Charles Alderson

Charles Alderson (born 1946) is a

Between 1998 and 2000 he was also a British Council Adviser, Budapest, Hungary.

On 19 April 2017, Alderson along with Tineke Brunfaut, and Luke Harding were selected as the winner of the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) Best Article Award. The award-winning paper, Towards a Theory of Diagnosis in Second and Foreign Language Assessment: Insights from Professional Practice Across Diverse Fields, was published in 2015 in the journal Applied Linguistics. The study investigated how diagnosis is theorized and carried out across a diverse range of professions with a view to finding commonalities that can be applied to the context of second and foreign language assessment. On the basis of interviews with professionals from fields such as car mechanics, IT systems support, medicine, psychology and education, a set of principles was drawn up to facilitate inform a comprehensive theory of diagnostic assessment in a second or foreign language.^[3]

Research

Alderson was Co-ordinator of the ENLTA Project (European Network for Language Testing and Assessment), funded by the European Commission from 2003 to 2005 to create EALTA, an organisation of individuals involved in language testing or assessment at any educational level.

Alderson was the developer of the DIALANG.

Awards

• 2010: Honorary Fellow, Trinity College Laban, London
• 2009: Honorary Doctorate,
  Jyväskylä University
  , Finland
• 2009: Excellence in Doctoral Supervision, Lancaster University Staff Award
• 2008: Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Language Testing Association

Publications

Alderson has published in several major journals such as Applied Linguistics, The Modern Language Journal, Language Testing, Language Awareness, Language Assessment Quarterly, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Language and Literature, and Language Teaching.

Bibliography

Books

• Alderson, J. C., Alderson, J. C. (Ed.), Pizorn, K. (Ed.), Zemva, N. (Ed.), & Beaver, L. (Ed.) (2001). The language assistant scheme in Slovenia: a baseline study. Ljubljana: The British Council.
• Alderson, J. C., & Cseresznyés., M. (2003). Reading and use of English. (Into Europe). Budapest: Teleki László Foundation.
• Alderson, J. C. (2005). Diagnosing foreign language proficiency : the interface between learning and assessment. London: Continuum.
• Alderson, J. C., & Alderson, J. C. (Ed.) (2009). The politics of language education : individuals and institutions. (New Perspectives on Language and Education). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
• Alderson, J. C. (2011). A lifetime of language testing. (Applied Linguistic Series). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
• Alderson, J. C., Haapakangas, E-L., Huhta, A., Nieminen, L., & Ullakonoja, R. (2015). The diagnosis of reading in a second or foreign language. New York and London: Routledge.

Articles

• Alderson, J. C., Brunfaut, T., & Harding, L. (2015). Towards a theory of diagnosis in second and foreign language assessment: insights from professional practice across diverse fields. Applied Linguistics, 36(2), 236–260. doi:[1]
• Harding, L., Alderson, C., & Brunfaut, T. (2015). Diagnostic assessment of reading and listening in a second or foreign language: elaborating on diagnostic principles. Language Testing, 32(3), 317–336. doi:[2]
• Alderson, J. C., Nieminen, L., & Huhta, A. (2016). Characteristics of Weak and Strong Readers in a Foreign Language. Modern Language Journal, 100(4), 853–879. doi:[3]
• Alderson, J. C., Brunfaut, T., & Harding, L. (2017). Bridging assessment and learning: a view from second and foreign language assessment. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 24(3), 379–387. doi:[4]
• Kremmel, B., Brunfaut, T., & Alderson, C. (2017). Exploring the role of phraseological knowledge in foreign language reading. Applied Linguistics, 38(6), 848–870. doi:[5]

References