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.

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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?

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Conference aims

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

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

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

 

Our aim is to create 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 include the following topics:

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• 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

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