The CTELT (Current Trends in English Language Testing) conference, which I attended on November 18^th, 2009, on behalf of Dhofar University was held in Dubai at Dubai’s Men’s College. It consisted of two main events: presentations and book and software exhibition. Over 20 presentations about testing were delivered by academics mainly from the UAE academic institutions, with four plenary speakers, two of whom were Christa Hansen, Georgetown University, USA and Ahmad Al-Issa, the American University of Sharjah, UAE. The conference opening ceremony was honoured by H.E. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the Minister of Higher Education in the UAE. The number of audience was not as big as the TESOL Arabia conference, but it was enough for every presenter to expect a good number of attendees who would be interested in their topics.

As for the outcomes, the conference was so fruitful. The whole event was about testing with a variety of topics which made it a unique experience for me. The key issues of the papers presented were about the nature, types and preparation of tests with new perspectives, one of which was how to test pragmatics on paper-pencil tests.

Mr. Marwan Al Yafai

Furthermore, I had the opportunity to promote Dhofar University as a promising leading university in Oman when getting involved in discussion throughout the conference. Some of the academics, whom I met, really showed their interest to work at Dhofar University. All in all, the conference has indeed given me a new insight into new trends and approaches in testing.

Marwan Al Yafai