Trainers

Jayanti Banerjee

Jayanti Banerjee is a language assessment professional and researcher with 18 years’ experience in teaching the principles of language testing, designing and evaluating language tests, and conducting research into testing and assessment issues. She has lead workshops on a range of topics, including the assessment of listening and speaking, research methods, and qualitative approaches to data analysis. Jayanti has recently published a paper with colleagues that describes the review and revision of a rating scale for a large-scale writing assessment. Her current research projects focus on two different large-scale speaking tests. One project investigates the role of interaction in two different speaking test formats. The second project uses phraseological analysis in the validation of a standardised speaking assessment. Jayanti serves on the membership committee of the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA) and is a co-organizer for an EALTA Special Interest Group (SIG) in the assessment of speaking. She is also the treasurer of the International Language Testing Association (ILTA).

Claudia Harsch

Claudia Harsch researches and teaches at the University of Bremen in the field of language learning, teaching, assessment and intercultural communication. She has experience teaching and researching in Germany and in the UK, and has taught and supervised undergraduates, postgraduates and PhD students, and is active in teacher training.

Her research interests focus on language assessment, educational evaluation and measurement, intercultural communication, and the implementation of the Common European Framework (CEF). In her research, she explores aspects like the conceptualisation of intercultural communicative competences and feasible ways to foster and assess these skills, the role of assessment across cultures, qualitative methods of constructing language tests and teaching material,  or the development and validation of tools for educational evaluation. Claudia is also interested in teacher training and ongoing professional development, specifically in the field of assessment literacy. She has presented at international conferences and published widely in the area of language testing and assessment.

Claudia is a member of the editorial advisory board of Language Assessment Quarterly – an International Journal, and member of the editorial boards of Assessing Writing and RELC Journal. She is the upcoming president of EALTA and will serve as EALTA president from 2016-2019. She is the convener of the EALTA SIG Assessing Writing.

Nivja de Jong

Nivja de Jong is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication at Utrecht University. Her current research is in the field of language testing and applied linguistics, with a focus on psycholinguistic backgrounds of speaking proficiency. She has investigated how judges rate (perceive) speaking performances and how speakers come to produce successful performances. She has published in journals for psycholinguistics and applied linguistics, presented at international conferences from both areas, and has delivered workshops in the areas of experimental research methods, statistics, assessing speaking, and fluency.

Carol Spöttl

Carol Spöttl is currently the co-ordinator of the Language Testing Research Group (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck’s School of Education. She has degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh and East Anglia and has worked at the University of Innsbruck for many years in the field of language teaching, testing and evaluation. She conducts teacher-training sessions all over Austria and beyond. She was on the IATEFL TEASIG committee for over 10 years as joint Events Coordinator and is presently coordinating the EALTA speaking SIG. From 2007-2015, she was the exam reform project leader in Austria. The government-funded project introduced a new school-leaving exam in the foreign languages. It saw the development of CEFR linked tests at 2 CEFR levels, for the skills reading, listening, writing and language in use and for four of the languages taught; English, French, Italian and Spanish. Current research projects the LTRGI are involved in range from eye-tracking studies for listening tests, identifying anchor items, providing teacher trainers with benchmarked performances for speaking and writing, comparing writing assessment in two European countries to cross disciplinary projects with the university’s medical faculty.