Aligning our expectations: The challenge of language assessment literacy for South African educators [Download PDF]

On 20 August, Maritzburg College, in association with the English Academy of South Africa, will be hosting the MCEASA Conference for English Language Teachers. The theme is “Strengthening threads: Integrating literacy across the GET and FET phases”. I’m honoured to have been invited to give a keynote.

In my presentation I shall be reviewing where we stand as regards language assessment literacy (LAL), and articulate the challenges that we have, despite some piecemeal advances. These advances spring mostly from non-government initiatives rather than those undertaken by the two government departments of education. While we may justifiably celebrate the advances made by private efforts, and the high regard in which they are held internationally, we also need to exploit to the full the incremental steps that have been taken (again with private funding) to build capacity in our professional knowledge of language assessment.