Editors & Contributors

Editor-in-Chief – Contributors

Editor-in-Chief

Antony John Kunnan is Professor at California State University, Los Angeles and at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of Validation in Language Assessment (1998), Fairness and Validation in Language Assessment (2000), and Statistical Analysis for Language Assessment Workbook and CD-ROM (with L. F. Bachman, 2005). He is also the founding editor of Language Assessment Quarterly, past President of the International Language Testing Association, former member of the TOEFL Committee of Examiners, and current member of the US Fulbright national review panel for TEFL/Applied Linguistics.

Contributors

Eija Aalto works as a lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education at theUniversity of Jyväskylä, Finland. She specializes in language teaching and learning, especially functional approaches.

Jamal Abedi is a professor of measurement in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis, USA, and a research partner at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Abedi ’ s research interests include studies in the areas of psychometrics and test and scale developments.

Priyanvada Abeywickrama is an assistant professor at San Francisco State University, USA, where she teaches in the MA TESOL program. Her research interest is in language assessment, specifically examining issues of validity. She presents regularly at TESOL, AAL, and LTRC. She is the coauthor of Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices (with H. D. Brown, 2010).

Piers Armstrong has graduate degrees in Romance literatures and linguistics, TESOL, and educational technology, and is an ATA certifi ed Spanish–English translator. He coordinates the legal interpretation and translation program at California State University, Los Angeles, USA.

Lyle F. Bachman is professor emeritus at the Department of Applied Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. His most recent book is Language Assessment in Practice (with Adrian Palmer, 2010).

Michele Back teaches Portuguese for Spanish speakers and Spanish linguistics at George Mason University, Fairfax, USA. She has lived and worked in the Portuguese-speaking countries of Mozambique and Brazil. Her main research focuses on the roles of identity and community for learners of Spanish and Portuguese. Jungok Bae is a professor at the Department of English Education, Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea. She has a PhD in applied linguistics with a specialization in language assessment from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She has published in journals including Language Testing , Language Learning , and Language Assessment Quarterly.

Alison L. Bailey is a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and a faculty associate researcher for the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. A graduate of Harvard University, her research focuses primarily on children ’ s language and literacy development and the assessment of academic language.

Khaled Barkaoui is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at York University, Canada. His research focuses on second language assessment, program evaluation, second language learning and teaching, writing, and research methods.

Fiona Barker is senior research and validation manager at University of Cambridge, ESOL Examinations, England. Her main research interests are the development of learner corpora and corpus exploitation for language assessment. Fiona is involved in English Profi le data collection, which obtains learners ’ productive data to inform this interdisciplinary research program.

Richard Beach is professor emeritus of English education at the University of Minnesota, USA. He has authored 18 books, including Teaching Literature to Adolescents .He is also organizing editor for the annual Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English and president-elect of the Literacy Research Association.

Kaitlyn Begg completed a bachelor of arts with a major in linguistics and an extended minor in psychology at Simon Fraser University, Canada. She is studying speech-language pathology at McGill University, Canada.

David Beglar teaches in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology in Education Department at Temple University, Japan. His interests are vocabulary acquisition and language assessment.

Adriana Boffi is professor of spoken English at the University of La Plata, Argentina. She has a degree in TEFL from the Instituto Nacional del Profesorado, Buenos Aires, and completed postgraduate work in experimental phonetics and the phonology of English at University College London. She has been involved with University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations since 1985 as speaking examiner, team leader, and currently professional support leader for Argentina and Chile. Her current interests are assessment and teacher education.

Brent Bridgeman joined Educational Testing Service, USA, in 1974 where he is currently a distinguished presidential appointee. His recent work focuses on validity and fairness issues, especially with respect to differences in scoring methods, test format, and timing. His journal publications since 2005 have appeared in International Journal of Testing , Language Testing , Journal of Educational Measurement , Assessing Writing , Applied Measurement in Education , The Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment , The Journal of College Admission , and Psychological Science.

Rachel L. Brooks manages the Testing Standards Program in the FBI ’ s Language Testing and Assessment Unit, USA. She oversees the speaking tester program, test quality control, research and validation projects, and tester training. Her research and publications address government testing issues, including rater characteristics and forensic linguistics methods applied to testing.

James Dean Brown is professor in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at M ā noa, USA. He has spoken and taught courses in places ranging from Brazil to Yugoslavia, and has published numerous articles and books on language testing, curriculum design, program evaluation, and research methods.

Frances A. Butler is a language-testing consultant in the USA, and focuses on language assessment and related issues. For 15 years, she was a senior research associate and language-testing specialist at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Known for her research on language testing and academic language, she has directed test development projects and research that focused on primary and secondary language minority populations as well as adult ESL learners.

Cecilie Carlsen is leader of Norsk språktest (Folkeuniversitetet/University of Bergen, Norway). She holds a PhD in language assessment and a master ’ s degree in second language acquisition. She has been working in the fi eld of language assessment since the late 1990s, mainly developing and validating tests for adult immigrants. Her research interests are oral testing, test ethics, language transfer, and learner corpora.

Nathan T. Carr is an associate professor of TESOL at California State University, Fullerton, USA. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his scholarly interests focus on validation, Web-based testing, the automated scoring of limited production tasks, and the training of language teachers in language assessment theory and practice.

Wing Sat Chan is principal lecturer and director of the Chinese Language Centre at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. He has produced papers such as “Extending the Functions of Cloze Test to Assess Both Receptive and Productive Performances in Written Chinese” and “The Cultural Adaptation of Chinese Letters for Professional Communication in the Bi-Literal Trilingual Setting of Hong Kong.”

Pritha Chandra is assistant professor of linguistics in the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. She has worked extensively on the syntax and semantics of Hindi and other Indian languages.

Carol A. Chapelle is distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences at Iowa State University, USA. She is author of books on technology for language learning and assessment, coeditor of the Cambridge Applied Linguistics series, and editor of The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics . She has served as TESOL Quarterly editor and AAAL president.

