Faculty Lecturer
Areas of Expertise
- University teaching: ESL/TESL, teacher training and supervision, and first- and second language composition
- Language test development, validation, and administration; rating scale development; rater training
- Applied linguistics research, especially in language assessment and composition/rhetoric
- Critical applied linguistics and critical issues in measurement and evaluation
Recent Publications
Baker, B.A. (in press): Playing with the stakes: A consideration of an aspect of the social context in a gatekeeping writing assessment. Assessing Writing.
Baker, B.A. (2010). Review of O’Neill, P, Moore, C., & Huot, B. (2009), A guide to college writing assessment. Education Review.
Baker, B. A. (2009). Conflicting genre expectations in a high stakes writing test for teacher certification in Quebec. Spaan Fellow Working Papers in Second or Foreign Language Assessment, 7, 1-19.
Baker, B. A. (2008). L2 writing and L1 composition in English: Towards an alignment of effort. McGill Journal of Education, 43(2), 139-155.
Recent Scholarly Presentations
2010, June: Use of the cloze-elide task in high-stakes English proficiency testing. Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics/ Association canadienne de linguistique appliqué, Montreal.
2010, May: Decision-making style: An application of socio-cognitive psychology to rater behaviour in writing assessment research. Special session on writing assessment. Symposium on Second Language Writing, Murcia, Spain.
2009, November: Playing with the stakes: A consideration of the social context in a gatekeeping writing assessment. East Coast Organization of Language Testers (ECOLT) Annual Conference, Washington, DC.
2009, May: Conflicting genre expectations in a high-stakes writing test for teacher certification. Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics/ Association canadienne de linguistique appliquée, Ottawa.
2009, March: The development of an English proficiency test for teacher certification in Quebec. Poster presentation at the Language Testing Research Colloquium, International Language Testing Association, Denver, USA.
2008, November (with Heike Neumann): Balancing reliability, validity and practicality in assessing writing. SPEAQ Annual Conference, Quebec City.
Recent Workshops Given
2009, October: Taking the pain out of student assessment. All-day workshop at a professional development conference for developing teachers entitled “Bridging the gap between teaching and learning.” Concordia University, Montreal.
2008, June/July: Invited workshop (with Heike Neumann), Assessing ESL Writing. English and French Language Programs, Faculty of Continuing Education, McGill University.
Memberships
- Founding Member, Canadian Association for Language Assessment/Association canadienne d’évaluation des langues (CALA/ACEL)
- Member, American Association of Applied Linguistics
- Member, International Language Testing Association
- Member, SPEAQ (Professional Association of ESL Teachers in Quebec)
- Member, Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics/Association Canadienne de linguistique appliquée
- Member, International Society for Language Studies