Academic - LAS Graduate and Professional

Description

The Language Assessment Student Organization (LASO) is an organization for TESL MA and ALT PhD graduate students at Iowa State University who are interested in the area of language assessment. Language assessment is a sub-discipline in the field of Applied Linguistics. ISU currently offers several courses in language assessment as well as related fields such as statistics, linguistics, and education. LASO aims at providing a forum for the discussion and analysis of current and relevant issues in the field of language assessment and also a forum though which its members can learn more about specific language assessment subfields, tools, and skills of interest to them, especially those that are currently either not available or not easily acquired at ISU. Knowledge of such subfields, tools, and skills will be acquired both by means of interaction/discussion among the members of LASO during official meetings and by means of inviting other ISU PhD students or scholars/experts outside of ISU to give language-assessment-related talks or workshops.

Affiliations

This organization has no affiliations.

Constitution / Tier

File LASO_Constitution_Rev2024_2.docx
Tier Student Organization - Registered

Membership Information

Student Members 11
ISU Members 1
Non-ISU Members 0
Allowed Members Undergraduate and graduate students at ISU, ISU alumni and professors
Allowed Officers Current graduate students in the Applied Linguistics and Technology PhD or TESL program
Membership Qualifications
Membership Restrictions Members should show interests in areas of language assessment.
Elections/Selection Election will be in the first week every October.
Meetings 1-2 times per month during academic year

Description of Regular Meetings/Activities

LASO meets 1-2 times per month on Fridays during the semester in Ross Hall. During these meetings, group members discuss their research ideas, questions, and/or suggestions related to language assessment.

Description of Special Events

Every semester LASO invites a well-known researcher from the field of language assessment to give a webinar/talk on a topic relevant to the interests of group members. The guest speaker works for either a testing company or university.