John Charles Aldcrson教授是國際語言測試界公認的知名的專家之一。多年以來，Alderson教授一直致力於語言測試的研究，著作等身，取得了異常豐碩的成果。《奧德森語言測試文集（英文版）》收錄了其1986年至2011年期間發表的部分主要論文，內容涵蓋了閱讀理解測試、語言測試研究方法、特殊用途語言測試、語言測試的反撥作用、基於計算機考試等14個研究方面。這14個研究方面是語言測試者開展研究所必須涉及的研究領域，具有很高的學術價值，在語言測試研究領域中具有開拓性的意義。該書所收錄的論文不僅包括了語言測試的經典理論，也代表了語言測試的未來發展方向，同時也為語言測試研究者提供了方法論，從而形成了一套完整、全面、繫統的語言測試的理論。
《奧德森語言測試文集（英文版）》為從事語言測試研究的學者、大學英語教師及語言測試專業的研究生提供學術參考。

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Part One Testing Proficiency and Achievement
1．Testing Proficiency and Achievement： Principles and Practice
2．Metalinguistic Knowledge， Language Aptitude and Language Proficiency
3．Diagnosing Foreign Language Proficiency：A Teaching/Testing Interface
4．Bands and Scores
5．Sequencing as an Item Type
6．Native and Nonnative Speaker Performance on Cloze Tests
7．The Effect on the Cloze Test of Changes in Deletion Frequency
8．The Testing of Reading
9．Testing Reading Comprehension Skills（Part Two）：Getting Students to Talk about Taking a Reading Test （a Pilot Study）
10．The CEFR and the Need for More Research
11．What Does PESTI Have to Do with Us Testers?

Part Two Testing English for Specific Purposes
12．Testing English for Specific Purposes： How Specific Can We Get?
13．Testing and Its Administration in ESP
14．A Course in Testing and Evaluation for ESP Teachers or "How Bad Were My Tests?"
15．Testing in EAP： Progress? Achievement? Proficiency?

Part Three Language Testing and Program Evaluation
16．The State of Language Testing in the 1990s
17．Language Testing in the 1990s： How Far Have We Come? How Much Further Have We to Go?
18．Examining Washback： the Sri Lankan Impact Study
19．Computers in Language Testing
20．Technology in Testing： the Present and the Future
21．Innovations and Challenges in Diagnostic Testing
22．Evaluating a Placement Test
23．Guidelines for the Evaluation of Language Education
24．Towards a Theory of Participatory Evaluation： Insights from Applied Linguistics

In the language testing community，a classic example to illustrate the power of language tests is a pronunciation test of the word "shibboleth" documented in the Hebrew Bible.I had such an interesting experience when Professor Charles Alderson and I first met in his office at Lancaster University （LU） more than a decade ago.Charles joked that I must have been trained in the University of Reading，because I talked about "backwash" instead of "washback".The inference made from the "test"was correct！ One outcome of that visit paid by Professor Yang Huizhong，former Chair of the National College English Testing Committee，and me，was the initiation of a dual-degree master program between the Department of Linguistics and English Language at LU and the School of Foreign Languages，Shanghai Jiao Tong University （SJTU）.With full support from Charles，the collaboration between the two departments was successful.In recogrution of his contribution to the collaboration，ourschool decided to support the publication of a collection of articles sole-authored or co-authored by Charles，and hence，this edited volume.
From the early 1980s till his recent retirement，Charles had been working as senior lecturer and later Professor of Linguistics and English Language Education at the Department of Linguistics and English Language，Lancaster University.Among his many awards，the most prestigious one is probably the 2008 International Language Testing Association （ILTA） Lifetime Achievement Award.Professor Alderson was the first elected President of the ILTA，and is also best known for his initiation of and contribution to the founding of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment （EALTA） ，a professional association for language testers in Europe.The interview with Charles that I conducted for the inauguration issue of Contemporary Foreign，Languages Studies in 2010 provides a detailed overview of his career and contribution to language testing.I also learnt through the interview that the Department of Linguistics and English Language at LU has long connections with China，dating back to Professor Leech's visit to Beijing in 1979 and the workshops that Professor Mick Short，Professor David Carroll and Charles ran in Nanjing University in 1981.The publication of this edited volume，therefore，is not only to recognize Charles' contribution to a project at SJTU but also the long-term collaborative relationship between applied linguists in China and the UK.
The book is organized into three parts，each comprising a number of topic-related articles and covering a wide range of important topics，from ESP testing to general proficiency testing，from diagnostic and placement assessment to achievement testing，from item types to score reporting，from computer-based language testing to test impact.Part One focuses on the two major types of language tests： proficiency and achievement.Articles in this part discuss item types such as sequencing and cloze，which enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1990s.An important issue raised by Charles in Chapter 4 （Bands and Scores） is the distinction among language scales for different purposes： user-oriented scales for reporting results，assessor-oriented scales for guiding the rating process，and constructor-oriented scales for controlling test construction.Charles' elaboration of the three distinguishable purposes of language scales has exerted considerable influence on the development and use of Ianguage scales and frameworks.
Part Two is about testing English for Specific Purposes （ESP），a familiar，recurrent，but never truly dominant theme in modern language testing.As Charles commented in Chapter 13 （Testing and its administration in ESP） ，"Language testers，with very few exceptions，have ignored the ESP challenge，and there are very few papers，articles or books discussing testing in ESP." With hindsight，it seems that more articles should have been collected in this part to reflect Charles' continuing interest in both theory and practice of testing ESP，the most prominent of which was his contribution to the development and revision of the English Language Testing Service （ELTS） ， later labelled IELTS， and English assessments for the International Civil Aviation Organization （ICAO）.