Pre-conference courses - information

The ALTE Services Unit is organising pre-conference courses and a workshop: 

1. Artificial Intelligence in digital language testing - 1,5 days long course:
   • Tuesday, 14 April, 09:00-17:00, venue: Goethe Institute HQ – full day  
   • Wednesday, 15 April 09.00-12.00, venue: Conference venue – 0.5 day
2. Calibrating samples of spoken performances to the CEFR levels - 1-day long course:

If interested, read more below and register via the links provided. 

We're looking forward to welcoming you at our courses in Munich! 

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1. ALTE Artificial Intelligence in Digital Language Testing course. 

This course is a one-and-half day course which will explore the use of AI in the full digital language testing process, which includes: 
- the authoring of assessments, with AI-assisted item authoring
- the test-taking phase, with AI-monitoring of test-takers, or the threat of candidates using AI to take their test,
- the marking and grading process, with (semi-)automatic AI grading - the results processing, where AI can detect anomalies or help interpreting big data.

The focus will be on the authoring and the grading phase because that is where AI gives the most promising results already. In both authoring and grading, the course will show concrete tips an tricks on how to configure and customize the LLMs to your organisation’s and assessments’ specific needs.

About the tutor:
Bert Wylin has both an academic and a business profile. He has been working at the KU Leuven since 1993, leading the Education Innovation Centre (integrating EdTech in education). In 2001, he founded a KU Leuven university spin-off, now Televic Education, developing and servicing an e-assessment platform. Today, Bert is interested in how technology serves the didactic and pedagogical needs of content and skills measurement. 

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2. Calibrating samples of spoken performances to the CEFR levels - ALTE pre-conference course.

In this pre-conference course, a practical, hands-on experience will be offered to calibrate samples of video recorded performances in spoken English to the CEFR levels. Participants will be invited to familiarise themselves with the relevant CEFR scales of illustrative descriptors and relate the provided sample performances to the CEFR levels using CEFR CV 2020 rating scales. In the discussion concluding each case, participants will be encouraged to justify their judgment, resolve the possible discrepancies, and try to agree on the final outcome.  

About the tutor:
The course tutor, Prof. Waldemar Martyniuk (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland) is a worldwide expert in language education and assessment and brings fresh perspectives on how to use the CEFR. The course is suitable for language teachers, language assessment specialists and anyone interested in language learning and testing, with or without CEFR experience.

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3. Mediation as a mode of communication: learning, teaching and assessment.

Mediation was introduced in the Common European Framework of Reference for languages of the Council of Europe (2001) as the fourth mode of communication in addition to Reception, Production, and Interaction but its presentation and illustration was rather scarce, limited to mention of typical mediating activities of translating and interpreting and two reference scales of text processing and note taking. In the CEFR Companion Volume (2020) this category of the CEFR Descriptive Scheme was given much more attention, became illustrated by an impressive number of 20 reference scales and gained new weight equal to or even surpassing the other three modes of communication, causing much discussion and even some confusion in the field of language education overwhelmed with this significant expansion of the scope of the Framework.

In this workshop, an opportunity will be offered to discuss and clarify some of the issues around the concept of Mediation as applied to language learning, teaching, and, most specifically, assessment, with the aim to seek answers to questions like:

• How to learn Mediation as a mode of communication?
• How to teach Mediation?
• How to assess Mediation?
• How to test Mediation in a standardised way?
• Should Mediation be included in our certification schemes?

Programme:

9.00 – 10.30: Session 1: Presentation, input, interaction.

10.30 – 11.00: Coffee break

11.00 – 12.00: Session 2: Q&A, Discussion

About the tutor: 
The course tutor, Prof. Waldemar Martyniuk (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland) is a worldwide expert in language education and assessment and brings fresh perspectives on how to use the CEFR. The course is suitable for language teachers, language assessment specialists and anyone interested in language learning and testing, with or without CEFR experience.

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Contact us should you have any questions: servicesunit@alte.org

See you in Munich!