This year’s theme addresses a pivotal moment in language education and assessment. Language assessment occupies a distinctive position among academic disciplines: language is simultaneously the object of learning, the medium of instruction, and the means through which assessment itself is conducted (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Jones, 2011). Generative artificial intelligence increasingly mediates writing, feedback, and evaluation, while critical perspectives demand a reframing of language standards and approaches that focuses on the intersection of race and language (i.e., raciolinguistics) and the ways multilingual individuals use language in their everyday lives (i.e., translanguaging). Thus, language assessment in Canada is currently at a crossroads, wherein such assessments must account for both the multilingualism and multiculturalism that defines this country and the fast-changing pace of artificial intelligence.
Conference Theme:
Assessment in Transformation: Language, Learning, and New Frontiers in Feedback
Rather than approaching technological change as a problem to be solved or a tool to be adopted, the conference foregrounds foundational questions central to assessment practice. These include how feedback operates when automated responses are ubiquitous, how educators conceptualize authorship and originality in language production, and how validity, fairness, and trust are sustained as the boundaries between human- and machine-generated language are increasingly blurred. Further, we are interested in questions that focus on the assessment of indigenous languages, translanguaging or educational contexts that are recognized as under-researched. The focus remains on assessment as a pedagogical and ethical practice rather than a technical procedure.
In addition, we welcome reflections on emerging developments, including the evolving role of technology such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in language assessment. While still in its early stages, GenAI is beginning to influence both conceptual and practical approaches to assessment, raising new questions about constructs, feedback practices, ethics, and the role of human judgment in technologically mediated environments.
Submissions might address, for example:
• How assessment frameworks are adapted in multilingual or Indigenous language context
• How assessment constructs and processes are changing in relation to AI
• The role of theoretical models in shaping classroom-based or large-scale testing
• Practitioner-led innovations in assessment practices
• How test users and stakeholders interpret and negotiate assessment results
• Implications for policy, equity, and social justice in language testing across Canadian educational institutions
• The implications of technology for test design, feedback, or assessment literacy among educators and learners
• and other important issues related to the conference theme.