Book Review: The Routledge Handbook of Language Testing

Abstract

The second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Language Testing, published in 2022, is a hefty volume, covering a broad swath of theory, research, and practice in language testing over some 600 + pages. Editors Glenn Fulcher and Luke Harding have done a nice job of updating the first edition, bringing in a handful of new contributions for a total of 36 chapters, re-arranging the organization somewhat to collocate topics thematically, and encouraging revisions to nearly all of the included chapters. Compiling edited volumes, never mind substantial handbooks that are intended to reflect the entire field, like this one, is never an easy or straightforward endeavor. Choices inevitably must be made about which experts to invite, what topics to include and which ones to leave out, and how to arrange the contents and situate the contributions against the backdrop of an active and evolving domain of research and practice. On the whole, this book does a good job of reflecting a lot of what is on the minds of language testing researchers and practitioners as they go about the scholarship and business of language assessment, and it does so in a reader-friendly way, with relatively brief and consistently organized chapters produced by an impressive group of experts. I believe these characteristics recommend the book for use in seminars on language testing and as an authoritative reference for a variety of language testing stakeholders—indeed, many of these chapters will help in the cause of advancing language assessment literacy in multiple sectors (if we can only encourage their being read by individuals in those sectors . . .). In the following, I highlight a few dimensions of the volume that I find particularly useful and/or insightful, and I offer some observations on aspects that might have deserved more attention or perhaps should merit attention in the next edition. The book is arranged in 10 topical sections with three to five chapters each, fronted by a brief editorial introduction and ending with a subject and author index. In the introduction, the editors do a nice job of rationalizing the different sections of the book and introducing the key contributions of the distinct chapters. They also effectively link core ideas and themes that transcend individual chapters, thereby helping readers to notice important threads that connect the different perspectives and issues covered. Dispensing with one production quibble up front, the Index is not well compiled. While no doubt a challenge with so many contributing authors and such wide-ranging contents, a good index is all the more important for a big book like this one. Yet this index has numerous 1140331 LTJ0010.1177/02655322221140331Language TestingBook Reviews research-article2022