Welcome Message from the AALA President
It is my great honour to welcome all presenters and participants to the Annual International Conference of the Asian Association for Language Assessment in 2024. This is an important event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our association. It is also special because after five years, the conference returns to such a glamorous and energetic city as Shanghai, China. The city awaits you with its local fruits in season in August.
During the past decade, our annual conferences have been bringing together the language assessment community in Asia and other parts of the world to engage in discussions on various topics, to exchange new ideas and to share practical experiences in language testing and education in different Asian and other contexts. We have attracted growing interest among educators, researchers, practitioners, and students in our quality plenary talks, workshops and presentations. The annual AALA conferences have indeed become favourite reunion occasions of the years for those who care about the well-being and development of language assessment in the region. In addition, we offer two annual conference awards – the AALA Best Student Paper Award and AALA Best Student Poster Award to encourage students, the future language assessment professionals, to publicize their research.
The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Enhancing professionalism in language testing and assessment’. It opens up a broad platform for anyone, no matter whether you are doing practical work with language tests and assessments, or conducting theoretical or empirical research in the field, can take part. It welcomes you all to present your views, practices and even queries of the professionalism in our field. Participants can expect to learn a great deal from the growth mindset, the thirst for professionalism, and the practices and initiatives to advance that have been being nurtured among our language testing and assessment community. Thus, your participation in the conference will be rewarding both for your good self, and for the association. Join us to celebrate our 10th anniversary milestone!
I can’t wait to see you in Shanghai in August!
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Quynh (Quynh Nguyen)
President, Asian Association of Language Assessment (2024-2025)
University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi