Learning and Assessment: Making the Connections 3–5 May 2017

Learning and Assessment: Making the Connections 3–5 May 2017 In collaboration with and supported by Book of Abstracts The presentations appear by format, by alphabetical order according to the first letter of the title, and colour-coded according to the strand. Plenary presentations ........................................................................................................................... 1 Connecting policy and practice at European level ....................................................................................................... 1 Construct and content in context: Implications for language learning, teaching and assessment in China ................. 1 Language policy and social cohesion: What links between social environment and regimes of learning and assessment? ............................................................................................................................................................... 2 Language testing washback and impact in our globalized world ................................................................................. 3 Making the connections: digital innovation and diagnostic feedback ........................................................................... 3 Panels...................................................................................................................................................... 5 Insights from research on sign language tests ............................................................................................................ 5 Lessons learnt from Italy in language learning, teaching and assessment .................................................................. 9 The challenges of a learning oriented and multilingual school assessment policy .................................................... 11 The development of China’s Standards of English and its potential application ........................................................ 15 Workshops ........................................................................................................................................... 19 Erasmus+: Funding opportunities for language education ......................................................................................... 19 Languages in Education & CLIL ................................................................................................................................ 19 Making multilingual language teachers digital in Denmark: ensuring quality in digital language teaching ................. 20 Mediation and exploiting one’s plurilingual repertoire: Exploring classroom potential with proposed new CEFR descriptors ................................................................................................................................................................. 21 Online text analysis tools for test development and validation ................................................................................... 22 Thumbs up or thumbs down? Putting apps to the test ............................................................................................... 22 Paper presentations ............................................................................................................................ 24 WIP presentations ............................................................................................................................. 100 Poster presentations ......................................................................................................................... 114 Plenary presentations Connecting policy and practice at European level The EU guideline for language teaching in school was agreed between the Heads of State and Government fifteen years ago: every European citizen should have the opportunity to learn two foreign languages from a very early age. However, European surveys indicate that around half of all European citizens are still unable to speak even one foreign language. This is sadly the case even for the generation that has spent the past fifteen years in school. New and better connections therefore have to be made between policy and practice. The European Commission is working together with the Member States to make language teaching and learning more efficient and at the same time more inclusive. Recent initiatives take account of technological progress and new trends in assessment. They also reflect an increased awareness of global developments, such as the role of English as lingua franca and the influence of languages from outside Europe. One common challenge, which is reinforced through the current refugee crisis, is that an increasing number of pupils speak a different language at home than in school. Educators must be prepared to deal with the specific needs and expectations of a more heterogeneous population of learners. Attention to the linguistic background of each individual is an essential element of successful teaching in school. If it is ignored, diversity can lead to learning difficulties and ultimately to school failure. But if it is properly recognised, it can create a more inclusive environment, paving the way to better learning outcomes across all subjects in later years and to a smoother acquisition of better language competences for all. Kristina Cunningham, Senior policy officer, Directorate General for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, European Commission, Brussels Kristina Cunningham is the senior policy officer in charge of multilingualism at the European Commission. She previously worked as a sales and marketing manager in the private sector. She holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and Modern Languages from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a Certificate of Political Studies from the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris, France. She is involved in the development of strategies for making multicultural and multilingual classrooms more efficient and socially more inclusive, and to support teachers in their evolving roles. Construct and content in context: Implications for language learning, teaching and assessment in China Context is vitally important in conceptualizing the construct and specifying the content of language learning, teaching and assessment; however, the unique features of local contexts are often difficult to identify and capture. In a rapidly changing globalised world, the experience of China will be used to discuss these issues. In this presentation, I will illustrate the importance of contextualized construct definitions and content specifications on language education in China with a specific focus on English and the reform programme that is currently underway. Following the theme of the 1 Learning and Assessment: Making the Connections … in a globalised economy … in a multilingual world … in the digital era conference and in making connections, I will highlight the current contextual conditions instead of historically embedded structures or practices (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002). To be specific, I will discuss the impact of China’s fast-growing economy, its multilingualism, and the advancement in information and communication technology on learning, teaching and assessment. Dr Jin Yan, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Dr Jin’s research focuses on the development and validation of large-scale and high-stakes language assessments. She is currently Chair of the National College English Testing Committee in China and Vice President of the Asian Association for Language Assessment. She is also co-editor-in-chief of the Springer open-access journal Language Testing in Asia and is on the editorial board of international and local journals, including Language Testing, Classroom Discourse, The Journal of Asia TEFL, and the International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching. Language policy and social cohesion: What links between social environment and regimes of learning and assessment? This talk will discuss links between language, and specifically multilingualism, and social conflict, violence and disruption of the civil order. While many of the examples and evidence will be drawn from Asian settings, and an account given of the Language, Education and Social Cohesion initiative of UNICEF, and related activities of UNESCO, links will be made with European settings of contemporary challenges to social cohesion. It will be argued that while historians, social scientist of different kinds, sociologists and many educators, including language educators, fail to see the relations between questions of language and the social order close examination of social conflicts, and a non-reductive understanding of language, reveals deep links between them. Language conflicts however are much more amenable to resolution, through research and dialogue, than other causes of social disorder. The talk will trace ways in which effective education practice focused on maximising learning, and overcoming intergenerationally inherited language based disadvantage, including robust roles for assessment, can make a powerful and distinctive contribution to social cohesion. Dr Joseph Lo Bianco, Professor of Language and Literacy Education, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia Professor Lo Bianco wrote Australia’s National Policy on Languages in 1987, the first multilingual national language policy in an English speaking country, and was Chief Executive of the National

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