Ying-Fang Chen is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, USA. Her research interests have focused on the development and application of mixture item response theory modeling, differential item functioning, and largescale assessments.

Liying Cheng is professor and director of the Assessment and Evaluation Group (AEG) at the Faculty of Education, Queen ’ s University, Canada. Her primary research interests are the impact of large-scale testing on instruction, the relationship between classroom assessment and instruction, and the academic and professional acculturation of international and new immigrant students, workers, and professionals to Canada.

Andrew D. Cohen , from the University of Minnesota, USA, has published Language Learner Strategies: 30 Years of Research and Practice with Ernesto Macaro (2007), Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet with Noriko Ishihara (2010), Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language (2011), and written an online course, “Assessing Language Ability in Young Adults and Adults.”

Deborah Crusan is professor of TESOL/applied linguistics at Wright State University, USA. She has published in Assessing Writing , Language Testing , English for Specific Purposes , and TESOL Quarterly , and edited collections about second language writing. Her book, Assessment in the Second Language Writing Classroom (2010), was published by University of Michigan Press.

Alister Cumming is professor and head of the Centre for Research on Languages and Literacies (CERLL, formerly the Modern Language Centre) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada. His research and teaching focus on writing in second languages, literacy and assessment in classroom and formal testing contexts, and curriculum evaluation, particularly of programs for English as a second or foreign language.

Jee Wha Dakin was senior research and validation manager at Oxford University Press, England, where she conducted research related to test development and validation. Her professional interests include research related to test development, grammar assessment, content-based assessment, classroom-based assessment, language program evaluation, and English for specific purposes assessment.

Fred Davidson is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, USA. His scholarly interests include language testing, research design and statistics for applied linguistics, and the history and philosophy of educational and psychological measurement.

Alan Davies is emeritus professor of applied linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He has taught English and applied linguistics in East Africa, Nepal, and Hong Kong and was founder and director of the Language Testing Research Centre at the University of Melbourne.

Emyr Davies is the Welsh for adults examinations officer at CBAC-WJEC, based in Cardiff, Wales. He is also the representative for Welsh in the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE).

Bart Deygers has been involved in language teaching and testing both as a tutor and as a researcher. Currently, he is working on the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT) project at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, where he is responsible for the professional language profiles and for the validation of authentic rating criteria. Additionally he works as a language policy officer at Ghent University, Belgium. His main research interests include task-based testing, authenticity in language testing, and rating scale development.

Catherine J. Doughty is senior research scientist/area director for SLA research at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, USA, and affiliated professor for the PhD program in SLA. She conducts research on aptitude, advanced learners, and instructed SLA, and has coedited Wiley- Blackwell ’s Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (2003) and The Handbook of Language Teaching (2009).

Diana Eades, adjunct professor at the University of New England, Australia, is a sociolinguist with special interest in language in the legal process, and in assessment of origin claims of asylum seekers. She is coeditor of International Journal of Speech Language and the Law , and co-convenor of the Language and Asylum Research Group.

Samira ElAtia is assistant professor at the bilingual Campus Saint-Jean of the University of Alberta, Canada. She is in charge of the language entrance examinations at the campus. She holds a PhD in applied linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Cathie Elder is a former director of the Language Testing Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and former editor of the journal Language Testing. She has published widely in the field of language testing, in particular on occupation-specific testing, on rate behavior, and on assessment in heritage language contexts.

David P. Ellis is associate director at the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland, USA.

Gudrun Erickson is associate professor of education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is project leader for the national assessment program for foreign languages and has extensive experience in curriculum development and international assessment projects. Between 2006 and 2012, she was secretary of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA). Her main research and publication focus is on collaborative approaches to the development of good practices in language testing and assessment, in particular contributions by test takers.

Rosemary Erlam is a senior lecturer in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She comes from a background in speech-language therapy and in teaching French. Along with language assessment, her research interests include second language acquisition and teacher education. She has published in a number of leading international journals.

Hossein Farhady currently teaches at Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran. He has taught graduate courses in many universities, presented papers at professional conferences, conducted workshops, and published at national and international levels. His major areas of interest are research methodology, language assessment, and ESP.

Timothy Farnsworth is assistant professor of TESOL at CUNY Hunter College in New York City, USA. He has worked extensively on evaluation of international teaching assistants and other topics in oral language assessment.

Neus Figueras holds a PhD in language testing from the University of Barcelona and is currently working in the Departament d ’ Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain, where she is involved in language test development. She is also lecturing part-time at the University of Barcelona, Spain. She has been involved in a number of international research and development projects and collaborates regularly with the Council of Europe in the dissemination of the Common European Framework of Reference in relation to testing and assessment. She was the first president (2004–7) of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA) and she is now an expert member.

Sarah A. Fish is a doctoral candidate in the program in applied linguistics at Boston University, USA.

Janna Fox is an associate professor and director of the Language Assessment and Testing Research Unit within the School of Linguistics and Languages Studies at Carleton University, Canada. Her research emphases include language test development, validation, and the interplay between language policy, curricula, assessment, and stakeholder impact.

Robert French is an assessment specialist in English language-learning assessments at Educational Testing Service, USA. He coordinates the TOEFL iBT listening section, and helps coordinate TOEFL- related research at ETS.

Glenn Fulcher is professor of education and language assessment in the School of Education at the University of Leicester, England. He read philosophy and theology at King’s College London and education at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He then studied applied linguistics and language testing at the universities of Birmingham and Lancaster. He is author of Testing Second Language Speaking (2003), Practical Language Testing (2010), and, with Fred Davidson, Language Testing and Assessment (2007) and The Routledge Handbook of Language Testing (2012).

