When: Thursday, October 19, 09:00 – 13:15

Where: Deree Faculty Lounge

Organized by: Hellenic Open University and Deree English Department

Funded by: ERASMUS+ – TALE Project

Free admission and open to ACG and non-ACG faculty and students

The Hellenic Open University and Deree – The American College of Greece invite you to this year’s symposium with the theme of Enhancing Teacher’s Awareness of Assessment Practices in the Multicultural Classroom. Participants will have the chance to be informed about their assessment and teaching practices in a multicultural room, and at the end of the symposium, each attendee will receive a certificate.

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Aims and objectives

The overall purpose of the symposium is to raise the participants’ awareness of the central role of assessment in foreign language teaching and learning within the current globalised and multicultural context. In particular, it will present the findings of a three-year-long EU-funded project entitled “Teacher Assessment Literacy Enhancement” (TALE) aiming at developing an appropriate Language Testing and Assessment (LTA) training infrastructure for language teachers.

The symposium will focus on:

1. Presenting eight open-access online training courses on various LTA aspects (e.g. assessing reading, writing, speaking and listening skills and using alternative methods of assessment), which have been developed in the framework of the ERASMUS+-TALE project.
2. Discussing the significant role of language testing and assessment in integrating an intercultural perspective in foreign language teaching and learning.
3. Discussing the obstacles that teachers may be facing while trying to assess their learners’ skills and the ways in which they could overcome these obstacles in practice.
4. Engaging the participants in a hands-on workshop through which they will have the chance to see for themselves how they can implement appropriate assessment techniques in their classrooms.

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Symposium schedule

09:00 | Arrivals / Registration

09:30 – 10:00 | Introduction – Presentation of the ERASMUS+TALE Programme

“Enhancing the assessment literacy of English language teachers: the ERASMUS+TALE online training courses”

Dr. Nicos C. Sifakis, Hellenic Open University

10:00 – 10:30 | Main talk

“Giving EFL classes an intercultural purpose: implications for assessment”

Dr. Richard Fay, University of Manchester

10:30 – 11:00 | Main talk

“Obstacles to applying appropriate classroom-based assessment and how to overcome them”

Dr. Areti-Maria Sougari, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee break

11:30 – 13:00 | Workshop

“Disentangling the mysteries of classroom-based assessment: a hands-on approach”

Dr. Nicos C. Sifakis and Stefania Kordia, Hellenic Open University

13:00 – 13:15 | Conclusions

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Nicos Sifakis is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) and the Director of the M.Ed. in TESOL programme of HOU. He is a lead member of the ERASMUS+TALE project consortium.

Richard Fay is a Lecturer in Education (TESOL and Intercultural Communication) at The University of Manchester (UK). He is the Director of the MA in Intercultural Communication.

Areti-Maria Sougari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Stefania Kordia is a doctoral candidate in the School of Humanities of the Hellenic Open University and a member of the ERASMUS+TALE project consortium.