Basic English Skills Test
(BEST, 1981-87)

Purpose: To assess speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills of low proficiency non-native English speakers.

Source: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1118 22nd Street N.W., Washington DC 20037; (202) 429-9292.

Costs: For the oral interview section, the administrator's picture cue books to which the learners respond cost $11.00 and answer sheets cost $.25; for the literacy skills section, the not re-usable learner test booklets and scoring sheets (together) cost $2.25.

Description: There are two sections. The oral interview section has 50 items and yields five scores for listening comprehension, pronunciation, communication, fluency, and reading/writing. It asks several personal questions, and then asks questions and gives the learners directions to follow in response to photographs, signs, a map, and some money placed on the table. The questions ask what are the people in the pictures doing, where is a specified object (the learner is to point to it), and what does a given sign mean. A few reading and writing items are included. The literacy skills section assesses reading and writing more thoroughly. There is only one level of the test. A second equivalent form of the test was recently made available.

Reliability, Validity, and Scores: Test-retest reliability is not reported in the manual. Internal reliability has been moderately high for the listening, communication, and fluency scores, and high for the total of the oral interview section. There are limited validity data. Learners assigned to seven ESL instructional levels, by means other than the BEST, were administered the BEST; the mean score of learners was substantially higher at each successive level. Though the test was administered to 987 ESL learners during its refinement, no norm data are reported in the manual. The manual describes "Student Performance Levels" for various total scores, but the basis for the specified levels is not given.

Comments: This test is adult in content and tone. The first section must be administered individually and to do so is moderately complex. Proper administration will require prior training and practice. The administration is paced and takes about 10 to 20 minutes. Most of the scoring of the first section is done as it is administered, not later from a tape recording. This saves time, but it can be distracting to the learner and sometimes even to the administrator. The scoring is judgmental and moderately complex, but after careful training inter-rater reliability has been high. A review of the test in Reviews of English Language Proficiency Tests (see Appendix B) described it as exciting, innovative, and valid, but time-consuming to use and lacking justification for the scoring system.