Evelina D. Galaczi is principal research and validation manager at University of Cambridge, ESOL Examinations, England. She has extensive experience as a researcher in speaking assessment, and as an ESOL teacher, teacher trainer, and program administrator. Her current role involves providing ongoing operational and quality assurance support for the speaking component of Cambridge ESOL examinations. Evelina also holds the role of managing editor of the Studies in Language Testing series. Her research interests include performance assessment and qualitative approaches to assessment research.

Rubina Gasparyan graduated from the Yerevan State Institute of Foreign Languages, completed her graduate studies toward an MA TEFL at the MIIS, and received her MA in TEFL from the American University of Armenia, Armenia. From 2007 to 2010, she headed the committee entrusted with developing guidelines for the Unified School Leaving and University Entrance Tests of English. She has presented papers on language testing and assessment at professional conferences (AELTA, TESOL Arabia, ALTE) and is the coauthor of reports and manuals.

Atta Gebril is an assistant professor in the MATEFL program at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he teaches courses in language testing and research methods. Previously, he worked at ACT, Inc., College of William and Mary, and the UAE University. His research interests include large- scale and classroom assessment, L2 writing, and test validation.

Ardeshir Geranpayeh is head of psychometrics and data services at University of Cambridge, ESOL Examinations, England. He has 22 years of experience in test validation and has contributed to the design, development, validation, revision, and evaluation of many internationally recognized language proficiency tests. He is a regular presenter and workshop leader in several international conferences (such as the National Council on Measurement in Education, the Association of Test Publishers, the Language Testing Research Colloquium, the Language Testing Forum, and the International Test Commission) and has published extensively on language proficiency testing. April Ginther is an associate professor of second language studies and linguistics at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA. She is also the director of the oral English proficiency program at the university. Her research examines the development and administration of oral English proficiency tests. In 2012, she became the coeditor of the journal Language Testing .

William Grabe is Regents Professor of Applied Linguistics in the English Department at Northern Arizona University, USA. He is interested in research on L2 reading, L2 writing, literacy, written discourse analysis, and relevant applications to instruction.

Kirby C. Grabowski is lecturer in linguistics and language education at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA, where she teaches courses in second language assessment, generalizability theory, pedagogical grammar, classroom practices, and teaching practice. Her research interests are in the assessment of grammatical and pragmatic knowledge in the context of speaking.

Anthony Green is reader in language assessment at the University of Bedfordshire, England. He is the author of IELTS Washback in Context (2007) and Language Functions Revisited (2012) and has extensive experience as a test item writer and item writer trainer as well as experience of managing major test development projects around the world.

Brent A. Green has a PhD in applied linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. His interests include language assessment, corpus-driven learning, and ESL/EFL pedagogy. He has taught EFL/ESL and TESOL courses in the Marshall Islands, Taiwan, Utah, Tonga, Samoa, California, and Hawaii. He is an associate professor of English at Salt Lake Community College, USA.

Giuliana Grego Bolli is associate professor at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, Italy, where she teaches language testing. Since 2005, she has been charged with the direction of CVCL, a research center for assessment and language certify cation formerly established within the university. Professor Grego Bolli has been responsible for several research projects in the area of language assessment in Italian since the early 1990s and is the author of several publications.

Paul Gruba , from the University of Melbourne, Australia, has a long-held interest in the role of media in language assessment, and continues to research computermediated communication, blended learning and the influence of social media in language use.

Mirtsa Halajyan graduated from the Yerevan State University and taught Armenian at school. Mirtsa became a candidate of philological sciences in 2004 and, since 2005, has been working in the Assessment and Testing Center, Armenia. Mirtsa has authored and coauthored manuals on Armenian and guidelines for the Unified School Leaving and University Entrance Tests of Armenian.

Jette G. Hansen Edwards is associate professor of applied English linguistics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Her main research interests include peer assessment, the acquisition of a second language phonology, and language variation.

Volker Hegelheimer is associate professor of applied linguistics in the Department of English and the PhD program in applied linguistics and technology at Iowa State University, USA. He teaches graduate courses on technology in second language teaching and research, language testing, and research methods as well as technology-enhanced undergraduate English as a second language (ESL) courses. His research interests include applications of the Web and emerging technologies in language learning and language testing. His publications have appeared in various edited volumes and in refereed journals such as CALICO , Language Learning & Technology , Language Testing , System , and ReCALL.

Margaret Heritage is assistant director for professional development at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Her most recent publications include the chapter “Gathering Evidence” in the SAGE Handbook of Research on Classroom Assessment (2012), a coauthored paper, “Instruction for Diverse Groups of English Language Learners,” published by Stanford University, and a coauthored paper on teacher questioning in Applied Measurement in Education.

Kathryn Hill joined the School of Medicine at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2007. Prior to that she was research fellow at the Language Testing Research Centre (LTRC), where she was involved in an extensive range of assessment research projects. Her doctoral research was an ethnographic study of classroom-based assessment in foreign language instruction in schools.

Mika Hoffman is the executive director of the Center for Educational Measurement at Excelsior College, USA. She worked in government language testing from 2001 until early 2012 in the Test Development Division at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, California; previously she worked on several large-scale high stakes tests in the private sector.

Robert J. Hoffmeister is the director of the Center for the Study of Communication and the Deaf at Boston University, USA. He is a faculty member in the graduate programs in literacy, language, and culture and in applied linguistics.

Juliane House is professor emerita of applied linguistics at Hamburg University, Germany, and director of the PhD program in applied linguistics at Hellenic American University, Greece. She has published widely in the fi elds of contrastive pragmatics, intercultural communication, English as a lingua franca, and translation theory. In 2009 her book Translation appeared with Oxford University Press.

Russanne Hozayin is currently associate professor of practice at the Graduate School of Education, the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Her responsibilities include the development of professional educator certifi cate programs for teachers and school administrators and the overall planning and coordination for the professional development school models in Egypt.

