As Stacy mentioned, I have been busy working behind the scenes to schedule this year’s webinars. Based on the survey, we plan to keep the webinars in a format similar to last year: pre-recorded and available for two weeks and then a synchronous Q & A session. (If you are new to the interest section, most of last year’s sessions are available on the ITA IS TESOL YouTube page.

Mark your calendars.

The first webinar for this year is scheduled for October 7 at 12pm EDT, with the pre recorded presentation sent out in mid-September. This webinar will feature Dr. Jonathan Schmidgall from ETS. Prior to working at ETS, Dr. Schmidgall worked as the coordinator of the Test of Oral Proficiency (TOP) at UCLA. The presentation will likely focus on ETS' recent publication on the use of TOEFL for ITA assessment. It will focus on different approaches to quantifying the likelihood of different types of decision errors (false positives, false negatives) associated with evaluation decisions (pass / provisional pass / non-pass), using specific examples from research on UCLA's TOP. One example would be based on measurement error (e.g. rater reliability); another would be based on undergraduate perceptions. Thus, the general issue would be methods for evaluating outcomes of ITA assessments, regardless of how you define ITA oral proficiency.

As we get closer, I will send out more information on accessing the recording and Zoom information for the synchronous Q & A session.

Other webinars in the works:

• December: Dr. Elvis Wagner will present on “Real-world listening for ITAs”.
• January/ February: Dr. Greta Gorsuch will likely present on ITA teaching materials.
• I have a few other people who have also agreed to present this year that I am really excited about; I am just working on topics and dates with them.
• Want to present too? Please reach out (kml314@lehigh.edu), and I can add you to one of the planned sessions.
• I am also working on a collaboration with the SLWIS.
• Know someone who would be a great presenter for this collaboration? Let me know!

Looking forward to connecting and continuing the conversations about recent research and best practices.