The 7th British Council New Directions in Language Assessment was conducted successfully on 8-9/12/2019 in Yokohama, and the opening session was attended and welcomed by the United Kingdom’s Ambassador for Japan and the Yokohama city mayor. Professor Suwarsih Madya, the Coordinator of Evaluation Division of TEFLIN Board was among the 300 worldwide participants to represent TEFLIN in the conference.

Suwarsih reported that the conference presented five plenary speakers:

  1. Profesor Joseph Lo Bianco (University of Melbourne, Australia) gave a talk on Influencing Policy: Reflections on the different languages if ELT Research, professional practice and policymaking,
  2. Satoshi Hagiwara (President of National Association of Upper Secondary School Principal, The principal of Tokyo Metropolitan Nishi Senior High School, Japan): English Education Reform and Assessment: Challenges Japanese Senior High Schools Face now,
  3. Dr. Talia Issacs, (UCL Institute of Education, UK): Assessing “ea and tongue skills”: Standards, washback effect, and policy implications,
  4. Professor Yoshinori Watanabe, (Sophia University, Japan): Learning to be assessment-literate –Critically analyzing the results of 2019 nationwide English examination.
  5. Professor Barry O’Sullivan, (British Council, Assessment Research Group): Making a comprehensive learning system work: the case of Japan.

The conference was also presenting two panel discussions on

  1. Language Assessment Policy, with panelists: Professor Joseph Lo Bianco (University of Melbourne), Huu Nguyen (National Foreign Languages Project, Vietnam), Professor Yoshinori Watanabe (Sophia University, Japan); Profesor Mitsuharu Ota (Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, Japan) and
  2. Technology and Consequences, with panelists: Alistair Van Moere (Metametrics, USA), Talia Isaacs (UCL Institute of Education, UK), Eng Han Tan (ACT, China), Aaron Elliot (Benese, Japan), dan Ruiji Fu (IFLYTEK, China). Suwarsih further reported that there are 53 speakers from many different countries.

On the occasion, Suwarsih had an opportunity to meet with the Assessment Team from the British Council and reached an initial agreement to work together in developing the Test of Teachers’ Classroom English Proficiency (TOTCEP). Further arrangements will be discussed in the near future. “I am grateful to have the opportunity to attend the conference and hopefully I can present a paper at the next Conference”, Suwarsih closed her report while informing that the next conference will be held in Singapore at the end of October 2020.