Course tutors

Tineke Brunfaut

Dr Tineke Brunfaut is a senior lecturer in language testing at Lancaster University, UK. Her main research interests are the testing of reading and listening in a second language, including the role that vocabulary knowledge plays. She recently received the ILTA Best Article Award for a study on diagnostic assessment (Alderson, Brunfaut, & Harding, 2015) and in 2015 was awarded the TOEFL Outstanding Young Scholar Award for her professional activities and contributions to the field of language assessment. Her work has been published in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Testing, and TESOL Quarterly. She also regularly conducts language test training and consultancy work for educational bodies around the world.

Diane Schmitt

Diane Schmitt is a Senior Lecturer in EFL/TESOL at Nottingham Trent University where she teaches on the MA in English Language Teaching and a range of English for Academic Purposes courses.  She serves on the editorial board for JEAP, the Pearson Vocabulary Technical Advisory Group and chairs the Programme Quality Committee for NCUK. She has previously served as Testing Officer and Chair of BALEAP as well as on the TOEFL Committee of Examiners.  She has co-authored two textbooks on teaching vocabulary.  She regularly presents, publishes or consults on the following areas: academic writing, plagiarism, vocabulary acquisition, language testing, materials development and the international student experience.

Norbert Schmitt

Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham and is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary. He has published 8 books on vocabulary and applied linguistics, and over 100 journal articles and book chapters.  His h-index is over 50 and he has covered a variety of lexical topics, including the development of vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary assessment, formulaic language, lexical research methodology, vocabulary learning strategies, vocabulary teaching methodology, vocabulary and reading/listening, and many others.  He has lectured and consulted widely on these topics at numerous international conferences and university talks.  His current projects include compiling a list of the best-known vocabulary, co-developing the next generation of vocabulary test, and researching the nature of vocabulary knowledge.

Benjamin Kremmel

Benjamin Kremmel researches and teaches language learning, teaching, and assessment at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, as part of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI). He is also currently enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, UK. His research interests are the assessment of L2 lexical knowledge and L2 reading skills, as well as language assessment literacy. He was involved as a test developer in the Austrian SRDP project, which developed standardized national school-leaving exams for the modern languages and he has teacher training experience in Austria, Germany, Cyprus and the UK. He has presented at numerous international conferences and his research has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Papers in Language Testing and Assessment and TESOL Quarterly. He is the winner of the 2013 Caroline Clapham IELTS Masters Award and is the recipient of the 2015 Robert Lado Memorial Award.