Thom Hudson is professor of second language studies at the University of Hawai‘iat Mānoa, USA, and coeditor of the electronic journal Reading in a Foreign Language. His research has concentrated on second language testing, reading, language for specific purposes, and program development.

Ari Huhta specializes in language test design and research on language testing and assessment. He has participated in several national and international research and development projects, most notably in the DIALANG project from 1996 to 2004. Currently, he is involved in research at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, that tries to understand foreign/second language profi ciency and learning by combining language testing, second language acquisition, and first language learning approaches.

Ofra Inbar-Lourie heads the Unit for Teacher Education at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and lectures on language education and assessment. Her research interests include language assessment culture and literacy and language policy, specifi cally with regard to native language teachers and teacher education.

Marsha Ing is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside, USA. She received her PhD in quantitative research methods from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her current research includes measuring mathematics and science teaching and learning.

Yo In’nami teaches at Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan. He is also a PhD candidate adviser and an external PhD examiner at Temple University, Japan. He is interested in meta-analytic inquiry into the variability of effects and the longitudinal measurement of change in language proficiency. He has published in International Journal of Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Testing, System, and TESOL Quarterly.

Talia Isaacs is a lecturer in education in TESOL/applied linguistics at the University of Bristol, England, and co-coordinator of the Centre for Assessment and Evaluation Research. Her research focuses on second language pronunciation assessment, including rating scale development, rater processes, and communication breakdowns and strategies in workplace and academic settings.

Joan Jamieson is a professor of applied linguistics at Northern Arizona University, USA, who has participated in several projects involving second language testing and technology.

Eunice Eunhee Jang is associate professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada. Her research areas include diagnostic assessment, classroom assessment for K-12 language learners, evaluation of school effectiveness in international contexts, and validity and fairness issues in testing.

Debi Jaratjarungkiat teaches at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. She has worked on the Thai language proficiency test for native speakers.

Jennifer Jenkins is chair of global Englishes at the University of Southampton, England. She has published extensively in the fi eld of English as a lingua franca, including two monographs, The Phonology of English as an International Language (2000), and English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity (2007). She is currently conducting research for a monograph on the implications of English as a lingua franca for academic English policies and practices.

Xiangying Jiang is assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages at West Virginia University, USA. Her research interests include the development of L2 reading abilities, L2 language assessment practices, and L1 transfer in second language acquisition.

Hong Jiao is an assistant professor in measurement, statistics, and evaluation at the University of Maryland, USA. Her research interests include item response theory, multilevel measurement modeling, and finite mixture item response theory models. She is interested in applying these modeling approaches to deal with psychometric issues in large-scale assessments.

Okim Kang is assistant professor of applied linguistics at Northern Arizona University, USA. Her research focuses on L2 pronunciation, oral language assessment, speech perception and language attitudes, and World Englishes. She was the winner of the Christopher Brumfi t PhD Thesis 2009 Award and a finalist for the Jacqueline Ross TOEFL Dissertation 2009 Award.

Anne M. Katz teaches courses in learner assessment for the MATESOL program at The New School, New York, USA. Her publishing has centered on classroom assessment, academic English, standards, and effective classroom practices for second language learners. In her work, she promotes linkages between research and school contexts to support active and collaborative professional development.

Peter Keegan received his PhD in applied linguistics from Victoria University of Wellington in 2003. He is a senior lecturer in Te Puna Wānanga, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research interests include measurement/assessment, Māori and indigenous language documentation and conservation, the structure of the Māori language, Māori-medium education, and the educational achievement of Māori and minority students.

Dorry M. Kenyon is vice president for programs and director of CAL/WIDA partnership activities at the Center for Applied Linguistics, USA. He directs or serves as senior advisor on a wide variety of projects related to the assessment of second language skills and has also served as CAL’s chief psychometrician.

Michael J. Kieffer is assistant professor of education at New York University, USA. He received his EdD and EdM from Harvard Graduate School of Education. A former middle school ESL teacher, his research focuses on the development of second language literacy, vocabulary, and morphology, particularly among adolescent learners.

Chungsook Kim heads the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Korea University, Republic of Korea. He has published articles on the TOPIK and writing assessment.

Jiyoung Kim is a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, Republic of Korea. She has worked as an assessment specialist at the Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with specialization in language testing. Her research areas include test development, alternative assessment, mixed methods research, and interface between second language learning and assessment.

Sun Hee Ok Kim researches in the area of foreign/second language learning and teaching, bilingualism, teacher talk, and language assessment in Auckland, New Zealand. Since completing her PhD she has worked on Australian national projects on language learners in various contexts. She has published a number of articles in major international journals.

Rie Koizumi teaches at Juntendo University, Japan. She is interested in examining the validity of the interpretations and uses of the scores of speaking and vocabulary tests and in modeling factor structures of language ability and performance, especially with respect to fluency, accuracy, and syntactic complexity of oral production. Her publications have appeared in Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Testing, International Journal of Testing, TESOL Quarterly, and JALT Journal.

Kaoru Koyanagi is associate professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University, Japan. Her research interest is in SLA and the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language.

Pranee Kullavanijaya is professor emerita at the Sirindhorn Thai Language Center, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, where she heads L1 and L2 Thai proficiency tests. She was the first editor of Manusya: Journal of Humanities, an English academic journal by Thai academics, and her writings have appeared in The Tai-Kadai Languages (2008), Grammatical Analysis: Morphology, Syntax and Semantics (2000), and Journal of Language and Culture and Language Science.

Antony John Kunnan is Professor of English Language and Literature at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has authored and edited books and edited special issues of journals on test validation, test fairness, statistics for language assessment, differential item functioning, and structural equation modeling. His most recent book is Workbook for Statistics in Language Assessment (coauthored with Lyle Bachman, 2005). He was the founding editor of Language Assessment Quarterly, which he has edited since 2003, and is past president of the International Language Testing Association.

Marlon Kuntze is a faculty member in the School of Education, Gallaudet University, USA.

