Elana Shohamy School of Education Tel Aviv University Israel, 69978 Phone: (814) 863-1212 Fax: (814) 865-1316 Email: elana@post.tau.ac.il
Elana Shohamy (Ph.D., Minnesota) is Professor of Language Education in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University (Israel). Her main research areas are: language testing and assessment, language policy and language learning in educational contexts. Her work in language assessment has focused on alternative assessment, oral testing, classroom and diagnostic assessment, the uses and misuses of language tests, testing in multicultrual/multilingual societies (especially of immigrants), washback and the social and political dimensions of language tests. In the area of language policy she was behind the introduction of a new multilingual language education policy in the Israeli educational system. Her most recent research focuses on development and validation of alternative language assessment systems for immigrants, language attitudes of Jews and Arabs, the effects of learning languages on attitudes, a national study on the assessment of academic achievements of immigrants, the use of accommodations, linguistic landscape and a number of studies that examine the effect (washback) of language tests on teaching and learning. She is the author of numerous books and articles. Her most recent books are: The Power of Tests: A Critical Perspective of Language Tests (Longman, 2001); The Languages of Israel: Policy, Ideology and Practice (with Bernard Spolsky, Multilingual Matters); Second Language Research Methods (with Herbert Seliger, Oxford University Press). She is co-editor (with Bernard Spolsky) of the new journal Language Policy. She has taught at a large number of universities in various parts of the world, she was the research director at the National Foreign Language Center in Washington, DC (1998-1999) and is currently an adjunct professor at The Pennsylvania State University.

Levin, T., Shohamy, E., et al. (in press). Achievements in academic Hebrew among immigrant students in Israel. In O. Elite., & N. Nevo.(Eds.), Hebrew in a global world. Magnes.

Shohamy, E. (in preparation, to be released in 2007). Encyclopedia of language and education: Language and testing. Kluwer.

Rafael, B., Shohamy, E., et al. (2006). Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Isreal. International Journal of Multilingualism 3(1): 7-31.

Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. London: Routledge.

Shohamy, E. (2006). Rethinking advanced language proficiency. In H. Byrnes, H.D. Weger-Guntharp, & K. Sprang (Eds.), Educating for advanced foreign language capacities: Constructs, curriculum, instruction, assessment (pp. 188 - 208). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Shohamy, E. (2005). Language rights in the multilingual society of Israel. In D. TeRavid & H. Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Eds.), Perspectives on language and language development. Dordrecht: Kluwer

Shohamy, E. (2005). The power of tests over teachers: The power of teachers over test. In D. Tedick(Ed.), Second Language teacher education: International perspectives. Mahwah, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Shohamy, E. (2001). The Power of tests: A critical perspective of the uses of language tests. London: Longman.

Cooper, R. L., Shohamy, E., & Walters, J. (Eds.)(2001). New perspectives and issues in educational language policy: A festschrift for Bernard Dov Spolsky. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Shohamy, E. (2001). Democratic assessment as an alternative. Language Testing 18(4): 373-391.

Connor-Linton, J., & Shohamy, E. (2000). Register validation, oral proficiency, sampling, and the promise of multi dimensional analysis. In D. Biber. (Ed.), Variations in Language.

Lambert, R. D., & Shohamy, E. (Eds.) (2000). Language policy and pedagogy: Essays in honor of A. Ronald Walton. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Spolsky, B. & Shohamy, E. (1999). The Language of Israel: Policy, ideology and practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Shohamy, E. (1998). Assessment in early age: Foreign language abilities of early language learners. In M. Met (Ed.), Critical issues in early second language learning : building for our children’s future (pp. 185-197). Glenview, Il: Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley

Shohamy, E. (1998). Evaluation of learning outcomes in second language acquisition: A multiplism perspective. In H. Byrnes (Ed.), Learning foreign and second languages : perspectives in research and scholarship (pp. 238-261).New York : Modern Language Association of America.

Shohamy, E. (1998). Critical language testing and beyond. Studies in Educational Evaluation 24(4): 331-345.

Shohamy, E. (1998). How can language testing and second language acquisition benefit from each other: The case of discourse. In L. Bachman & A. Cohen (Eds.), Interfaces between second language acquisition and language testing research (pp. 156-176).Cambridge, U.K. ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press.

Shohamy, E. (1998). Inside the "black box" of classroom language tests. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 33(special issue in honor of Kari Sajaavara): 343-352.

Shohamy, E. (1997). Testing methods, testing consequences: Are they ethical? Are they fair? Language Testing 14(3): 340-349.

Shohamy, E. (1996). Competence and performance in language testing. In G. Brown, K. Malmkjaer, & J. Williams. (Eds.), Performance and competence in second language acquisition (pp. 136-151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shohamy, E. (1996). Test impact revisited: Washback effect over time. Language Testing 13: 298-317.

Shohamy, E. (1995). Language testing: Matching assessment procedures with language knowledge. In M. Birenbaum, & F. Dochy. (Eds.), Alternatives in assessment, learning processes and prior knowledge (pp. 142-160). Boston, MA: Kluwer.

Shohamy, E. (1995). Performance assessment in language testing. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 15: 188-211.

Shohamy, E. (1994). The validity of direct versus semi-direct oral tests. Language Testing 11(2): 99-123.

Seliger, H., & Shohamy, E. (1989). Second language research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.