Assessing depth of word knowledge of beginner learners of French, German, and Spanish aged 11-14 in England

This chapter focuses on the development of vocabulary achievement tests for young, beginner learners of French, German, and Spanish as foreign languages. Key challenges at this level include: (1) identifying test items that correspond to relevant aspects of word knowledge; (2) adapting the design of these items to the needs of school pupils; (3) ensuring parity across learners and languages; (4) designing flexible tests that can be completed both in-class and online. We describe our test purpose and relevant rationales, and present examples of items used in England’s National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP) tests, which are currently being piloted in some of NCELP’s 45 networked schools and beyond.