Usha Lakshmanan is a professor in the departments of psychology and linguistics at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA. Her research straddles the interrelated areas of child first language acquisition (monolingual and bilingual), second language acquisition (child and adult) and sentence processing.

Anne Lazaraton is an associate professor and program director of second language studies at the University of Minnesota, USA, where she teaches courses in ESL teaching methodology, language analysis, and discourse analysis. Her research interests include speaking assessment, English grammar in use, and digital discourse.

Junho Lee, professor of Korean language education at Gyeongin National University of Education, Republic of Korea, majored in Korean language and education as a foreign/second language. He specializes in Korean language assessment and Korean for academic purposes, on which he has published various articles.

Constant Leung is professor of educational linguistics in the Department of Education and Professional Studies at King’s College London, England. His research interests include additional/second language curriculum, language assessment, language education in ethnically and linguistically diverse societies, language policy, and teacher professional development.

Jo Lewkowicz has been teaching and researching in Poland in recent years. She is currently acting as advisor to the University Council for the Certification of Foreign Language Proficiency at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Her previous experience has included teaching at university level in Egypt, Kenya, China, Hong Kong, Armenia, and the UK.

Gad S. Lim is senior research and validation manager at University of Cambridge, ESOL Examinations, England, where he leads research, presents, and publishes on the assessment of writing, on comparability studies, and on IELTS. He has taught in higher education and trained language teachers in Asia, the USA, and Europe.

Lorena Llosa is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, USA. Her interests include language assessment, second and foreign language teaching and learning, and program evaluation.

Luxia Qi is a professor of English at the Centre for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. She has been involved in designing, developing, and reforming large-scale English tests in China. Her current research interests are test development and impact of testing on teaching and learning.

Irshat Madyarov received his PhD in second language acquisition and instructional technology from the University of South Florida, USA, and his MA in TESOL from West Virginia University, USA. He is currently an assistant professor at the Department of English Programs, American University of Armenia, Armenia.

Jeanne Malloy is a test specialist at Educational Testing Service, USA. She works on the reading and writing sections of the TOEFL iBT test. Her current research interests focus on efforts to improve the process of selecting texts for use in the testing of reading comprehension.

Margaret E. Malone is senior testing associate at the Center for Applied Linguistics, USA.

George A. Marcoulides is a professor of research methods and statistics in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside, USA. He is currently the editor of Structural Equation Modeling, Educational and Psychological Measurement, and Routledge’s Quantitative Methodology Series, and on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals.

Rama Mathew is professor of education at Delhi University, India. Previously she taught at the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, where she worked on language teacher education and assessment for more than 20 years. She has coordinated several ELT projects. Her current interests include teaching English to young learners, teacher education, and proficiency assessment.

Kyle McIntosh is a PhD candidate in English (second language studies) at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA. He has taught in China and the Republic of Korea. His research interests include second language writing, English for academic purposes, and intercultural rhetoric. He enjoys spending any spare time hanging out with his wife and son.

J. Dean Mellow is an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He studies both first and second language acquisition from linguistic, cognitive, cultural (i.e., noncolonial), and pedagogical perspectives.

Dushyanthi Mendis, a senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, teaches both language and literature to undergraduate and graduate students. Her research combines her interests in discourse and language policy. She has presented widely and has published in TESOL Quarterly .

Eli Moe is working at the University of Bergen, Norway, leading the group developing computerized national tests in English for Norwegian school children, as well as developing partly adaptive computerized tests in Norwegian for adult immigrants at VOX. She holds a master’s degree in second language acquisition (SLA), and her research interests are SLA, test validation, standard setting, and computerized testing.

Megan Montee is a testing specialist at the Center for Applied Linguistics, USA. K. V. V. L. Narasimha Rao has a PhD in Hindi linguistics, master’s degrees in Hindi language and literature and TESOL, and a certificate in educational testing. He worked as principal at the Central Institute of Indian Languages, India, for 30 years directing, designing, preparing instructional materials for adoption in different media, working on language evaluation and testing, and teaching major Dravidian languages as second / foreign languages. He has published 26 books (24 in English, two in Hindi, and two in Telugu) and approximately 100 research papers on various aspects of language education and allied disciplines including Hindi and Telugu languages, literature, and folklore.

Paul Nation is emeritus professor of applied linguistics in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has taught in Indonesia, Thailand, the USA, Finland, and Japan. His specialist interests are language-teaching methodology and vocabulary learning. The second edition of his book Learning Vocabulary in Another Language will appear in 2013 with Cambridge University Press.

Susan Nissan is a senior director of English Language Learning Assessments at Educational Testing Service, USA. She coordinated the development and design of the TOEFL iBT listening measure, and has authored and coauthored a number of reports and journal articles on second language testing.

Gary J. Ockey received his PhD in applied linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is now a Research Scientist at Educational Testing Service, USA. He is interested in language assessment and quantitative research methodology.

John W. Oller, Jr., was formerly at the University of California, Los Angeles, then at the University of New Mexico. Since founding the PhD in applied language sciences at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, USA, Oller has focused on the diagnosis and etiology of disorders ranging from genetics to high stakes discourse. In 240 + articles and 16 books he has dealt extensively with measurement issues.

Mats Oscarson, professor emeritus (education) at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has specialized in language learning by adults and language testing and assessment, in particular learner self-assessment of language ability. He has written extensively on these subjects and has also authored a range of foreign language textbooks. He has a long record of active participation in language education research projects.

Barry O ’ Sullivan is particularly interested in issues related to performance testing, test validation, and test data management and analysis. He has lectured for many years on various aspects of language testing, and is currently the senior advisor for assessment at the British Council and director of the Centre for Language Assessment Research (CLARe) at the University of Roehampton, England.

