Staff Profiles

Student Profiles

Search for Academic Staff

Professor J. Charles Alderson

Charles

Professor of Linguistics and English Language Education

Department: Linguistics and English Language

Degree: MA (Oxford), PhD (Edinburgh)

Associated research centres and groups: Language Testing Research Group (LTRG)

Current Teaching

For the next two years, I have been awarded a research grant from the Economic and Social Research Council to lead a research project entitled "Diagnosing Reading Proficiency in a Second or Foreign Language".The research grant for this project buys out all my teaching, administration and research time.Courses I have taught in the past include:

Undergraduate courses:

Language Teaching Methodology (LING271)
Interpreting Language in Use (LING261)
Introduction to General Linguistics (LING151)
Language Acquisition (LING235)

Masters level:

Background to Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching
Evaluating Language Education
Issues in Language Testing
Language Test Construction and Evaluation
Language Testing Techniques
Language Test Research and Development
Professional Issues in Language Teaching
Research Issues in Applied Linguistics
Research Design and Experimentation in Language Teaching
Research Issues in Applied Linguistics
Reading in a Foreign Language
Statistics

PhD level:

Introduction to Quantitative Methods
Critical Approaches to Social Data for Applied Linguistics
Language Testing

Research Interests

Charles Alderson is Professor of Linguistics and English Language Education in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, and was Head of Department from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 2001, Charles was co-editor, with Professor Lyle Bachman of UCLA, of the international journal Language Testing, and is co-editor, also with Lyle Bachman, of the Cambridge Language Assessment Series (CLAS), published by Cambridge University Press in which the following books have already appeared:

Assessing Reading (Alderson, 2000)
Assessing Vocabulary (Read, 2000)
Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes (Douglas, 2000)
Assessing Listening (Buck, 2001)
Assessing Writing (Weigle, 2002)
Assessing Speaking (Luoma, 2004)
Assessing Grammar (Purpura, 2004)
Statistical Analysis for Language Assessment (Bachman, 2004)
Assessing Young Learners (McKay, 2006)
Assessing Language through Computer Technology (Chapelle and Douglas, 2006)

He is also editor of the series Into Europe , published by the British Council and the Teleki Foundation, Budapest, in which Reading and Use of English (Alderson and Cseresznyés, 2003), The Speaking Handbook (Csépes and Együd), The Writing Handbook (Gyula Tankó) and Listening (Katalin Fehérváryné H. and Karmen Pizorn) have been published.

From 1998 till Summer 2000, Charles was on leave of absence in Hungary, where he was Adviser to the British Council, on the English Examinations Reform Project, and Director of Studies of the PhD in Language Pedagogy at ELTE, Budapest.

He was Scientific Co-ordinator of the EU-funded DIALANG project, and welcomes applications from students wishing to engage in research in any aspect of the work of DIALANG or computer-based assessment more generally.

In 2003, Charles received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to conduct research on DIALANG which resulted in his 2005 book Diagnosing foreign language proficiency: the interface between learning and assessment, published by Continuum

Before joining the Department in 1989, he was a Senior Teaching Fellow and Director of the Institute for English Language Education from 1985 to 1987. Prior to coming to Lancaster in 1980, he was Director of the University of Michigan's Testing and Certification Division, and he taught EFL and Applied Linguistics in West Germany, Algeria, Scotland and Mexico.

He has published many articles in professional journals on language testing, course design and evaluation, and reading in a foreign language. His most recent edited, co-edited and co-authored publications are:

Constructing School-leaving Examinations at a National Level - Meeting European Standards. Ljubljana: British Council and Državni izpitni center. (ISBN 961-6322-37-0) with Karmen Pižorn.
Into Europe: Reading and Use of English. Budapest: Teleki László Foundation. ISBN 963 86388 3 4.
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Case Studies. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. ISBN 92-871-4983-6.
The language assistant scheme in Slovenia: A baseline study. Ljubljana: The British Council, with K. Pižorn, N. Žemva and L.Beaver
English Language Education in Hungary, Part II: Examining Hungarian Learners' Achievements in English with colleagues Edit Nagy and Enikö Öveges, published by the British Council Hungary.
He is also co-author, with colleagues Caroline Clapham and Dianne Wall, of Language Test Construction and Evaluation, published by Cambridge University Press in 1995.

He has also co-edited:

Issues in Language Testing (1981)
Reading in a Foreign Language (1984)
Evaluation (1985)
Evaluating Second Language Education (1992)
Language Testing in the 1990s: The Communicative Legacy (1991).

Recent and current research projects directed by Charles include:

Diagnosis of reading proficiency in a second or foreign language
ELPACS - The validation of a test of English for air traffic controllers, funded by Eurocontrol, Luxembourg, 2006-7.
The Dutch CEF Construct Project, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, 2003-7
ESRC-funded project on Metalinguistic Knowledge, Language Aptitude and Language Proficiency
LUCAS Language Testing Software Development
For the Australian Government on the testing of migrant health professionals
For the Overseas Development Administration on the development of proficiency tests in Sri Lanka, and on the washback of a revised O-Level examination of English on Sri Lankan classrooms and teachers
For the British Council and Innovation in Higher Education on computer-based English language testing
For the ELTS Revision Project for the British Council, the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and the Australian International Development Program.

Charles 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.

Current interests include all aspects of language testing, course evaluation, reading in a second or foreign language, and in-service teacher training. He is a member of the Reading Experts Group for PISA 2009 and at Lancaster, he is a member of CRILE - Centre for Research In Language Education, and the Language Testing Research Group.

See full CV(PDF).

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

J. Charles Alderson has 34 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk

Alderson, J. Charles (2007) Judging the Frequency of English Words. Applied Linguistics, 28 (3). pp. 383-409. ISSN 0142-6001

Alderson, J. Charles and Figueras, N. and Kuiper, H. and Nold, G. (2006) Analysing tests of reading and listening in relation to the Common European Framework of Reference: The Experience of the Dutch CEFR Construct Project. Language Assessment Quarterly An International Journal, 3 (1). pp. 3-30. ISSN 15434311

Alderson, J. Charles and McIntyre, D. (2006) Implementing and evaluating a self-assessment mechanism for the web-based Language and Style course. Language and Literature, 15 (3). pp. 291-306. ISSN 09639470

Alderson, J. Charles (2005) Diagnosing foreign language proficiency : the interface between learning and assessment. Continuum, London. ISBN 0826485030

Alderson, J. Charles (2005) Editorial. Language Testing, 22 (3). pp. 257-260. ISSN 0265-5322

Alderson, J. Charles and Huhta, Ari (2005) The development of a suite of computer-based diagnostic tests based on the Common European Framework. Language Testing, 22 (3). pp. 301-320. ISSN 0265-5322

Alderson, J. Charles and Figueras, N. and Kuijper, H. and Nold, G. and Takala, S. and Tardieu, C. (2004) The development of specifications for item development and classification within The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment: Reading and Listening: Final report of The Dutch CEF Construct Project . Working Paper. Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. (Unpublished)

Alderson, J. Charles and Cseresznyés., Mária (2003) Reading and use of English. Into Europe . Teleki László Foundation, Budapest. ISBN 9638638834

Alderson, J. Charles and Banerjee, Jayanti (2002) State of the art review : language testing and assessment (part two). Language Teaching, 35 (2). pp. 79-113. ISSN 0261-4448

Alderson, J. Charles (2001) A felvonó nem muködik. Ön ma elviselhetetlen lesz - Avagy a fordítás és az új érettségi. Iskolakultura, 11 (11). pp. 100-112. ISSN 1215-5233