This document summarizes a presentation given by Stephen Stoynoff at IMS for Teachers of English in Kaliningrad, Russia from November 6-9, 2012. The presentation, titled "On the path to Crystal Mountain": A Trek and ELT in the 21st Century, discussed trends in English language teaching and the importance of teachers becoming more assessment literate. It outlined developments in conceptualizing language ability, presented implications for teachers, and suggested resources to help teachers improve their assessment skills.

1. IMS for the Teachers of English
Kaliningrad, Russia
November 6-9, 2012
Stephen Stoynoff
“On the path to Crystal Mountain”: A
Trek and ELT in the 21st Century

2. September 28, 1973
“There are no roads west of Pokhara, Nepal,
which is the last outpost of the modern
world; in one day’s walk we are a century
away.”
The Snow Leopard (p. 21)

6. Annapurna One

7. Mountain Village

8. The trek can be a metaphor for
our professional journey and for
how we approach our work as
language teachers
 Underscore the significance of our endeavor
 Acknowledge several important trends in
the field of English Language Teaching
 Identify the most important challenge ahead
 Suggest how to respond to it

9. The significance of our endeavor
 Affects billions of learners worldwide
 Involves millions of teachers
 Represents enormous investment of public
and private resources
 Has profound consequences for learners and
society

10. Four recent developments with
implications for language
teachers
 Consensus on what constitutes
communicative language ability (CLA)
 Adoption of standards-based curricula
 Alignment of assessments with curricula
 Development of assessments based on local
circumstances and needs

11. Current conceptualization of second
language (L2) ability
 The prevailing view is L2 ability consists of linguistic and
pragmatic knowledge and language use involves a set of
multiple sub-competencies that interact in a particular
language use situation.
 What is less clear is how many factors are involved and
how they are related to each other.
 The idea of functional communicative ability emerged in
the 1980s (Canale & Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983) based on
earlier work by Hymes (1972) and Halliday (1973). Since
its introduction, the construct has been elaborated and
extended by many others (e.g., Bachman, 1990; Chapelle,
Grabe, & Berns, 1997; Weir, 2005; and others).

12. The influence of the communicative
language ability (CLA) perspective
on L2 teaching
 Lessons that emphasize a set of functions, situations, and
the relative competence displayed by language users
across a range of ability levels as exemplified by the CEFR
(Council of Europe, 2001)
 Lessons that emphasize the performance of relevant tasks
in a language use situation (McNamara, 1996; Norris,
2002)
 Lessons that emphasize the discourse that emerges from
language users’ interaction in social contexts and the coconstruction of meaning that occurs (Chalhoub-Deville &
Deville, 2005)

13. How do these theoretical
developments benefit English
language teachers?
 They offer teachers a rational basis for selecting
the content, tasks, and assessment procedures they
use in their courses.
 When teachers use theory and research findings to
design language courses and construct
assessments, they increase the likelihood of
promoting learners’ CLA.

14. What implications do the four
developments I mentioned have
for teachers?
 Teachers need to understand what contributes to
communicative language ability.
 Teachers need to understand standards-based approaches
to L2 teaching and learning.
 Based on local circumstances, teachers need to be able to
select and in many cases, develop appropriate language
assessments, administer them properly, interpret the results
correctly, and use the results responsibly.

15. Most teachers will need to become
more assessment literate in the years
ahead if they are going to select or
develop and use language
assessments effectively
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Published resources
Web-based resources
Professional organizations
Educational institutions
Peers

16. Assessment publications
 Reference books
(Cambridge Language Assessment Series, Cambridge
Studies in Language Testing, Volume 7 Language Testing
and Assessment in the Encyclopedia of Language and
Education)
 Journals
(Language Assessment Quarterly and Language Testing)
 Research centers’ and non-profit organizations’ reports
(CRESST, CREDE, NCEL, RELC, Cambridge ESOL)

