in a Chinese version, 2001, People??s Education Press); The Elements of Language Curriculum: A systematic approach to program development (Heinle & Heinle, 1995); Language Testing in Japan (with Yamashita, JALT, 1995); Testing in Language Programs (Prentice-Hall, 1996; also translated into Japanese in 1999 by Wada, Taishukan Shoten Publishers); New Ways of Classroom Assessment (TESOL, 1998); Using Surveys in Language Programs (Cambridge, 2001); Criterion-Referenced Language Testing (with Hudson, Cambridge, 2002); Doing Applied Linguistic Research (with Rodgers, Oxford, 2002); Testing in Language Programs (2nd, much revised edition, McGraw-Hill, 2005); and Perspectives on Teaching Connected Speech to Second Language Speakers (with Kondo-Brown, University of Hawaii Press, 2006); Teaching Chinese, Japanese, and Korean heritage students (with Kondo-Brown, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008).