Programme
The final programme with abstracts is available - download programme (PDF 14.9MB)
The programme includes papers in English, French, German and Spanish related to the theme of Language Assessment for Multilingualism: promoting linguistic diversity and intercultural communication and the strands below:
| CONFERENCE THEME | |||
| Language Assessment for Multilingualism: promoting linguistic diversity and intercultural communication |
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| CONFERENCE STRANDS | |||
| Mobility | Diversity | Intercultural Communication | Fairness & Quality |
| Language competence & mobility | Assessing less widely-taught languages | Intercultural competence and how it can be assessed | Ensuring fairness and quality standards in language test administration |
| Lifelong language learning | Assessing sign language | Living with a lingua franca | Assessing candidates with special needs |
| Language assessment for migration & social integration | Assessing language for specific purposes | ||
ALTE received a large number of high-quality submissions for the conference, and in order to include as many papers as possible the programme formatted has been changed:
- papers have been reduced from 45 minutes to 30 minutes
- Papers will be ‘doubled up’ by strand to create one hour sessions
- sessions have been organised by strand to allow delegates to attend multiple papers in a strand, across the two-days
The programme has great depth, diversity and reach with:
- 108 paper presentations
- more than 120 speakers
- Over 30 countries and regions represented
- 92 organisations represented
- 18 papers presented in French, German and Spanish
Interviews with ALTE Members
- Anne Gallagher, Language Centre, National University of Ireland
- Gabriele Kecker, TestDaF
- Martin Nuttall, ALTE Secretariat
- Press release (PDF 82KB)
Assessment of sign language – a first for ALTE
The 2014 ALTE International Conference is the first time we have actively engaged with the sign language assessment community in Europe and beyond. This is an important development for ALTE and is direct recognition that signed and spoken languages share equal status, and therefore require equally high quality assessments. It also reflects ALTE’s commitment – stated in its recently revised constitution – to widen participation with all stakeholders involved in language testing, a commitment underlined by the ‘Diversity’ theme which forms part of this year’s conference.
When calling for papers for 2014, we welcomed contributions from those in the field of sign language assessment and we were delighted at the response we received. We see this as evidence of a healthy and growing research field, with experts now keen to engage with the wider language testing community and in this context ALTE provides an ideal platform for their ideas and observations.
Our programme now includes four consecutive presentations (Thursday 10 April) on the assessment of sign languages. To further support this conference strand, and as a further commitment to inclusivity, Visuel LSF – leading trainer and promoter of French sign language – will provide signed translations for some of the plenary and parallel presentations. For full details please see the full downloadable Conference Programme above.