Mingwei Pan is a PhD student in language testing under the supervision of Professor David D. Qian in the Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. The title of his thesis is “Towards a Rating Scale for Group Discussion in Formative Assessment: A Validation Study in the Chinese EFL Context.” Spiros Papageorgiou is a language assessment specialist at Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments, University of Michigan, USA, where he conducts research related to language-testing programs and manages test development projects. His main research interest, standard setting, was the topic of his PhD dissertation, for which he was awarded the Jacqueline Ross TOEFL Dissertation Award in 2009.

Caroline Payant is an assistant professor of applied linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Idaho, USA. Her areas of interest include second language/multilingual acquisition, task- based language teaching, and teacher education. She has extensive experience in teaching TESOL/applied linguistic courses and French, Spanish, and English courses.

Michaela Perlmann-Balme works on test-developing projects. She is the representative of the Goethe- Institut (Germany) in the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE), was director of the development of the Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer, and is a representative for German in the European Survey of Language Competence, which investigates foreign language achievements of young learners.

Aek Phakiti teaches at the University of Sydney, Australia, and researches second language acquisition, language testing and assessment, and research methods in language learning. Aek has published his research in the journals Language Testing, Language Learning, and Language Assessment Quarterly.

Lucy Pickering is associate professor in the Department of Literature and Languages and director of the Applied Linguistics Laboratory at Texas A&M University, Commerce, USA. Her research explores second language oral discourse, the pedagogical applications of computer-assisted speech analysis, and the ways in which learners develop competence in relation to prosody.

John Pill is a PhD student at the University of Melbourne, Australia, working on a three-year project entitled “Towards Improved Healthcare Communication.” He is a teacher of English as a foreign language and teacher trainer. Before returning to study, he was assessment manager for the Occupational English Test.

Lia Plakans is an assistant professor in foreign language/ESL education at the University of Iowa, USA. Her research focuses on assessing integrated skills, test use, and connections in L2 reading and writing. She teaches graduate courses in language assessment, language planning and policy, and second language learning.

Matthew E. Poehner is assistant professor of world languages education and applied linguistics at Pennsylvania State University, USA. He has published numerous papers on Vygotskian theory and second language learning, especially in the area of dynamic assessment. He is the author of Dynamic Assessment: A Vygotskian Approach to Understanding and Promoting L2 Development (2008).

Madhav P. Pokharel teaches at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Reinhilde Pulinx studied political sciences and international relations, and is currently a doctoral student at the Linguistics Department (Centre for Diversity and Learning), Ghent University, Belgium, investigating the role of home languages in teacher– pupil interactions in secondary education in Flanders. She also works on the topics of integration, citizenship, and language policies. Between 1999 and 2009, she was a policy advisor on adult education, second language learning, and secondary education at the Flemish Ministry of Education. James E. Purpura is associate professor of applied linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. He teaches L2 assessment and research methods. Besides publishing in journals, he is author of Learner Strategy Use and Performance on Language Tests: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach (1999) and Assessing Grammar (2004). He is an expert member of EALTA, was past president of ILTA, and is a member of the TOEFL Committee of Examiners and the Defense Language Testing Advisory Panel.

David D. Qian is professor of applied linguistics in the Department of English, director of the PolyU- Tsinghua Centre for Language Sciences, and Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. His research interests include language testing and assessment, second language vocabulary learning and measurement, and corpus linguistics.

Cath Rau is a Māori-medium educator at Kia Ata Mai Educational Trust, New Zealand, with specialist interests and experience in Māori literacy and language development from early childhood to tertiary levels.

Daniel J. Reed directs the language-testing activities of the English Language Center and the Center for Language Teaching Advancement at Michigan State University, USA. He has conducted research and published articles in the areas of speaking proficiency assessment and language aptitude testing. He has also developedbtests in association with Second Language Testing, Inc.

José Ramón Parrondo Rodríguez graduated in English studies at the University of Oviedo, then completed a master’s degree in applied linguistics at the University of Glasgow and worked as a lecturer at the University of Stirling before joining the academic division of the Instituto Cervantes, Spain, in 1997, where he is responsible for language certification.

Carsten Roever is a senior lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests are interlanguage pragmatics, language testing, and second language acquisition. He is coauthor of Language Testing: The Social Dimension (with Tim McNamara, 2006).

Anja Römhild is a doctoral student in the quantitative, qualitative, and psychometric methods program at the University of Nebraska, USA, and the project coordinator in the Psychometric Consulting unit at the Buros Center for Testing. Her research interests are issues in large-scale assessment and language testing. Steven J. Ross is professor of second language acquisition at the School of Languages, Literature, and Culture at the University of Maryland, USA.

Eve Ryan earned a master ’ s degree in American studies at the Sorbonne University and a master’s degree in language testing at Lancaster University. She has extensive experience in language teaching and testing. She works at Avant Assessment, USA, as a test developer of both less commonly taught languages and commonly taught languages.

Suchitra Sadanandan received a PhD in phonology from the University of Southern California for the dissertation titled “Malayalam Phonology: An Optimality Theoretic Approach.” She teaches courses in linguistics, phonetics, and pedagogical grammar in the TESOL program at California State University, Los Angeles, USA. M. Rafael Salaberry is professor of Spanish linguistics and SLA in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. His recent publications include The Art of Teaching Spanish (coedited with Barbara Lafford, 2006), Marking Past Tense in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical Model (2008), Language Allegiances and Bilingualism in the US (2009), and Research Design and Methodology in Studies on L2 Tense and Aspect (coedited with Llorenc Comajoan, 2011).

Vyjayanthi Sankar is the vice president of the large-scale assessments division of Educational Initiatives, India—South Asia’s leading assessment specialists. Her research papers on educational assessments in India were presented at the NCME global conference in 2007 in New York and at the Language Testing and Research Colloquium in 2008 in China.

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan. She received her PhD in applied linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently researching longitudinal change in relationships among L2 writing ability, L2 writing strategy use, and L2 writing motivation.

