LTF: LTF 2019

LTF 2019

LTF 2019 was hosted by the Department of Applied Linguistics and English Language Training Services (ELTS) at Swansea University from 22-24 November 2019.

The principal theme of LTF 2019 was Connecting research, policy and practice in language assessment with three related sub-themes:

Assessing UK languages other than English
Research-informed assessment practice and practice-informed assessment research
Impact of language assessment on educational and societal contexts

The conference was formally opened on the Friday evening with the Cyril J. Weir lecture, with keynote speaker Dr Emyr Davies speaking on the topic: Golwg ar Asesu’r Gymraeg / Perspectives on the Assessment of Welsh

LTF 2019 programme

A pre-conference workshop led by Dawn Knight, Steve Morris and Lucy Davis gave participants the opportunity to think about Corpus Linguistics for Researchers and Practitioners. It was targeted towards those wishing to use corpus techniques effectively and efficiently for research and practitioner purposes.

Participants were given the opportunity to explore English language and Welsh language corpora, to consider the wide range of applications of corpus research, and to develop skills for identifying and using corpora for specific purposes via a series of workshop sessions throughout the day on Friday 22nd November.

LTF 2019 workshop ~ English

LTF 2019 workshop ~ Cymraeg

LTF 2019 Presentations

A Knowledge-based Vocabulary List (KVL): A List for Testing and Pedagogy: Norbert Schmitt, Barry O’Sullivan, Laurence Anthony, Karen Dunn, Benjamin Kremmel

Researching Lexical Profiles (LP) in learner written English: Nathaniel Owen, Prithvi Shrestha

Understanding plurilingual students’ home and community language learning in school in Wales: Elin Arfon

Performance-based decision trees vs traditional marking criteria: an exploratory study: Elena Gandini, Tania Horák

Language assessment literacy development in a Haitian professional learning community (PLC): Beverly Baker

Developing computer-based speaking tasks to assess the ‘mediation’ construct: Jing Xu, Annabelle Pinnington

EFL test-takers’ audience awareness in an Email writing task: Ying Chen

The impact of test preparation and repeated test taking on the predictive validity of IELTS as a standardised measure of English proficiency: Ruolin Hu, Danijela Trenkic

Enabling interaction: A study of examiner behaviour in an interactive speaking test: Richard Harris

Building a Spoken Counterpart to the Cambridge Learner Corpus: Mark Brenchley

Darogan Hygyrchedd Eitemau wrth Asesu’r Gymraeg | Predicting Item Difficulty in the Assessment of Welsh: Emyr Davies, Joanna Maziarz, Lillie Halton, Alun Evans

Applying ‘limits of agreement’ to validation of automated scoring of language performance: Edmund Jones, Jing Xu

Reflections and future directions: Tony Clark, Nahal Khabbazbashi

The student presentation award (sponsored by Cambridge Assessment English) was awarded to Richard Harris for his talk on “Enabling interaction: A study of examiner behaviour in an interactive speaking test”.

Beverly Baker received the British Council ARG international achievement award for her work with teachers in Haiti to build a professional community of practice.

The winner of the poster presentation prize (sponsored by Text Inspector) was Lucy Davis of Swansea ELTS for her presentation addressing the question “What are EAP raters looking for in a written task?”