UKALTA

UK Association for Language Testing and Assessment

LTF 2020: In conversation with…

Senior figures from our field reflect on four decades of LTA in the UK, including the role of LTF 1980-2020.

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1980s – Professor Liz Hamp-Lyons

After a long career, Liz Hamp-Lyons is now Visiting [Honorary] Professor of English Language Assessment at CRELLA at the University of Bedfordshire, UK, and Guest Professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, China, where she has been Senior Consultant to the College English Test (CET) since 2006.  The main focus of her research and test development projects has been on writing assessment. She has also conducted research on test washback, school-based at secondary school level in Hong Kong, and the testing/assessment of English for Academic Purposes.   She is former Editor of Assessing Writing and founding Editor of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. 

 1990s – Dr Nick Saville

Dr Nick Saville has 40 years’ experience in language teaching and assessment having begun his career as a university teacher in Italy in 1980. He has worked in Cambridge since 1989 and is now Director of Research and Thought Leadership for Cambridge Assessment English. He holds a BA in Linguistics and an MA in TEFL from the University of Reading, and a PhD from the University of Bedfordshire in language assessment impact. 

His current research interests include assessment and learning in the digital age; the use of ethical AI; language policy and multilingualism; the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) and its “toolkit”; Learning Oriented Assessment (LOA) and impact research. Nick presents regularly at international conferences and has published widely.

He is the elected Secretary-General of the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) and co-editor of the Studies in Language Testing series with Prof Lynda Taylor.

2000s – Professor Anthony Green

Anthony (Tony) Green is Professor in Language Assessment and Director of the Centre for English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) at the University of Bedfordshire, UK. At the beginning of the 2000s he was a student, completing his PhD at the University of Surrey, Roehampton in 2003. In the course of the decade he attended his first LTF (in Bristol in 2000), worked on institutional, national and international testing programmes as a test designer, item writer administrator and rater and became an academic. He joined Cambridge Assessment English as a Validation Officer, moved on to CRELLA as a lecturer in language assessment and published his first book: IELTS Washback in Context in 2007. 

2010s – Professor Tineke Brunfaut

Tineke Brunfaut is a Professor in Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, where she specializes in language testing and second language reading and listening. Her main research interests are: cognitive and affective factors and processes in language testing, methodology in language testing research, and language test development. Her research has been published in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Assessment in Education, Assessing Writing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Testing, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and TESOL Quarterly. She is a recipient of the ILTA Best Article Award, the e-Assessment Award for Best Research, and the TOEFL Outstanding Young Scholar Award. She also regularly conducts language test development and consultancy work for professional and educational bodies around the world.