Dr Sibylle Bolton, Consultant to Goethe-Institut and to ALTE

Dr Bolton's 1982 Doctoral thesis was entitled Die Gütebestimmung kommunikativer Tests. Between 1989 and 2006, she worked at the Head Office of the Goethe-Institit (an ALTE Member) in Munich, Germany.  Her responsibilities included the revision of the examinations from A1 to C2 of the CEFR offered worldwide,  developing a new examination on B2. She led seminars on test development in many countries. Since 2006 she has been a consultant for the Goethe-Institut. She has run a two-year online training course (Goethe-Institutes Minsk, Moskow, and Kiev), and seminars on test development for ministries of education (Tblisi, Kiev, and Tashkent). As a consultant for ALTE she has carried out audits for ALTE members, workshops on the ALTE Auditing System and workshops for auditors.

Bart Deygers, Professor of second language acquisition and second language testing, Ghent University

Bart’s research interests include language testing for migration purposes and for the purpose of university admission, the impact of language testing on human rights and on social justice, and language testing policy. An active member of ALTE since 2010, he serves on the Board of Trustees and has been a member of the Standing Committee since 2012. He (co) chaired the CEFR special interest group from 2011 until 2020. Bart also takes on responsibilities in ALTE’s sister organisations EALTA (chair of the Migration SIG) and ILTA (jury for Best Article Award).

Anne Gallagher, Consultant to Údarás na Gaeltachta and to ALTE

Anne Gallagher (Anna Ní Ghallachair) was Associate Professor, Director of the Centre for Irish Language Research, Teaching and Testing, and Head of the School of Celtic Studies at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth until her retirement in July 2020. She has been a member/ advisor/chairperson of a number of committees in Ireland and abroad focusing on language policy development, language testing and the promotion of languages. She is currently chairperson of Údarás na Gaeltachta, the state agency responsible for the economic, social and cultural development of Ireland’s Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking region). Her research focuses on multilingualism, the teaching and learning of Irish, language policy, and Franco-Breton literature. In 2008 she was honoured by the French Government in recognition of her services to plurilingualism.

Anthony Green, Professor in Language Assessment and Director of the Centre for English Language Learning and Assessment at the University of Bedfordshire

Anthony Green is Professor in Language Assessment and Director of the Centre for English Language Learning and Assessment at the University of Bedfordshire, UK and a former President of the International Language Testing Association. He has consulted, presented and published on a wide range of language assessment issues around the world including for many ALTE members. He is the author of Exploring Language Assessment and Testing (Routledge), Language Functions Revisited and IELTS Washback in Context (both Cambridge University Press). His main research interests lie in the relationships between assessment, learning and teaching.

Professor Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

Professor Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen teaches SLA, language assessment, language policy and multilingualism at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. From 1997 she has worked mainly in language testing and validation projects for adult migrants, a work she was leading from 2011 to 2017. She has also been part of the development team of national tests in English for young learners in Norway and is involved in the development of Norwegian tests for migrant adolescents in upper secondary school. Her publications include Vurdering av språkferdigheter (“Assessment of language proficiency”) (2019, with Eli Moe), Norsk profil (“Norwegian Profile”) (2012, Ed.), and A Human Touch to Language Testing (2007, with Eli Moe, Eds.). Her research interests cover topics related to the use, and misuse, of language tests in the immigration and citizenship policy, in the labour market and in education, with a particular focus on the impact of language tests on low-literate adult learners. In ALTE she is a member of the Standing Committee and a co-chair of the LAMI SIG. https://www.hvl.no/en/employee/?user=6021377

Antony John Kunnan, Professor, University of Macau; Consultant, Language Assessment

Antony John Kunnan's research interests are in fairness of tests and testing practice, assessment literacy, research methods and statistics, ethics and standards, immigration and citizenship assessment and language assessment policy. His publications include Evaluating Language Assessments (Routledge, 2018) and Statistics for Language Assessment Workbook and CD (Cambridge, 2005; with Lyle Bachman) and the editor of The Companion to Language Assessment (Wiley, 2014) and journal articles and book chapters. He has held professorial positions at CalStateLA, Tunghai, Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological and Macau. He was the past president of the ILTA and the founding president of AALA. He was also the founding editor of Language Assessment Quarterly. He holds a PhD from UCLA in applied linguistics. He has spoken at ALTE meetings in Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Sofia and Cluj.

Professor Joseph Lo Bianco, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia

Joseph (Joe) Lo Bianco is Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia.  He held the Chair of Language and Literacy Education from February 2004 until his retirement in June 2020.    He is a specialist in minority language rights, literacy and social opportunity, language policy and planning (with a specific interest in conflict mitigation in multi-ethnic societies in South East Asia), educational equity for immigrant and Indigenous populations, multilingual and anti-racist education and various aspects of the field and practice of language revitalisation for threatened and endangered languages.  His academic analysis and theorisation of language problems in education and society is complemented by extensive real-world policy writing, advising and engagement in 25 international locations.  In recent years this has included a eight-year project in Southeast Asia for UNICEF under the title of Language, Education and Social Cohesion, focusing on conflict resolution in multiethnic settings in Malaysia, Myanmar and South Thailand and as consultant to a six year project on Multilingual Cities in 14 European municipalities responding to recent inflows of immigrants. In 1987, he authored Australia’s first national language policy and between 1990 and 2002 was Director of Language Australia/The National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia. 

