ILTA/SAGE Best Book Award 2020
On behalf of the International Language Testing Association, we are pleased to announce the result of the ILTA/SAGE Best Book Award 2020. The Award Committee was impressed by the quality of all the nominated books, but after careful consideration, the Committee unanimously decided that the Award should go to Ute Knoch (University of Melbourne) and Susy Macqueen (Australian National University) for their monograph Assessing English for Professional Purposes (2019) published by Routledge.
In today’s world, language skills of highly trained migrant professionals are increasingly scrutinized either for the purpose of ensuring effective communication at the workplace or for gate-keeping. However, the language testing field has lagged behind these developments and lacked adequate theorization of the language for professional purposes constructs. Therefore, this volume presents an important and timely addition to the literature in language assessment for professional purposes (LAPP).
By conceptualizing LAPP as risk management, the authors offer a novel perspective in theorizing the nature of assessment activities.
The book makes a strong and original conceptual contribution in a number of ways: framing assessment issues in professional contexts as being about risk reduction, problematizing notions of construct and context, and systematizing the processes of needs analysis test development and validation in a way not previously attempted. By conceptualizing LAPP as risk management, the authors offer a novel perspective in theorizing the nature of assessment activities. They effectively define the constructs for LAPP in four dimensions, stated, operationalized, theoretical and perceived, and explicate the quality management procedures related to LAPP from needs analysis all the way to validation and policy-making.
Although scholarly, the volume is also thoroughly readable because it provides a good balance between theoretical and practical concerns. Interesting and thought-provoking examples of LAPP permeate the chapters. We expect that the book will be highly influential for current and future LAPP scholars and testers.
Best
Slobodanka Dimova (Chair) ILTA