17. Web-based resources
 Web sites
(CAL, TESOL, ILTA, APEC, Glenn
Fulcher)
 Web-based professional development in
assessment
(CAL’s assessment tutorial, Annenberg L2
assessment workshop, ILTA’s streaming
video interviews)

18. Professional meetings
 IATEFL, TESOL and NATE Annual Conferences,
Regional Meetings, & Seminars
 Association for Language Testers in Europe
(ALTE)
 European Association for Language Testing and
Assessment (EALTA)
 Current Trends in English Language Testing
(CTELT)

19. Educational institutions
 Language testing at Lancaster summer program
(Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK)
 TESOL Summer Institute at American University
(American University,Washington, D.C., USA)
 Distance education courses offered by major
universities (University of Maryland, Baltimore
County and University of Oregon)

20. Peers
 International electronic discussion groups
(TESL-L and LTEST-L)
 Local electronic discussion groups
 Peer study and support groups

21. Professional development in
language assessment
 Requires “an appropriate balance of technical know-how,
practical skills, theoretical knowledge, and understanding
of principles…”(Taylor, 2009, p. 270).
 The optimal balance among these four considerations will
depend upon the stage of the teacher’s career, employment
context, and professional responsibilities.
 Therefore, professional development in language
assessment should be considered an ongoing process rather
than a competence that is mastered at a particular point in
a teacher’s career.

22. November 1, 1973
“High to the west, a white pyramid sails on
the sky--the Crystal Mountain” (p. 185)

23. November 11, 1973
“Having got here at last, I do not wish to
leave
the Crystal Mountain. I’m in pain about it,
truly, so much so that I have to smile; or I
might weep” (p. 232)

25. What did I learn on the path to
Crystal Mountain?




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Set ambitious professional goals
Persist in important endeavors
Gauge your progress
Recognize the challenges in your path
When you see what lies ahead, prepare for
it.

26. Crystal Mountain

27. Useful Web Sites
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Annenberg series on teaching foreign languages
(http://www.learner.org/workshops/tfl/)
Center for Research on Education, Diversity, & Excellence
(http://www.crede.ucsc.edu)
Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
(http://cresst96.cse.ucla.edu)
National Center for English Language
(http://www.ltrc.unimelb.edu.au/resources/index.html)
Regional English Language Centre (http://www.relc.org.sg)
Cambridge ESOL (http://www.cambridgeesol.org)
Educational Testing Service (http://www.ets.org/portal/site/etsmenuitem)
Center for Applied Linguistics (http://www.cal.org)

28. Useful Web Sites (continued)
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Glenn Fulcher’s Resources in Language Testing Page
(http://www.le.ac.uk/education/testing/ltrfileframe.html)
Fulcher’s Key Concepts in Language Assessment streaming video
(http://www.le.ac.uk.education/testing/ilta/faqs/main.html)
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation language assessment wiki site
(http://www.hrd.apecwiki.org/index.php/Language_Assessment)
DIALANG assessment site
(http://www.lancs.ac.uk/researchenterprise/dialang/about)
Association of Language Testers in Europe (http://www.alte.org)
TESOL web cast (http://tesol.org/s_tesol/seccss.asp)
International Language Testing Association (http://www.iltaonline.com/)

29. Selected Print Resources
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Bachman, L., & Palmer, A. (2010). Language assessment in practice. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.
Brown, H. D., & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language assessment: Principles
and practices (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman.
Brown, J. D., & Hudson, T. (2002). Criterion-referenced language testing.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Fulcher, G., & Davidson, F. (2007). Language testing and assessment: An
advanced resource book. London: Routledge.
Genesee, F., & Upshur, J. (1996). Classroom-based evaluation in second
language education. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language teachers (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
 Shohamy, E., & Hornberger, N.H. (2008). (Eds.). Encyclopedia of
language education (2nd ed.) volume 7: Language testing and
assessment. New York: Springer.
 ALTE (2011). Manual for language test development and examining.