Nick Saville holds a PhD in test impact and is director of the Research and Validation Department, University of Cambridge, ESOL Examinations, England. He has close involvement with European initiatives, including the Common European Framework of Reference, and is a member of a team coordinating the English Profi le Programme. He is an associate editor of Language Assessment Quarterly.

Yasuyo Sawaki is associate professor of applied linguistics and foreign language education at the Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Sawaki has wide research interests in areas such as test validation, reading comprehension, technology in language assessment, and the intersection of assessment and instruction. She is an associate editor of Language Assessment Quarterly.

Matilde Scaramucci, associate professor of applied linguistics at the University of Campinas, Brazil, has an MA in TESOL from San Jose State University, California, and a PhD in linguistics from the University of Campinas. Her current research interests include the consequential aspect of validity (impact and washback), theory of performance assessment, and language teacher proficiency.

Mary Schedl is a principal measurement specialist at Educational Testing Service, USA. She led the iBT TOEFL reading design team and currently coordinates this section of the test. Her current research interests include assessing reading comprehension, especially the inter-relationship between specific text characteristics and item difficulty.

Francisco Javier Barrón Serrano has worked for over 15 years in EFL and EAP in Mexico as an instructor, consultant, and program coordinator. He is currently pursuing his PhD at the Department of Applied Linguistics at Georgia State University, USA.

Chih-Min Shih is an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests include language assessment and teacher education. His recent papers have been published in Canadian Modern Language Review, Language Assessment Quarterly, English Teaching: Practice and Critique, and English Teaching and Learning. Yasuhiro Shirai is professor of linguistics at the Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh, USA, and invited scholar at the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). His research interests include first and second language acquisition, tense aspect, and cognitive models of language acquisition and processing.

Galen Sibanda is the African languages program coordinator at Michigan State University, USA, where he also teaches isZulu. He has taught at the University of Zimbabwe, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley. His main research interests are language pedagogy and the linguistic structure of Bantu languages.

Marcin Smolik is an assistant professor at the English Institute of Maria Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. He specializes in language assessment and in productive skills in particular. He has supervised the reform of a state-wide high stakes FL assessment system since 2009 and has been responsible for constructing an item bank for seven foreign languages since 2010.

Marguerite Ann Snow is a professor in the Charter College of Education at California State University, Los Angeles, USA, where she teaches in the TESOL MA program. Her areas of interest are content-based instruction, English for academic purposes, immersion education, and standards.

Bernard Spolsky was born in New Zealand in 1932 and educated at Victoria University College and the University of Montreal. He taught at McGill University, Indiana University, the University of New Mexico (where he directed the Navajo Reading Study), and Bar-Ilan University, Israel, retiring in 2000 as professor emeritus. He has written and edited two dozen books, including Conditions for Second Language Learning (1989), The Languages of Jerusalem (1991), Measured Words (1995), Sociolinguistics (1998), The Languages of Israel (1999), Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics (1999), Language Policy (2004, now also available in Chinese), The Blackwell Handbook of Educational Linguistics (2008), Language Management (2009, now translated into Latvian), the 2009 edition of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics entitled “Language Policy and Language Assessment,” The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy (2012), and about 250 articles and chapters.

Massimiliano Spotti is deputy director of Babylon, the Centre for Studies of the Multicultural Society at Tilburg University, Netherlands. His current research interests include superdiversity in urban and remote settings and institutions, classroom ethnography, asylum seekers, and mobile-enhanced technologies for integration and citizenship.

Ruslan Suvorov is a PhD student in applied linguistics and technology at Iowa State University, USA. His research interests include computer-assisted language learning and testing, materials development, instructional design, and instructional technologies in language education. He has received the Caroline Clapham IELTS Masters Award and published in CALICO Journal, Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Research Notes, and TESL-EJ.

Hanada Taha-Thomure is currently associate dean of Bahrain Teachers College at the University of Bahrain, Bahrain. Previously, she was director of Arabic programs at the Language Acquisition Resource Center at San Diego State University.

Dr. Taha-Thomure has developed Arabic language standards and a series of standards- based Arabic language curricula. Sauli Takala is professor emeritus of applied linguistics at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has a PhD in educational psychology and was the international coordinator of the IEA International Study of Writing, first coordinator of the EU-sponsored Internet-based DIALANG diagnostic assessment system and second president of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA). He has published more than 120 research reports, articles, and book chapters in Finnish, Swedish, and English.

May Tan is a test specialist with the Canadian Defence Academy, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and is affiliated to the Faculty of Education, McGill University, Canada. She has a PhD in language assessment, and has taught ESL in Malaysian and Canadian contexts. Her research interests include language assessment, language learning, language policy, and bilingual education.

Mirja Tarnanen is a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She specializes in language teaching, learning, and assessment.

Kobra Tavassoli is an assistant professor at Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran. She received her PhD in TEFL from Tarbiat Modares University, Iran. She is currently teaching language assessment and research methods courses and directing the MA program in TEFL. Her areas of interest are language assessment and ESP, and she has presented in national and international conferences on these topics.

Lynda Taylor is senior lecturer in language assessment at the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA), University of Bedfordshire, England. She has extensive experience of theory and practice in language learning, teaching, and assessment. She regularly presents at international workshops and conferences and has published widely in academic journals and volumes, particularly in Cambridge’s Studies in Language Testing series.

Katrina Daly Thompson is an associate professor of applied linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, where she also runs the African languages program. She specializes in critical approaches to African languages and identities with a focus on ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in Zimbabwean and Tanzanian discourse.

Carolyn E. Turner is associate professor of second language education in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University, Canada. Her research interests include language testing/assessment in educational settings and in healthcare contexts concerning access for linguistic minorities. She is presently immediate past president of the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) and associate editor of Language Assessment Quarterl . Her work has been published in journals such as Language Testing, TESOL Quarterly, Canadian Modern Language Review, and Health Communication, and in chapters in edited collections concerning language assessment.