Barry O'Sullivan, Head of Assessment Research and Development, British Council

Professor Barry O’Sullivan is the British Council’s Head of Assessment R&D. He has worked on numerous test development and validation projects globally and advises ministries and institutions on assessment policy and practice. His research includes the development (with Cyril Weir) and refinement of the socio-cognitive model and is evidenced in his many conference presentations and publications. His achievements include being the founding president of the UK Association of Language Testing and Assessment, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science, a Fellow of the Asian Association for Language Assessment, an Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Visiting Professor at the University of Reading. In 2019 he was awarded an OBE by the government of the UK for his contribution to language testing.

Dr Francesca Parizzi, Consultant to ALTE

Francesca holds a PhD (Dottorato di Ricerca) in Applied Linguistics from the University of Pisa. She worked at CVCL (Centro per la Valutazione e le Certificazioni Linguistiche) of the University for Foreigners of Perugia and has been an ALTE auditor since 2013. Francesca’s expertise lies in quality management, test design, and assessing language for specific purposes. She has taken part in several projects promoted by the Council of Europe and the European Commission and is co-author of Profilo della lingua italiana, the Reference Level Descriptions for Italian.  

José has been involved in language testing and assessment over the past 30 years. He was the co-founder and director of CAPLE at the University of Lisbon, where his responsibilities included development, administration, validation and promotion of its examinations. Over the years he trained teachers, oral examiners and item-writers worldwide and co-authored reference texts for the Council of Europe and the Portuguese Ministry of Education. He also published paper and online resources for Portuguese. He lectured at the University of Lisbon and was head of the Portuguese Education Department in the UK. His interests are very close to his professional path in language education, language policy and language assessment. José has been involved in ALTE from the very beginning. He took part in publications, committees and SIGs, including QMS, LAMI and Young Learners, and presented at ALTE International Conferences, as well as being an auditor and member of the Standing Committee and Board of Trustees.

James E. Purpura, Professor of Linguistics and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

James E Purpura has written a number of scholarly books and is currently writing The Writings of L. F. Bachman: “Assuring that what we count counts” in language assessment (with A. J. Kunnan) (Routledge), and Learning-Oriented Assessment in Language Classrooms: Using Assessments to Gauge and Promote Language Learning (with C. E. Turner) (Routledge). He is currently series co-editor of New Perspectives on Language Assessment (Routledge) and was series co-editor of Language Assessment at ETS: Innovation and Validation (Routledge). He was editor of Language Assessment Quarterly (2014 to 2019), and was President of the International Language Testing Association (2007-2008). Jim serves on the U.S. Defense Language Testing Advisory Panel sponsored by the Defense and National Security Office. He has been a long-term consultant for the United States Information Agency. In 2017, Jim was a Fulbright Scholar at the University for Foreigners of Siena. His current research interests include the assessment of grammar and meaning, learning-oriented assessment, and scenario-based assessment.

Lorenzo Rocca, Professor, Council of Europe Linguistic Expert, Consultant to Società Dante Alighieri

From 2004 he has worked at the CVCL (Centre for Evaluation and Language Certification), where his duties ranged from marking and examining to item writing and running seminars. Since 2006 he has been responsible for research and national and European projects focused on the connection between teaching and evaluation within the migration context. An active member of ALTE since 2007, Lorenzo serves on the Board of Trustees; he has been the chair of LAMI (Language Assessment for Migrants’ Integration) SIG since 2008 and a member of the Standing Committee since 2011. In 2014 he joined the Council of Europe as Linguistic Expert, becoming a member of the LIAM (Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants) project. In 2021 he joined the Società Dante Alighieri as consultant for the PLIDA exams and for the teachers' training program in the field of language assessment.

Dr Jessica Row-Whei Wu, R&D Program Director of the Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC), Taipei, Taiwan

Jessica R. W. Wu holds a PhD in Language Testing. She has been deeply involved in the research and validation of the GEPT, the most widely used English language test in Taiwan. She also serves as an adviser to the government on the development and administration of L1 tests. She has published numerous articles and book chapters in the field of language testing and has presented her work at conferences around the world. Most recently, she co-edited (with Cyril Weir) English Language Proficiency Testing in Asia: A New Paradigm Bridging Global and Local Contexts, which was published by Routledge in 2019. She is the immediate past president of the Asian Association for Language Assessment (AALA).

Joe Sheils, Consultant to the Council of Europe

Joe Sheils was involved in curriculum development in Ireland before joining the Language Policy team at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, initially to support the CEFR project. He subsequently had responsibility for intergovernmental programmes concerning modern languages, minority languages, the languages of schooling; also language policies for the integration of adult migrants, with the support of ALTE which enjoys Participatory Status with the Council of Europe. In retirement, he has been involved in CoE working groups on the languages of schooling and on language policies for adult migrants, and was a member of the Advisory Group for the CEFR-Companion Volume. He has a particular interest in issues impacting on language policies for adult migrants and the important work of the LAMI group.

