[PLing] WG: Celebrating 10 years of MA in Language Testing - Symposium announcement

[Wodak, Ruth]

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SYMPOSIUM - Enhancing Language Assessment Literacy: Sharing, Broadening, Innovating
16-17 September 2016, Lancaster University (UK)

2016 represents the 10th anniversary of Lancaster University's MA in Language Testing; a unique online Masters programme. Over the past 10 years, we have trained - and learned from - students based all over the globe. At the same time, the last decade has seen increased attention in the field on language assessment literacy: how best to enhance the knowledge, skills and practices of language testing professionals. Although there have been some core recommendations on the fundamental elements of professional training in language assessment, practices naturally differ across contexts and training modalities. There is a need to share knowledge about different training approaches, and to explore practices within the academy and within the workplace. There has also been a call for language testers to develop a deep and critical understanding of language assessment and the broad discipline of Applied Linguistics with which it interfaces: language testing training should engage with state-of-the-art developments in other sub-fields of Applied Linguistics if it is to stay relevant and useful.

To celebrate this anniversary, we will therefore hold a two-day symposium designed to explore Language Assessment Literacy. This symposium will address the themes of "sharing" and "broadening" on consecutive days, with the aim of mapping out innovations for Language Assessment Literacy across different contexts. The first day - "sharing" - will include keynotes by  Professor Glenn Fulcher (University of Leicester) and Dr Meg Malone (Center for Applied Linguistics & Georgetown University, USA), and a series of papers on the topic of training language assessment professionals. The second day - "broadening" - will see a series of parallel workshops in related sub-fields which will present theories and techniques which provide novel and stimulating perspectives on language assessment practice:

*        Corpus linguistics for language assessment

*        Critical discourse analysis for language assessment

*        Ethnographic approaches for language assessment

*        Psycholinguistic approaches for language assessment
For more information: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/ltrg/symposium/
General inquiries: languagetesting at lancaster.ac.uk<mailto:languagetesting at lancaster.ac.uk>
Organizing committee: Dr Tineke Brunfaut & Dr Luke Harding

CALL FOR PAPERS

Proposals are invited for paper or poster presentations on the theme of Language Assessment Literacy (LAL). We would particularly like to encourage submissions that focus on LAL training approaches, LAL practices within the academy or workplace, and interfaces between language assessment and applied linguistics in the context of LAL research and practice.

The deadline for submission is March 31, 2016. Please send your abstract to languagetesting at lancaster.ac.uk<mailto:languagetesting at lancaster.ac.uk> and include the following information:

*        Type of presentation: poster/paper

*        Title of presentation: max. 15 words

*        Presenter information: Name(s) of the author(s) in the order that they should appear in the programme, institutional affiliation(s), location of the institution(s)

*        E-mail address of the corresponding author

*        Abstract: max. 300 words


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