This publication contains selected research papers from the 15th Annual Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC). The selection of papers in the volume provides coverage of the themes of performance testing and aspects of communication in relation to cognition and assessment.

1 Cross-cultural pragmatics in oral proficiency; 2 Decision dependability of subtests, tests and the overall TOEFL test battery; 3 Development of new proficiency based skill level descriptors for translation: theory and practice; 4 Comparing test difficulty and text reliability in the evaluation of an extensive reading programme; 5 Performance assessment and the components of the oral construct across different tests and rater groups; 6 Applying ethical standard of portfolio assessment of writing English as a Second Language; 7 Equating national exams of foreign language reading comprehension; 8 Taking a multifaceted view of the unidimensional measurement from Rasch analysis in language tests; 9 A qualitative approach to monitoring examiner conduct in CASE; 10 Linguistics accuracy versus coherence in assessing examination answers in content subjects; 11 A study of the Decision-making Behaviour of Composition Markers; 12 What raters really pay attention to; 13 A study of writing tasks assigned in academic degree programs: a report on stage 1 of the project; 14 Content validity in tests for well-defined LSP domains: an approach to defining what is to be tested; 15 Early bilingualism, cognition and Assessment; 16 A comparative study of four ESL placement instruments