An Interview with J. Charles Alderson.

An Interview with J. Charles Alderson Viphavee Vongpumivitch University- of California, Los Angeles Nathan Carr University of California, Los Angeles PROFILE For more than 20 years, respected scholar in J. Charles Alderson has been an internationally language testing. He test has published research in a wide variety of areas, including reading assessment, development, test validation, test impact (washback), computer-based testing, English for specific purposes testing, the effect of background knowledge on student performance, and the relationship between language testing and second language acquisition theory. His most recent book, Assessing Reading (Alderson, 2000), explores the nature of reading ability as well as issues involved in constructing and evaluating reading tests. Dr. Alderson also a co-author of Language Test Construction is & Evaluation (Alderson, Clapham Language is Wall, 1995), and he is also co-editor of the journal Series. Dr. Testing and the Cambridge Language Assessment linguistics Alderson currently Professor of and English language education at in the Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language Lancaster University, United Kingdom. He is also test the Scientific Coordinator of the DIALANG is project, a web-based diagnostic of 14 European languages, and he an advisor to the British Council on the Hungarian English Examination Reform Project. INTRODUCTION The interview briefly explains is divided into six sections. In the in first section, Dr. Alderson how he became involved various areas of research. In the sec- Washback Research, Dr. Alderson discusses his work on the impact of on classroom teaching and learning, as well as teaching materials develop- ment and education policy. Dr. Alderson and Dr. Dianne Wall were among the first ond section, tests researchers to initiate systematic investigation of positive and negative impacts that tests may have on education. From their field research in Sri Lanka, Alderson and Wall (1993) proposed the groundbreaking Washback Hypotheses which de- scribe the nature of washback and identify the types of influence that a test can have on both teachers and students. In this interview, Dr. Alderson reflects on the effort to create a theory of Washback in Alderson and Wall (1993), the need for Issues in Applied Linguistics ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 12 No. © 2001, Regents of the University of California