Professor Tim McNamara
Deputy Head of School of Languages & Linguistics (semester 1, 2009)
Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Discipline Chair
Contact details
Phone +61 3 8344 4207
Email: tfmcna@ unimelb.edu.au
Office: Arts Centre 527
Biography
Tim McNamara is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. Building on a career as an EFL/ESL teacher and teacher trainer in Australia and the United Kingdom, Tim has taught Applied Linguistics at Melbourne since 1987. His research interests are in language testing, language and identity, language teaching, languages for specific purposes and the history of applied linguistics. Tim's language testing research has focused on performance assessment, theories of validity, the use of Rasch models, and the social and political meaning of language tests (he has recently published on the misuse of language tests in assessing the claims of asylum seekers). His work on language and identity has focused on the impact of postructuralist approaches to identity and subjectivity, and he has a particular interest in the writings on language of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Tim is the author of Language Testing (OUP, 2000) and co-author (with Carsten Roever) of Language Testing: The Social Dimension (Blackwell, 2006). He has acted as a consultant with Educational Testing Service, Princeton where he worked on the development of the speaking sub-test of TOEFL iBT; he was also one of the original developers of IELTS. Tim is a frequent speaker at international conferences and has served on the board of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Measurement, TESOL Quarterly and the International Journal of Applied Linguistics.
Selected Publications
Books
McNAMARA, T.F. & C. ROEVER (2006) Language Testing: The Social Dimension. Oxford: Blackwell.
McNAMARA, T.F. (2000) Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DAVIES, A., A. BROWN, C. ELDER, K. HILL, T. LUMLEY & T. McNAMARA (1999) Dictionary of Language Testing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McNAMARA, T.F. (1996) Measuring Second Language Performance. London and New York: Longman.
Journal articles and book chapters
McNAMARA, T. (in press, 2008) Rendering unto Caesar… Language tests and social policy: A language tester's perspective. In G. Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero & P. Stevenson, (eds) Testing Regimes: Cross-national Perspectives on Language, Migration and Citizenship. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
McNAMARA, T. (in press, 2008). Principles of testing and assessment. In K. Knapp & B. Seidlhofer (eds) Foreign Language Communication and Learning, Volume 5 of Handbooks of Applied Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
IWASHITA, N., A. BROWN, T. McNAMARA and S. O’HAGAN (2008) What features of language distinguish levels of learner speaking proficiency? An in-depth analysis of task performance in the context of the development of a speaking scale. Applied Linguistics 29, 1
McNAMARA, T. & E. SHOHAMY (2007) Language tests and human rights. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17.
McNAMARA, T. (2007) The social-political and power dimensions of tests. In E. Shohamy & N.H. Horberger (eds). Language Testing and Assessment. [Volume 7 of Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition]. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer
McNAMARA, T.F. (2006) Validity and values: Inferences and generalizability in language testing. In M. Chalhoub-Deville, C. Chapelle and P. Duff(eds) Inference and generalizability in Applied Linguistics: Multiple research perspectives (pp. 27-45). Amsterdam: John Benjamins
McNAMARA, T. (2006) Validity in language testing: The challenge of Sam Messick’s legacy. Language Assessment Quarterly 3,1: 31-51.
McNAMARA, T. (2005) 21st century Shibboleth: Language tests, identity and intergroup conflict. Language Policy 4,4: 351-370.
LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL ORIGIN GROUP (2004) Guidelines for the use of language analysis in relation to questions of national origin in refugee cases. The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 11,2: 261-266
BROWN, A. and T.F. McNAMARA (2004) 'The devil is in the detail': Researching gender issues in language assessment. TESOL Quarterly.
McNAMARA, T.F Language Testing. (2004) In A. Davies & C. Elder (eds), Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell , pp. 763-783.
EADES, D., H. FRASER, J. SIEGEL, T. MCNAMARA and B. BAKER (2003) Linguistic identification in the determination of nationality: A preliminary report. Language Policy 2,2: 179-199.
IWASHITA, N., C. ELDER and T.F. McNAMARA (2002) Estimating the difficulty of oral proficiency tasks: what does the test-taker have to offer? Language Testing 19, 4: 347-368.
McNAMARA, T.F. , K. HILL and L. MAY (2002) Discourse and assessment. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 22: 221-242.
IWASHITA, N., T.F. McNAMARA and C. ELDER (2001) Can we predict task difficulty in an oral proficiency test? Exploring the potential of an information processing approach to task design. Language Learning 51,3: 401-436.
JACOBY, S. & T.F. McNAMARA (1999) Locating competence. English for Specific Purposes 18,3: 213-241.
McNAMARA, T.F. (1997) What do we mean by 'social identity'? Competing frameworks, competing discourses. TESOL Quarterly 31, 3: 561-567.McNAMARA, T.F. (1997) 'Interaction' in second language performance assessment: whose performance? Applied Linguistics 18, 4: 446-466