The conference
The GALTA Online Conference brings together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working on language testing and assessment in the Gulf, the wider MENA region, and beyond. Every test score is a claim, and every claim rests on evidence. Yet that evidence base has been built largely in a handful of contexts, for a handful of languages, and then exported everywhere else. This conference asks what happens at the point of arrival: when instruments, frameworks, and standards designed elsewhere meet the multilingual realities of our region, and when local evidence challenges imported assumptions.
The conference focuses on three languages: Arabic, English, and Chinese. Across the MENA region, Arabic is the official language and mother tongue; English is taught almost universally as a foreign language in schools and universities; and Chinese is the newest arrival, entering school systems in the Gulf and beyond. Together these three languages are making the region's citizens increasingly multilingual and multicultural, and each carries its own theoretical and pedagogical traditions of assessment. The conference puts one question to all three: how should this multilingual repertoire be assessed, and on what evidence? All sessions run live on Zoom in KSA time (GMT+3) with GMT equivalents, and certificates of attendance and presentation are provided.
Featured topics include, but are not limited to:
- Validity evidence and validation frameworks in regional and under-represented contexts
- Fairness, bias, access, and accommodations in test design and administration
- Localization and adaptation of international tests, frameworks, and standards, including CEFR alignment
- Assessment of Arabic as the official language, mother tongue, and heritage language
- Assessment of English as a foreign language, and of Chinese as an emerging school subject, across the MENA region: curriculum, proficiency, placement, and admissions
- Classroom-based assessment: teacher judgement, feedback, and the evidence behind grades
- Washback and consequences: how tests shape teaching, learning, and life chances
- Rating processes, rater behaviour, and scoring in multilingual settings
- Score use in policy: admissions, placement, gatekeeping, and national reform
- Assessment literacy and the ethics, transparency, and replication of assessment research
Three days, fully online
Sessions are recorded where speakers consent; recordings join the GALTA members’ library after the conference.
Key dates and registration
Registration opens February 2027, after acceptances. Early bird pricing runs until 15 March 2027. One registration covers all three days, recordings, and a certificate. At least one author of each accepted abstract must register.
Submit your abstract
Submission is open now: max. 250 words, deadline 15 January 2027. Abstracts are reviewed anonymously. Presentation types: paper (20 minutes + 10 discussion), poster (lightning talk with live Q&A), or workshop (90 minutes, Thursday). Questions? Email emanfahad@galta.org.