PDF《inside:》

content knowledge and skills without unduly penalizing the students who are still learning English, Wolf says. It'

s one example of how an opportunity to serve a need related to ETS'

s mission coincides with an opportunity to expand our research capabilities in the long term. Collaborating globally and locally Recognizing that success in language-testing research depends on effective collaboration with the larger research community, the researchers working on the ELLA initiative have played a key role in organizing the

2012 meeting of the world'

s premier language- testing conference ― the

2012 Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC), hosted by ETS this year in Princeton, New Jersey. LTRC is the annual conference of the Inter- national Language Testing Association. In recent years, the conference has taken place in Cambridge, England, and Hangzhou, China. The theme of the

2012 conference is Assessment and Learning: Bridging Diverse Disciplines and Domains. The conference theme, Xi says, is highly compatible with the diversity of ETS'

s R&

D portfolio, which includes a diverse set of research initiatives that focus on other critical topics in education research, such as higher education effectiveness, workforce readiness, and more effective teaching and learning in KC12 education. The needs of English learners are a growing concern in each of these areas. This year'

s theme strongly underlines the need to encourage collaboration across disciplines, Xi says. It also addresses the need to foster knowledge sharing across different domains and contexts of language testing. National research agenda Later this year, ETS researchers and collabora- tors from the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and StudentTesting (CRESST) will host another major meeting to encourage collaboration and discussion in the area of English learning. With the help of a grant from the American Educational Research Association, ETS and CRESST will host a national meeting of researchers on English Learners to address the critical concerns of assessment and instruction of learners across the country. In this project, called Building a National Research Agenda to Improve the Educa- tional Assessment and Attainment of English Language Learners, ETS will host the national meeting of researchers at UCLA in the fall, and a follow-up briefing for policy- makers in Washington, D.C., early in 2013. Leading the effort for ETS is Research Director John W. Young, who is organizing the fall conference with CRESST colleagues Joan Herman and Jamal Abedi. Common standards Part of the reason for the conference is the recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards by most U.S. states, Young says ― a development that is leading to the creation of new assessment systems that would move beyond traditional end-of-year accountability testing and incorporate data that educators can use to support ongoing instruction and learning. It is vital that these systems respond to the needs of ELs, and that means conducting research to ensure that they are continually refined to assure better educational access and test results that are valid for use as formative tools in the classroom, Young says. As education researchers, we have an opportunity to help shape the design, evaluation, and uses of these new assessment systems by identifying and articulating a national agenda for research on English learners. We have a long-term research plan to develop and validate an improved KC12 English-language proficiency model. '