TEASIG - How can we help students cope with computer-adaptive testing?
2025-03-27 17:00 - 18:00 UTC
The rise of computer-adaptive testing presents unique challenges for both teachers and learners, including the uncertainty of the number, sequence, and weighting of questions in the exam. In this webinar, I will share my experience in helping students navigate the technological and emotional demands of computer-adaptive testing, as well as how I integrate artificial intelligence tools into exam preparation classes. I will place particular emphasis on the differences between preparing students for fixed-form exams and computer-adaptive tests. Finally, attendees will have the opportunity to reflect on how these strategies can be adapted to their own teaching contexts.
Speaker: Myleni Ishida

IATEFL, Edinburgh 2025: TEASIG Pre-Confernece Event
2025-04-07 09:30 - 17:00 | EICC, The Exchange, 150 Morrison St, Edinburgh EH3 8EE, EH3 8EE, United Kingdom

TEASIG Webinar: How does assessment shape student identities?
2025-04-30 17:00 - 18:00

TEASIG – Teachers’ Language Assessment Literacy (LAL): Research and Pedagogy
2025-05-21 17:00 - 18:00
Given their continuous engagement in assessment, language teachers are key stakeholders informing language assessment literacy (LAL) research. In this webinar, the presenter will discuss current trends and challenges in studying teachers’ LAL, signaling possible directions in future research. He will also problematize instructional approaches to foster these stakeholders’ LAL. For these interrelated topics, the presenter will overview LAL studies and, most importantly, will provide pedagogical insights based on his research with Latin American teachers of English participating in language assessment courses.
This webinar might be useful for those interested in or tasked with the development of assessment courses for language teachers.
Speaker:
Frank Giraldo is a professor at the Foreign Languages Department of Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, Colombia. His main academic and research interest is the interface between language assessment literacy (LAL) and teachers’ professional development.

The CEFR CV and the Handbook: what’s in them for teachers?
2025-06-17 17:00 - 18:00
The CEFR was originally published in 2001 and, more recently, in 2020, the Companion Volume to the CEFR (CEFR CV) was published with new and updated scales. However, many practitioners are still unfamiliar with how these two documents can be used to align teaching and assessment materials to the CEFR. With this in mind, the publication, ‘Aligning Language Education with the CEFR: a handbook’, was published.
The main objective of this webinar is to familiarise practitioners with the CEFR CV and the Handbook and to present a variety of ways to approach and use these two documents. We will start by briefly describing the objectives and the structure of the two documents, and then proceed to propose different points of entry to their content with different activities which can contribute to improve teaching and assessment in different education levels.

TEASIG - AI and item writing for high stakes testing: insights from text and multiple-choice question generation
2025-10-09 17:00 - 18:00
We now live in an age of myriad opportunities to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI), especially large language models (LLMs), in a range of educational contexts. From a testing perspective this has included opportunities to develop secure, quality test content (including text passages and comprehension question for reading and listening tasks) using online platforms. In this session, we will discuss how one Awarding Organisation has implemented a process for item writing which exploits the available technology whilst adhering to best testing practice. We discuss how to use AI ethically and efficiently to generate test content, whilst keeping a place for human creativity and ingenuity. We consider the limitations and challenges that AI brings to the fore and consider a process of good practice for content development from the perspectives of both production and review.

TEASIG - Fine-tuning the interactional competence construct: Exploring interactional practices in online L2 talk
2025-11-04 17:00 - 18:00
We can probably all agree that interactional skills are important to any L2 learner of English but how do you go about identifying interactional competence in L2 speech? And how can you do this on an individual rather than shared basis? In this session we’ll outline some key points in relation to assessing interactional competence, the impact of technology on interaction and online interactions. We’ll then focus on what an interactional practices approach is and how it might help us to unpick interactional competence for learning and assessment purposes
Speaker:
Nicholas Glasson

Nicholas Glasson is currently a Senior Research Manager at Cambridge University Press & Assessment. He has an M.Ed. in Applied Linguistics from the Open University and a PhD in Language Assessment with the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment, University of Bedfordshire. His thesis, focused on interactional competence, was the winner of the 2025 Jacqueline Ross TOEFL Dissertation Award. Nick’s work has been published in Classroom Discourse and Assessing Writing and he is a peer reviewer for several journals including Applied Linguistics, Language Assessment Quarterly and Language and Education.

