Using Generative AI in Item Writing

Sixteen hours of hands-on training across the full item-writing cycle: prompt design, reading and listening items, AI-generated audio, writing and speaking tasks, and the judgement to evaluate, revise, or reject what the machine produces. Four live Saturday sessions with an optional practical strand and individual feedback from the trainer.

Dr Olena Rossi

PhD in Language Testing, Lancaster University
Founding convenor, EALTA AI in Language Assessment SIG

Certificate of attendance provided · Questions: emanfahad@galta.org

ChatGPT in the Writing Class

How to bring ChatGPT into the writing process without handing it the writing. Prof. Najwa Saba ‘Ayon Fares showed GALTA members a staged approach in which students draft first, then weigh feedback from the teacher, their peers and ChatGPT, and decide for themselves what to accept, adapt or reject. With practical examples from research proposals, paragraphs and essays, and ways to protect student authorship and academic integrity.

Prof. Najwa Saba ‘Ayon Fares

Languages and Liberal Arts Unit
Rafik Hariri University, Lebanon

Language Use and Implications for Validity in an EMI University

Most EMI universities outside English-dominant countries admit students on the strength of an English language test, yet very little research has asked how far those tests reflect the language students actually use once they arrive. Dr Myriam Iliovits studied language use at the American University of Beirut and discussed what her findings mean for the validity of admissions tests, in Lebanon and across our region.

Dr Myriam Iliovits

University of Chester, UK
PhD in Language Testing, Lancaster University

Can We Trust the Levels? (Re)calibrating the CEFR Descriptors

Students are placed, tests written, and scores reported against the CEFR every day, yet the research behind the levels dates from the 1990s. Dr Glyn Jones replicated it with 471 teachers in 45 countries and told GALTA members which levels held up and which deserve a second look.

Dr Glyn Jones

Author, (Re)calibrating the CEFR Descriptors
Language Assessment Quarterly (2026)

CEFR: What It Is and What It Isn't

Reflecting on 25 years of the CEFR, its uses, its abuses, and how it might be reclaimed to transform language education.

Dr Kristof Savski

Associate Professor
Prince of Songkla University, Thailand

Foundations of Effective Educational Assessment

Three mornings on designing assessment with purpose: assessing for learning, equity, and excellence. Certificates of attendance have been issued.

Raynor Roberts

English Language Lecturer
PhD, Instructional Design and Technology

Chinese Language Policies in the Arabian Gulf: New Players, Discourses and Linguistics Markets

A three-hour session convened by Prof. Othman Z. Barnawi as guest editor, with twelve researchers presenting on Chinese language policy and its assessment across the GCC, and launching a special issue of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Vol. 46, 2025, Issue 1).