Bachman, Lyle F.

AbstractLyle Bachman has been one of the leading theorists in the field of language testing for the last three decades. He was born in Iowa, USA, in 1944 and received his BA, MA, and PhD (1971) in English, all from Indiana University. Although his PhD was in English literature, his dissertation was in second language acquisition, and was based on research he conducted with schoolchildren learning English in Thailand. After completing his PhD, he went to the University of Hawai'i as assistant professor in the Departments of English and Second Language Studies. After a year in Hawaii, he took up a position as project specialist with The Ford Foundation in Thailand, where he directed a large‐scale longitudinal research and development project in individualized English language instruction for Thai elementary schools. It was while in Thailand that he developed an interest in quantitative research and language testing. In 1976, he took a position in Tehran, Iran as director of a joint University of Illinois‐Tehran University project for developing ESP materials for university students. In 1979 he returned to the USA as assistant professor in the division of English as a second language at the University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign. In 1989, he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has been since, as professor of applied linguistics teaching courses and seminars in language assessment, language program evaluation, research methods, and epistemology in applied linguistics, and directing student research projects in language testing. He has also held temporary appointments as chair professor and director of the English Language Teaching Unit at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1994–6) and Fulbright fellow and visiting professor in the faculty of education at the University of Hong Kong (2008–9).