Category Archives: Education

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Data from current and past tests and assessments, class room behaviour, student retention, etc., are an important resource in evaluating the quality of educational programs and services and identifying areas for improvement. An interesting article in the ACT blog looks at the results of a …

“How rapid feedback on assessments could help enhance teaching”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Multiple choice questions (MQCs) have been the traditional way of testing for generations, and have not changed substantially since they were first introduced, over a century ago, by Frederick Kelly*. His “Kansas Silent Reading Test” was possibly the first (timed) reading test that could be …

“Revitalising multiple choice questions for the digital age”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village While cApStAn has collected empirical data on cross-language comparability of standardized test items, and recognises the value of standardized testing, we acknowledge that the approach described in this article is fascinating. According to the author there will always be a place for standardised testing but …

““Personalised” or standardized testing?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Is it still acceptable, in a world which is increasingly connected, mobile and multicultural, to only speak one language? Fabrice Jaumont*, author of the “The Bilingual Revolution, the Future of Education is in Two Languages”, opened his keynote speech at the US Language Advocacy Day …

“Is monolingualism “the illiteracy of the 21st Century”?”

Several competitions between the latest generation of machine translation (MT) systems and panels of experienced human translators have been staged and made it into the news. This may have some entertainment value and, for now, bring old school translators some respite but, in my view, it misses the point entirely. Blog titles along the lines …

“Why it’s High Time to Prepare Skills Sets and Role Models for Man-Machine Translation (MMT)”