TEASIG – Automated Assessment of L2 Learners’ Written Production: Can AI Make a Difference?
2026-01-07 17:00
The development of writing skills constitutes a core component of second language education, yet the assessment of learners’ written production remains a persistent challenge. Providing reliable scores and informative feedback is both time-intensive for teachers and problematic in terms of consistency in high-stakes examinations. Over the past decades, automated assessment systems have sought to address these issues. They were driven by advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence. However, until recently such systems could only be developed by highly specialised teams for narrowly defined tasks, limiting their adaptability and accessibility for classroom use. The recent emergence of Generative AI and chatbots marks a turning point, offering accessible tools for automated assessment and feedback. This talk reviews the evolution of automated systems for L2 writing evaluation, examines the opportunities afforded by GenAI-based chatbots, and presents recent empirical findings on their effectiveness and pedagogical implications.
Speaker:
Agnieszka LEŃKO-SZYMAŃSKA

Agnieszka LEŃKO-SZYMAŃSKA is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw. Her research interests lie at the intersection of second language acquisition, language teaching and assessment, and corpus linguistics, with a particular focus on lexis and phraseology. She is actively involved in teacher education and professional development. Her monograph Defining and Assessing Lexical Proficiency (Routledge, 2020) explores the construct of word use in L2 writing. She has also published widely on the applications of corpora in language teaching, learning, and assessment.

AI as a Critical Opponent: Effects on L2 Writers’ Warranting and Argument Quality
2026-02-16 16:00 - 17:00
Abstract:

Assessing L2 students’ argumentative writing quality requires attention not only to the presence of key components including thesis, evidence, counterargument, and rebuttal, but also to the depth of reasoning that connects these elements. Many EFL students can produce structural components yet struggle to justify their claims clearly. This study investigates whether AI-mediated dialogic practice via ChatGPT 5.1 can improve argument quality in a B2-level writing course. In a quasi-experimental design, both groups receive instruction on argumentation, but the experimental group also engages in AI-supported pro–opponent exchanges in which the AI challenges claims, questions evidence, and presents counterarguments for students to rebut. Essays from both groups will be rated with an analytic rubric aligned with CEFR principles and adapted through stakeholder input. By foregrounding assessment outcomes, the study examines the potential of dialogic AI to support instructional design and evidence-based evaluation in argumentative writing.

Date:
16.02.2026, 16:00 UK time

Speakers:
Burcu Kayarkaya
Selahattin Yılmaz

Bios:
Burcu Kayarkaya is an ELT instructor in the Modern Languages Department at Yıldız Technical University (YTU). She has also worked as a language test developer and item writer/editor for a high-stakes exam body and currently working for the EU–Council of Europe Joint Project on foreign language education quality in Türkiye as a language test developer. She holds an MA in English Language Teaching, and her PhD focused on translanguaging-informed writing instruction and assessment design. She has presented in various international conferences, including IATEFL 2025, where she was awarded the TOEFL scholarship.
Selahattin Yılmaz, Ph.D. is an EAP instructor at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul and currently serves as a language test developer for the EU–Council of Europe Joint Project on foreign language education quality in Türkiye. He completed his Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics at Georgia State University and has published in leading journals such as English for Specific Purposes, Journal of English for Academic Purposes and Porta Linguarum. His research focuses on second language writing, corpus-based analysis, and AI-mediated pedagogy, and he has presented at major international venues including AAAL, AACL, and EALTA.

Webinar TEASIG - Dealing with group assessment: the need for collaborative assessment literacy
2026-03-17 15:00 - 16:00
In language education we utilise a lot of groupwork, having students interact and communicate with each other. It’s good to talk. We can also ask them to collaborate more formally and complete course assignments together, like a group presentation, group essay, or group report. While there are learning affordances to students working together, there are challenges when it comes to assessment.
This webinar will draw on research conducted in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context, exploring the beliefs and practices of EAP professionals around collaborative assessment. This will help illustrate the need for educators to develop their collaborative assessment literacy and provide the necessary questions to consider to be able to successfully navigate what can be a complex, but rewarding, type of assessment.

Speaker:
Dr. Peter Levrai

Dr. Peter Levrai is a University Teacher of English at the University of Turku. He has published and presented on teaching material development, academic presentations and student collaboration and collaborative assessment. He also co-authored the British Council ELTons winning learner resource, Develop EAP: a sustainable academic English skills course.
