Becoming an Evaluator

With emerging language professionals in mind, we discuss becoming an evaluator. In applied linguistics and more broadly in additional language education, ‘being a program evaluator’ is a relatively unusual role that many people associate with punitive actions. To develop, it is important to understand how our own experiences inform the work, what evaluators do, how they think, and how contemporary professional evaluators strive to be more competent. Our chapter is built in three sections. In the first one, we start with making the transition from previous work in language programs to ‘thinking like an evaluator’ through adopting evaluative thinking. Perspective informs choices. The second section examines professional competencies. The final section discusses working with stakeholders and a brief summary.