Piet Van Avermaet works at the Center for Diversity and Learning at Ghent University, Belgium. He has published articles and book chapters on language assessment and immigration and citizenship.

Koen Van Gorp is coordinator of projects for preschool, primary, and secondary education at the Centre for Language and Education, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He is also project leader of the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT). His main research interests include task-based language teaching and testing, second language development, and knowledge construction. Alistair Van Moere is vice president of product and test development at Knowledge Technologies, Pearson, USA, where he oversees the delivery and validation of numerous high stakes tests. He has a PhD in applied linguistics and his research interests are speaking assessments and automated scoring.

Margaret van Naerssen coordinates graduate-level teacher training in cultural and linguistic diversity at Immaculata University, USA. Since 1997 she has undertaken expert consultant/witness work in forensic linguistics at the federal and state level, in criminal and civil cases involving murder, rape, drugs, money laundering, robbery, fraud, contract and plain language guidelines, slander, medical malpractice, and interpreting issues.

Mary Lou Vercellotti is interested in second language development measured by language performance, inspired by her graduate work in the English Language Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and with LearnLab (www.learnlab.org). She now teaches and researches instructed SLA as an Assistant Professor at Ball State University.

Viphavee Vongpumivitch is associate professor of language assessment and TEFL in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. She was the guest editor of the Language Assessment Quarterly special issue “English-as-a-Foreign-Language Assessment in Taiwan” (volume 9, issue 1, 2012).

Erik Voss is a PhD candidate in applied linguistics and technology at Iowa State University, USA. He works as assessment coordinator for the Intensive English and Orientation Program (IEOP) at ISU and is secretary of the Midwest Association of Language Testers (MwALT).

Elvis Wagner is an assistant professor of TESOL at Temple University, USA. His research interests include the teaching and testing of L2 listening ability, and L2 teaching methods. His study exploring the use of videotexts on L2 listening tests won the International Language Testing Association’s Best Article in Language Testing Award in 2008.

Maryam Wagner is a doctoral candidate in second language education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include classroom- based language assessment, validity and fairness issues in assessment, cognitive diagnostic assessment, and second language writing development and assessment.

Yoshinori Watanabe is professor at the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia University, Japan. His research interest is in language assessment for learners.

Richard Watson Todd is associate professor at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand, and head of the Centre for Research and Services in the School of Liberal Arts. He is the author of Much Ado About English (2006) and Classroom Teaching Strategies (1997), and has published numerous articles in the areas of text linguistics, computer-based analyses of language, and curriculum innovation.

Sara Cushing Weigle is professor of applied linguistics at Georgia State University, USA. She is author of Assessing Writing (2002) and publishes frequently in the area of writing assessment. She is also an associate editor of Language Assessment Quarterly. Cathy Wendler is senior strategic advisor at Educational Testing Service, USA. Her research interests include higher education, testing accommodations, validity, and assessment of English language learners. She is a recipient of the ETS Solomon Award for Innovative Management. Wendler received her BA from the University of Michigan; master ’ s from Purdue University; and PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Gillian Wigglesworth is professor of linguistics and applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and associate dean, Research in the Faculty of Arts. Her research interests include language testing and assessment through working on a variety of projects with the LTRC at the University of Melbourne. She also has particular interests in the assessment of indigenous children’ s language, both first and second, and is working on two Australian Research Council funded research projects investigating children’s language acquisition in indigenous communities.

William H. Wilson is founding chairperson of the program that developed into what is now the state of Hawaii’s Hawaiian language college at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, USA. The college is conducted through Hawaiian and serves approximately 120 majors per year. It also includes a Hawaiian-medium P- 12 laboratory school. Wilson’s family along with that of Keiki Kawai ’ae’a were key players in re establishing schools in Hawaiian after such schools had been banned for 90 years. He has written the proposal for every program in the college from its initial BA through to its current PhD. Originally a translator of Hawaiian language legal documents, Wilson has been very active in developing legislation at both state and national levels in support of the use of Native American.

Paula M. Winke is an assistant professor of second language studies in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at Michigan State University, USA. She researches second language testing, language- teaching methods, and individual differences in SLA and testing.

Mikyung Kim Wolf is a research scientist at Educational Testing Service, USA. She received her PhD in applied linguistics with specialization in language assessment from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the lead author of several recent studies analyzing the constructs and policies about the assessments for K-12 English learners in the US context. Dr. Wolf was recently awarded a 4-year research grant from the US Department of Education to develop a formative reading assessment for English learners in middle school.

Jessica R. W. Wu is the program director of the Research and Development Office at the Language Training and Testing Center in Taipei, Taiwan. Her research interests include oral assessment, language test development, and validation. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of language testing and assessment.

Xiaoming Xi is a senior research scientist and director of the Center for Language Learning and Assessments at Educational Testing Service, USA. She received her PhD in second/foreign language assessment from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her areas of interest include: factors affecting performance on speaking tests, analytical rating scales for speaking tests, issues in speech scoring, automated scoring of speech, and validity and fairness issues in the broader context of test use.

Ruixia Yan is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Speech- Language Pathology, Misericordia University, USA. Her research interests include language testing/assessment, language acquisition and development, child language disorders, articulatory and phonological disorders, multilingualism in communicative disorders, and research designs and methods.

Muchun Yin teaches on the TESOL program at Indiana Wesleyan University, USA, and his research interests are primarily in the use of language assessment for learning purposes. He has taught English in various contexts in the USA and Taiwan.

Guoxing Yu is senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, England. He has published in academic journals including Applied Linguistics, Assessing Writing, Assessment in Education, Educational Research, Language Assessment Quarterly, and Language Testing. Currently he is an executive editor of Assessment in Education (Routledge).

Kai Zhang works in the National Education Examinations Authority of China and is in charge of item writing for Chinese language tests. His main research interests are language testing, education assessment, and Chinese literature.