Previous research that explores the effect of ethnicity in the perception of speaker accentedness and personality traits often finds that Asian appearance contributes to a more accented and less competent impression. Importantly, most of the work done to date employed only Caucasian first language-speaking listeners; moreover, ethnicity and gender…

The increasing tendency of immigration and forced migration practices around the world has made countries' populations culturally and linguistically diverse. Australia is considered one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. Consequently, the proportion of school-aged children with different culture and language is also increasing.…

Foreign language programs in schools have a strong focus on the development of communicative language ability and, increasingly, assessment tasks are designed to capture communicative abilities required for real-world situations. In communicative test tasks, sociolinguistic and discourse components, which are beyond grammatical accuracy, target…

While recent literacy research shows an increasing uptake in multimodal literacies, there remains a disjunction between multimodal literacy teaching and assessment. This paper offers a critical review of assessment in the context of teaching multimodal literacies and begins by reviewing the notion of literacy and reframing assessment in…

This chapter examines the responses of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to assessment-related challenges introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The sudden move to online teaching and assessments required institutions to re-think their approaches to current practices and provide alternative solutions almost overnight. Our survey aimed to gather…

Recent Australian media scandals suggest that university students are increasingly outsourcing their assessments to third parties -- a behaviour known as 'contract cheating'. This paper reports on findings from a large survey of students from eight Australian universities (n = 14,086) which sought to explore students' experiences with and…

Indigenous learners of English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) have historically not been the central focus of TESOL expertise here in Australia, or overseas. Despite moves towards inclusion increasing over the last two decades, there is an ongoing tendency for Indigenous EAL/D learners to remain on the periphery of current TESOL…

It is common practice for K-12 schools to assess multilingual students' language proficiency to determine language support program placement. Because such programs can provide essential scaffolding, the policies guiding these assessments merit careful consideration. It is well accepted that quality assessments must be valid (representative of the…

While its importance for promoting learning is well-documented, feedback can only promote learning to the extent that it is acted on by learners. However, there is evidence that students often have difficulty understanding feedback or with knowing how to act on it and/or are not necessarily receptive to the feedback provided. These kinds of…

Results of a case study on the implementation of Pecha Kucha presentations undertaken at The University of Western Australia in 2015 are presented and discussed here. Pecha Kucha, a fast-paced presentation format consisting of 20 slides set to proceed automatically every 20 seconds, was used in the assessment of the unit "Translation…

In recent debates about curriculum, Young (2008, p. 101) has proposed school learning must involve initiation into the "powerful knowledge" of the disciplines that underpin subject domains, thereby "giving students the tools to think the unthinkable". Opponents query whether such knowledge is available in subjects such as…

Language teachers constantly create, adapt and evaluate classroom materials to develop new curricula and meet their learners' needs. It has long been argued (e.g. by Stenhouse, L. [1975]. "An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development." London: Heinemann) that teachers themselves, as opposed to managers or course book writers,…

Assessment of young children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds holds the potential to provide important insights into learning. Two researchers investigated an Allied Health screening program that was conducted in three kindergartens in a disadvantaged area of outer Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on narrative inquiry…

Assessment is a crucial factor in higher education where marks gained can determine future study and career options. Increasing student numbers, and an increasing proportion of international students, raises concerns regarding marking practices, and whether the same criteria are used to mark both native-speaker (NS) and non-native-speaker (NNS)…

Pedagogical norms for Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) shared by teachers, curriculum writers, and resource designers inside and outside of Chinese societies are yet to be established. To initiate and inform dialogue within the CFL community over shared expectations of learners, this study compared the judgments of students' oral presentations…