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The DIALANG project
The DIALANG assessment system
DIALANG is an assessment system intended for language learners who want to obtain
diagnostic information about their proficiency. The DIALANG project is carried out
with the financial support of the European Commission, Directorate-General for
Education and Culture (SOCRATES Programme, LINGUA Action D).
The system consists of self-assessment, language tests and feedback, which are all
available in fourteen European languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French,
German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
DIALANG is delivered via the Internet free of charge.
DIALANG’s Assessment Framework and the descriptive scales used for reporting the
results to the users are directly based on the Common European Framework (CEF). The
self-assessment statements used in DIALANG are also mostly taken from the CEF and
adapted whenever necessary to fit the specific needs of the system.
Purpose of DIALANG
DIALANG is aimed at adults who want to know their level of language proficiency and
who want to get feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of their proficiency. The
system also provides the learners with advice about how to improve their language
skills and, furthermore, it attempts to raise their awareness of language learning and
proficiency. The system does not issue certificates.
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The primary users of the system will be individual learners who study languages
independently or on formal language courses. However, language teachers may also
find many of the features of the system useful for their purposes.
Assessment procedure in DIALANG
The DIALANG assessment procedure has the following steps:
1.
Choice of administration language (14 possible)
2.
Registration
3.
Choice of test language (14 possible)
4.
Vocabulary Size Placement Test
5.
Choice of skill (reading, listening, writing, vocabulary, structures)
6.
Self-assessment (only in reading, listening, and writing)
7.
System pre-estimates learner’s ability
8.
Test of appropriate difficulty is administered
9.
Feedback
On entering the system, the learners first choose the language in which they wish to
receive instructions and feedback. After registering, users are then presented with a
placement test which also estimates the size of their vocabulary. After choosing the
skill in which they then wish to be tested, users are presented with a number of self-
assessment statements, before taking the test selected. These self-assessment
statements cover the skill in question, and the learner has to decide whether or not
s/he can do the activity described in each statement. Self-assessment is not available
for the other two areas assessed by DIALANG, vocabulary and structures, because
source statements do not exist in the CEF. After the test, as part of the feedback, the
learners are told whether their self-assessed level of proficiency differs from the
level of proficiency assigned to them by the system on the basis of their test
performance. Users are also offered an opportunity to explore potential reasons for a
mismatch between self-assessment and the test results in the Explanatory Feedback
section.
Purpose of self-assessment in DIALANG
Self-assessment (SA) statements are used for two reasons in the DIALANG system.
Firstly, self-assessment is considered an important activity in itself. It is believed to
encourage autonomous learning, to give learners greater control over their learning
and to enhance learner awareness of their learning process.
The second purpose of self-assessment in DIALANG is more ‘technical’: the system
uses the Vocabulary Size Placement Test and self-assessment results to pre-estimate the
learners’ ability and then directs them to the test whose difficulty level best matches
their ability. 
Appendix C: The DIALANG scales
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