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Speaker's Abstract

Professor Angel Lin_edited.jpg
Angel M.Y. Lin
Chair Professor of Language, Literacy and Social Semiotics in Education
Department of English Language Education
The Education University of Hong Kong
Title:
"From Test Scores to Learning Trajectories: Rethinking Academic Language Assessment through Ecological Languaging and Bayesian Updating"
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English Medium Education (EME) institutions often rely on single-shot proficiency measures such as IELTS, Duolingo, or C-tests as proxies for students’ academic English readiness. These instruments assume that language ability is a stable, internal trait that can be captured through decontextualized testing. However, academic performance in EMI classrooms is dynamic, relational, and deeply context-sensitive.

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This presentation introduces Ecological Languaging Competencies (ELC) (The New Territories Group, 2026) as an alternative framework for understanding English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Rather than viewing language as a hidden ability inside the learner, ELC conceptualizes competencies as emergent coordination potential: the capacity to mobilize linguistic, cognitive, social, and material resources to successfully manage real academic tasks.

Building on the ELC perspective, I present a Bayesian assessment approach that tracks students’ EAP development over time. Instead of assigning fixed levels, the system updates teacher-informed expectations using evidence from learning-oriented assessment (LoA), ecologically authentic academic tasks. The result is not a single score, but a probabilistic developmental profile that reflects uncertainty, growth, and contextual variation.

In contrast to snapshot testing, this approach models development as a trajectory, which is continuously refined through classroom participation. I will demonstrate how Bayesian updating (using our teacher-friendly app) can formalize professional judgment without replacing it, support formative decision-making, and provide a more developmentally sensitive alternative to proxy EAP tests.

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The talk concludes by considering implications for EMI policy, placement practices, and the future of academic language assessment.

Angel M. Y. Lin was Full Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education at Simon Fraser University from 2018 to 2024. She is currently Chair Professor of Language, Literacy and Social Semiotics in Education at The Education University of Hong Kong. Her research spans translanguaging and trans-semiotizing (TL-TS), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), academic literacies, and critical media literacies.
She developed the Multimodalities-Entextualization Cycle (MEC) as a critical pragmatic heuristic for educators and researchers to navigate and disrupt often monoglossic institutional spaces by valuing and enabling translingual, multimodal, and multisensory meaning-making practices. She also founded the TL-TS Research Channel on YouTube, where she has organized more than 50 research seminars featuring both established and emerging scholars in applied linguistics and education from around the world.
In July 2025, Dr. Lin founded the Humanistic AI & Wayfinding Research Lab/Net, which now oversees five international collaborative projects. The affiliated research network currently includes 448 members.
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