SESSION 5C

Cara Dinneen, Navitas
Text Inspector for assessment and materials development

Abstract
For those of us developing materials and our own assessment instruments for courses in English for Academic Purposes, achieving the requisite proficiency levels on the materials we write is a challenge. While trying to attain an appropriate academic style for modelling, we may inadvertently be making material inaccessible to our target audience and thereby minimizing the learning impact. This session looks at the uses of "Text Inspector", an online lexical profiling tool that aligns reading, writing and listening texts with the CEFR. It considers ways in which course developers, assessment writers, teachers and students can utilize the resource to achieve a greater alignment with accepted proficiency level standards and promote more targeted teaching and learning. The session is suitable for teachers and material developers on all courses of English, not exclusively EAP, as the lexical profiling tool can be used across all proficiency levels.

Bio
Cara Dinneen is the Academic Director at Navitas English, overseeing a three-tier suite of direct entry EAP programs. Cara has a special interest in developing assessment and learning materials for in-house EAP courses and is particularly interested in the analysis of testing tools. She has over 15 years' experience in teaching and managing language programs in Spain, the Middle East and Australia.