---

This volume presents research focusing on a locally developed multilingual exam suite known as KPG (The Greek National Foreign Language Exam System). The "glocal" KPG exams take into account local needs, global conditions of knowledge and production and international concerns regarding testing and assessment.

---

In contrast to most publications in language testing and assessment, which address research and developments of international, monolingual exam batteries, this volume aims to present research studies focusing on a locally developed multilingual exam suite known as KPG (The Greek National Foreign Language Exam System). The KPG exams, which represent a "glocal" multilingual examination battery, are the first of their kind in Europe, and take into account local needs, global conditions of knowledge and production, and international concerns regarding testing and assessment.

The chapters included in this volume highlight many of the innovative features of the KPG exam suite and focus on various issues relating to the reliability and validity of glocal language tests. These include the effect of text and reader variables on reading comprehension, different world representations and ideologies in reading texts, interlocutor performance variability, source text regulated written mediation performance, writing and listening task difficulty, and the effect of task and assessment variables and corpus-based research of text grammar on KPG candidates´ scripts - all of which have important implications for global language testing and practices.

---

CONTENTS: Evdokia Karavas/Bessie Mitsikopoulou: Introduction: Issues and challenges in glocal language testing: The case of the Greek State Certificate in Language Proficiency - Bessie Mitsikopoulou/Evdokia Karavas/Christina Lykou: The sociosemiotic language view underlying the design of the KPG exams - Elisabeth Apostolou: Oral text difficulty in foreign language listening comprehension testing - Xenia Delieza: The impact of oral examiners´ conduct on candidates´ performance in the KPG exam - Amalia Balourdi: Investigating ideologies in texts used in global and "glocal" language testing - Styliani Karatza:Visual matters in language testing: Exploring intersemiotic meaning making in reading comprehension source texts - Trisevgeni Liontou: Test-takers´ strategies in responding to KPG English language reading comprehension tasks: Evidence from retrospective think-aloud protocols - Virginia-Maria Blani: A comparative study of cohesion in L2 candidates´ texts - Vasso Oikonomidou: The effect of source text on read-to-write task difficulty - Maria Stathopoulou: Assessing cross-language mediation in the Greek national multilingual exam suite: Test-takers´ language performance and strategy use - Voula Gotsoulia: Documenting language proficiency levels using learner data from the KPG examinations suite - Bessie Mitsikopoulou/Evdokia Karavas/Smaragda Papadopoulou: KPG e-school: The diffusion and implementation of an educational innovation - Evdokia Karavas/Bessie Mitsikopoulou: Conclusion: (G)Local alternatives in testing.

---