Lynda Taylor has over 35 years' theoretical and practical experience in language testing and assessment. From the 1980s she worked closely with Cambridge English Assessment on the development, research and validation of their English language examinations, including IELTS.  She was Senior Lecturer at CRELLA 2011-2015 and is now Visiting Professor. Over the past 20 years she has published widely in the field and presented at conferences, workshops and training courses worldwide. She has served on the editorial boards for professional journals and on the Executive Board of ILTA. She is currently a series editor for Studies in Language Testing and President of UKALTA (2020-22). 

Julia Todorinova, Consultant to ALTE

Julia Todorinova, master of Applied Linguistics, worked at the Department for Language Teaching, Sofia University (an ALTE member since 2004). As a Head of the Test Centre, she was responsible for the development, administration, and validation of Standardized Test in Bulgarian as a Foreign language. She has been involved in European funded projects related to testing Bulgarian as SL and e-language learning. She was a member of both ALTE Standing and Executive Committees, Chair of QMS working group and participated in ALTE projects, LAMI posters, workshops and ALTE conferences. As an ALTE auditor, she carries out audits for ALTE members.

Piet Van Avermaet, Centre for Diversity & Learning, Linguistics Department, Ghent University

Piet Van Avermaet is Professor in ‘Language and Diversity’ in the Linguistics Department of Ghent University, Belgium, where he teaches 'multicultural studies', 'multilingualism in education', ‘language, diversity and globalisation’ and 'language policy'. He is also Director of the Centre for Diversity & Learning (CDL) at the same University. He has a long-standing expertise in the field of diversity, language and social inequality in education. He is series co-editor (with Kathleen Heugh and Christopher Stroud) of the book series ‘Multilingualisms and Diversities in Education’, Bloomsbury. His expertise and research interests cover topics related to multilingualism in education, social inequality in education, language policy and practice in education, language policy and practice in contexts of (social) inclusion, language assessment, diversity and inclusion, integration and participation, discrimination in education.

Koen Van Gorp, Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University (MSU)

Koen Van Gorp is Assistant Professor of TESOL and Second Language Studies, and Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Coordinator at Michigan State University. From 2016 to August 2021, he was Head of Foreign Language Assessment at the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA) at MSU. He also serves as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Language and Education (KU Leuven, Belgium) where he worked from 1991 until 2015. From 2010 until 2015, he was the Director of the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language (http://cnavt.org/), and, in that capacity, an active member of ALTE. He chaired the Language for Specific Purposes SIG (2012–2015) and co-chaired the Young Learners SIG (2013–2015). Koen serves on the TOEFL Committee of Examiners (2020–2024) and on the TOEFL Committee of Examiners Young Student Series Research Subcommittee (2020–2023) at Educational Testing Service (ETS). He is Co-Editor of TASK. Journal on Task-Based Language Teaching and Learning (John Benjamins) and Treasurer and Executive Board Member of the International Association for Task-Based Language Teaching (IATBLT). His research interests are task-based language teaching and assessment, and multilingual education and assessment.

 Dr Elaine Boyd, Institute of Education, University College London, UK

Dr Elaine Boyd has worked in English language assessment design and quality standards for over 30 years for a range of international testing organisations. She has been especially concerned with the impact of assessments in the classroom and worked closely with teachers and teacher educators delivering courses in assessment literacy in Europe, India and SE Asia and has published articles in this field. She is also the author of several exam coursebooks for leading international publishers. In 2017 she was Visiting Professor at Universitat Politecnica de Valencia supporting the development of an EMI Framework. She is an Associate Tutor on the MA TESOL & Applied Linguistics courses at the Institute of Education, University College London. Her research interests include investigating pragmatics via spoken corpora, classroom assessment, feedback and intercultural competencies.  

Anna Mouti is an Assistant Professor of Second Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics, at the School of Italian Language and Literature at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. She also cooperates with the MA Programme “Language education for refugees and migrants” of the Hellenic Open University. Her research interests have to do mainly with second language acquisition, individual differences, language education for refugees and migrants and language testing and assessment. In this last field she has mainly investigated into authenticity and fairness issues but also factors affecting language test performance and confidence. She has participated in various projects related to language learning, testing and assessment in various contexts and regarding three (3) working languages: Greek, Italian and English as L2s. It was her involvement in the language education of adult refugees and migrants in Greece that led her to the ALTE -LAMI Special Interest Group and she is mainly involved in the LASLLIAM-LAMI research goals. 

 Cathy Taylor, Consultant to ALTE

Cathy was a Senior Academic for Language at Trinity College London for 18 years and has experience in all aspects of language assessment design, production and quality standards. Before moving into testing she worked as a teacher, teacher trainer, academic manager and examiner in SE Asia, Europe and the UK. Cathy has an MA in Language Testing from Lancaster University and has presented and delivered workshops at international ALTE and EALTA conferences. As an ALTE consultant, Cathy has carried out audits for ALTE members and is currently chair of the QMS working group.