Conference Background and Topics for Discussion 

While Linguistics teaching in higher education is backed up by substantial scholarship, assessment practices (both formative and summative) have taken a backseat. The literature on the development of assessment/testing instruments in Linguistics is very narrow and when it comes to summative assessment, it is even narrower.  There are very few studies conducted on summative and formative assessment in linguistics teaching in higher education and hence lack of research in this area is impressively felt.

This conference is a response to scholarly calls to lay the foundations for a firmly grounded understanding of assessment/testing practices in Linguistics teaching in higher education. As such, the conference seeks to investigate the possible relationship between optimizing summative and formative assessment practices in higher education in Linguistics and other related fields.

The conference welcomes contributions that deal with “issues of measurement” that are essential to Linguistics.  To this end, we aim at exploring these issues across languages and settings (including university classrooms), with a focus on Linguistics and assessment as both processes and products.

Specifically, we welcome contributions that deal with:

• Theoretical and empirical approaches to the development of assessment instruments/tools/constructs/rubrics related to Linguistics in university classrooms

• The reliability and the validity of testing procedures related to Linguistics assessment in university classrooms

•  Alternatives to traditional assessment

• Experimental studies on summative tools in Linguistics assessment

• Case studies on summative assessment in Linguistics teaching

• The use of a particular scale to measure students’ renditions in Linguistics

• The application of a specific approach to grading

• Construct definition and rubric development

• ‘Scorability’ in assessing Linguistics in university classrooms

•      …..