Identifying academic language needs through diagnostic assessment

The increasing linguistic diversity among both international and domestic students in English-medium universities creates new challenges for the institutions in addressing the students' needs in the area of academic literacy. In order to identify students with such needs, a major New Zealand university has implemented the Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) programme, which is now a requirement for all first-year undergraduate students, regardless of their language background. The results of the assessment are used to guide students to appropriate forms of academic language support where applicable. This article examines the rationale for the assessment programme, which takes account of some specific provisions governing university admission in New Zealand law. Then, drawing on the test validation network by Read and Chapelle [Read, J., & Chapelle, C. A. (2001). A framework for second language vocabulary assessment. Language Testing, 18, 1–32] the article considers in some detail: 1) the way in which DELNA is presented to staff and students of the university, and 2) the procedures for reporting the results. It also considers the criteria by which the programme should be evaluated.