Professor Alister Cumming from University ofToronto was invited to deliver a lecture entitled “Connecting Writing Assessmentsto Teaching and Learning: Distinguishing Alternative Purposes” at theNational Key Research Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics(CLAL) at 15:30 on February 29, 2016. The lecture was hosted by Professor WangChuming and attended by faculties and graduate students from the Center.    

      Professor Alister Cumming started the lecture by athought-provoking question: What are the premises, issues, and challenges forconnecting assessment to teaching and learning? To address this question,Professor Alister Cumming proposed to group the eight established assessmentpractices into three assessment purposes: normative purposes (proficiency tests,curriculum standards), formative purposes (diagnostic assessments, feedback on students’performances, dynamic assessment), and summative purposes (final exams, recordsof achievement, grades). To elaborate on the relations between the eightassessment practices and langauge teaching and learning, he discussed theadvantages and disadvanteges of each of them by synthesizing up-to-datefindings. He ended the lecture by suggesting that researchers should develop,validate, and align teaching, learning, and assessment procedures and processes.    

     After the insightful lecture，professor Alister Cumming answeredquestions from the audience concerning how to align language assessments,teaching and learning, such as the effects of diagnostic assessments, anddevelopment of China’s Standards of English. Professor Alister Cumming’s informativelecture provides an overview of the complicated relations between majorassessment practices and pedagogical issues, which points to new orientationsfor research into the interface of language assessment and language teachingand learning.