Dr Glenn Fulcher talks to ELT NEWS About Testing
Dr Glenn Fulcher is Reader in Education (Applied Linguistics and Language Testing) in the School of Education, University of Leicester. He has published widely in language testing and assessment, and his latest book Practical Language Testing was published by Hodder Education in 2010. He has served as President of the International Language Testing Association (ILTA), and is currently the co-editor of the international journal Language Testing (Sage). You can discover more about language testing and assessment at his website: http://languagetesting.info ELT NEWS met Dr Fulcher at the 32nd Language Testing Research Colloquium, which was held at Cambridge University last April, and did not miss the chance to talk to him about language testing.more

Penny Ur talks to ELT NEWS about English as a lingua franca
The spread of English as an international lingua franca has implications for teacher education in that it challenges both the purposes for which learners are studying the language and the uses to which they put their developing language proficiency.Traditionally communicative language teaching has been designed to help learners to interact with native speakers and so has focused on the linguistic and sociocultural knowledge needed for such interactions. Increasingly, however, the majority of learners use their English with other speakers for whom it is a second language rather than with native speakers. Such a change has implications for the strategies we encourage learners to develop, the materials we use and the outcomes we seek to achieve.more

PEOPLECERT announces City & Guilds IESOL Computer- Based Exams
PEOPLECERT and City & Guilds work together to offer for the first time globally the Computer Based version of the IESOL examination suite. The computer-based test will be offered in addition to the paper-based exams, which will continue to be held six times a year.City & Guilds, the largest examination body in the world, has designed the internationally recognised IESOL/ISESOL suite to assess English language communication skills at all six levels of the CEFR.more

Less Is More In Teaching
Paul Seligson has been teaching English as a foreign language since 1978. He has taught and trained teachers in nearly 30 countries, including Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Libya and Algeria. He holds an MA in TEFL (Reading University), he is a CELTA assessor, an LCCI examiner, a freelance trainer and author, he has written coursebooks at primary, secondary and adult levels, as well as a number of articles in international journals. He has published over 40 books, either as author, co-author or editor. He has given sessions at hundreds of conferences worldwide and is known for giving lively, highly practical talks.more