The central place of "text" as a means of organising language in order to construct what people come to think of as "knowledge" is a phenomenon affecting all educators, students, and citizens of modern societies. This volume offers various voices and perspectives including that of Ron Carter and Michael Halliday on the role of text in education and society. The papers on education explore some ways in which texts can create bonds or raise barriers between educational knowledge and common-sense knowledge, while the papers on text in society focus on how personalities and societies are...

This book brings together two related fields - language testing and language programme evaluation - in a way that no single introductory text has done, and seeks to encourage closer relations between the two in both academic curricula and professional practice. It introduces readers not just to basic concepts, but to some of the major social, educational and research concerns and activities that characterise language testing and evaluation. The book can serve either as a basic text for a taught course, or for self-study. All chapters include suggestions for further reading, and discussions...