TEASIG webinar anniversary online event 2015-2025

The first TEASIG webinar took place on 7 January 2015 via Adobe Connect and attracted 45 participants. Since that date, TEASIG has hosted more than 65 sessions, and welcomed numerous speakers and over 5,000 attendees from all over the world.

To celebrate 10 years of TEASIG webinars, on 22 January 2025, we organized a special online event where we looked back on the past decade together with our guests, including former speakers, friends and collaborators. We talked about what TEASIG means to teachers and testers, how the TEASIG webinar series has helped to spread language assessment literacy within and beyond the IATEFL community, and even recalled some humorous anecdotes from our online encounters.

The anniversary event was hosted by:
Neil Bullock, who helped develop the webinar series for TEASIG and moderated from 2015 to 2021

Anna Soltyska, who took over in January 2021 and has been coordinating the series since.

and Reshmi Murali, who joined the team in October 2022.

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TEASIG & PronSIG: How far can we trust the results of an AI-marked speaking assessment?

• How can a machine assess a learner’s ability to speak English?
• Will its scores be as reliable as those of a human?
• Can it assess communicative competence as well as technical competence in pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, etc.?

I will talk about the way automated marking works, how it compares with human marking, and how to address issues of validity. I will discuss these questions in relation both to current research and to what was learned during the design and development of ClarityEnglish’s Dynamic Speaking Test, which was launched at IATEFL 2024.

Speaker- Martin Moore

Martin Moore is an experienced publisher and creator of language learning and assessment materials. He has worked in house for Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, as well as on a freelance basis for other major ELT organisations. He recently completed a master’s degree in English Language Assessment at Cambridge University, with a dissertation focusing on the reliability of mobile assessment. He works for ClarityEnglish as project manager of their Dynamic Placement and Speaking Tests.