BAAL TEASIG | 2026 Conference in Glasgow

BAAL TEASIG conference: Glasgow, Thursday 14th May 2026

Language assessment continues to negotiate a tension between universal constructs of language proficiency - often associated with standardisation, comparability and large-scale use - and situated assessment practices that respond to specific educational, linguistic, and sociocultural contexts.

While large-scale assessments typically rely on generalisable notions of proficiency, many educational and professional settings increasingly foreground local needs, institutional priorities, disciplinary practices, and diverse learner populations. This raises key questions for the field:

To what extent have assessment practices evolved to reflect the contexts in which they are used?

How strongly do universal notions of proficiency continue to shape assessment frameworks and decision-making?

Conference aims

BAAL TEASIG conferences exist to foster collaboration and dialogue between language educators, assessment specialists, researchers and practitioners and students in the field.

This year's conference invited interested parties to critically examine how ‘the local’ is conceptualised, operationalised and valued in language assessment. Contributions explored how applied linguistics perspectives can inform assessment practices that are responsive to local contexts, while remaining theoretically grounded, interpretable, fair, and defensible.

The conference stimulated discussion around the implications of this tension for assessment design, validation, use and interpretation, as well as for policy and classroom practice.

The conference created a space for interdisciplinary dialogue at the intersection of applied linguistics, language assessment and assessment delivery, bringing together empirical, theoretical, and practice-based perspectives.

Conference sub-themes

Talks included the following topics:

Global versus local assessment constructs and practices
The role of context, task design and institutional priorities in shaping assessment
Validity, fairness, and ethical considerations in situated or locally developed assessments
Localising assessment in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), including discipline-specific and institutionally embedded approaches
Language assessment practices and policies in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) and Transnational Education (TNE) contexts
Tensions between standardisation, comparability, accountability and local relevance

The construct implications of accessibility requests and test security constraints

Location:

Beautiful Glasgow

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The BAAL TEASIG 2026 conference was held at the University of Glasgow.

Sponsors of the 2026 conference

Glasgow is one of the United Kingdom’s most dynamic and welcoming cities, offering a truly inspiring setting for our 2026 conference. Famous for its striking Victorian architecture, the Gothic towers of the University of Glasgow blend with grand civic spaces such as George Square and distinctive red sandstone buildings that define much of the cityscape.

BAAL TEASIG 2026

Invited speakers

Revisiting Global Englishes in language assessment:
New challenges and a new research agenda

The integration of a Global Englishes perspective in language assessment can be understood as an archetypal example of the tension between local and global considerations in test design. Sociolinguistic research from the World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca paradigms points to the rich heterogeneity of English used across different target language use domains. Validity arguments for tests used in those contexts are therefore strengthened when test constructs reflect local needs and authentic language use. However, for large-scale tests, requirements for standardisation and comparability across global test-taker populations have, in the past, often led to a cautious approach which saw minimal representation of Global Englishes in test design.

In this talk, I will revisit these tensions with a view to understanding what has changed, and what challenges remain. First, I will chart increased movement towards a Global Englishes perspective in some large-scale tests and highlight innovative practices already occurring in assessments for more local or specific purposes. Second, I will discuss recent research which suggests that stakeholder attitudes are becoming more accepting of Global Englishes in large-scale assessment. Third, I will explore opportunities and challenges for integrating a Global Englishes perspective presented by the application artificial intelligence (AI).

In the final part of the talk, I will draw these themes together to suggest that a new, dedicated research agenda is required that moves beyond questions of conceptual feasibility (which I argue can be resolved) and instead focuses on rigorous domain description, addressing stakeholder attitudes/language ideologies, developing appropriate preparation materials, and encouraging a sociolinguistically-informed language assessment literacy.

EAP Assessment across borders:
Contextualisation in TNE

My talk will present a practitioner account of navigating the tensions of developing assessments for transnational education (TNE) partnerships, as well as lessons learned, or even unlearned. TNE, most simply defined as “the mobility of education programs and providers between countries” (Knight 2016) and known to bring multiple challenges and benefits, has become the focus for an increasing body of research. Within this broad area, the mobility of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) assessment in TNE merits equal scrutiny. However, it has been far less studied, despite the central role that such assessment may have for institutional TNE progression requirements.

With reference to the UK-China TNE context, I will share insights from two initiatives. The first was the process of delivering and adapting a UK-created EAP assessment for a Sino-UK Joint Institute, which was the subject of two-year research study (Li et al 2025). Second, I will report on an ongoing project focused on developing EAP assessment literacy in TNE settings. Funded by the British Council, we are exploring stakeholder perspectives on effective assessment design, test preparation, and priorities for training in Joint Institutes.

Finally, I will conclude by inviting attendees to join me in considering how cross-border education necessitates reflection and critical questioning of personal, institutional, and cultural assumptions related to assessment. TNE is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on everything: our quality assurance, policy and procedure, or even foundational definitions of fairness.