Carol Chapelle Awarded the Cambridge/ILTA Lifetime Achievement Award

Because of her many significant contributions over the years, the ILTA in December selected Professor Carol Chapelle to receive the 2012 Cambridge/ILTA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Professor Carol Chapelle is a Distinguished Professor in TESL/Applied Linguistics in the Department of English of Iowa State University. Throughout her career she has undertaken a program of research and publications in language testing which has been deeply embedded in a wider range of interests in applied linguistics and TESOL. She has made notable contributions in two major areas of the field. The first is in the use of computer technology for language testing, growing originally out of her experience with computer-assisted language learning (CALL) as an ESL teacher. Since then, she has been a leader in investigating the potential of the technology to enhance language assessment, while at the same time maintaining a critical perspective by acknowledging problem areas and challenges. She is the author (with Dan Douglas) ofAssessing Language Through Computer Technology (Cambridge, 2006), a comprehensive survey of the area.  More broadly, Carol’s work on computer-based assessment should be viewed as a key component of her primary interest in issues at the intersection of computer technology and applied linguistics, as reflected in her books Computer Applications in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge, 2001) and English Language Learning and Technology (Benjamins, 2003).

The second area in which Carol has made outstanding contributions is the construct validation of language tests. Through a series of very influential papers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, she explored how modern validity theory could be applied in the analysis and development of language tests, particularly but not exclusively those designed to assess vocabulary knowledge and ability. At the same time she was deeply involved in building the conceptual framework for what has become the internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (iBT). This was the basis for  a sophisticated validity argument, as presented in the volume for which she was first co-editor and a prominent author, Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (Routledge, 2008) – a book described by Alister Cumming in aLanguage Testing review as a “monumental achievement”.

Apart from her theoretical contributions, Carol was co-director with Joan Jamieson of the project that led to the Longman English Assessment and has developed innovative language tests for her own institution.  She was also co-author of ESOL Tests and Testing: A Resource for Teachers and Administrators (TESOL, 2005), a noteworthy initiative to promote assessment literacy among the target readership.

Carol has served on the Executive Board of ILTA and been a frequent presenter at LTRC, as well as an active member of the Midwest affiliate MwALT. She won the ILTA Best Article Award in 1998 for her book chapter “Construct definition and validity inquiry in SLA research”.  She has also served the wider field as Editor of TESOL Quarterly and President of AAAL – roles which have brought her to international prominence and provided opportunities to communicate her work on language testing and related areas to a much broader audience. Her current major project is the multi-volume Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, for which she is not only General Editor but also editor of the Assessment volume.