The Penny McKay Award
The Penny McKay Memorial Award honours Penny’s contribution to research and development in second/additional language education. As a teacher, consultant, researcher, keynote speaker and professional activist, Penny McKay was a leader in language education in Australia and internationally. Working collaboratively with educators and researchers in schools, she pioneered an approach to assessing learners' development in English as an additional language.
The Award is jointly offered by the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA), the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA) and the Association for Language Testing and Assessment of Australia and New Zealand (ALTAANZ).
The Award is for an outstanding doctoral thesis which benefits the teaching and learning of second/additional languages in Australian schools and pre-schools, including Indigenous languages, community languages, foreign languages, Standard Australian English as an additional language or variety, and/or English as a foreign language.
The Award consists of $500, a certificate and free conference registration at a conference of one of the sponsoring organisations. The winner will be offered a slot to present a paper on an aspect of their research at that conference.
The winner will be formally announced at the AGM of each Association and be presented with their award at their preferred conference. The winner’s name and a 300 word summary of their thesis will be published in each Association’s journal (ALAA – The Australian Review of Applied Linguistics; ACTA - TESOL in Context; ALTAANZ - Language Assessment Matters).
Application deadline: 31 October, 2025
Application requirements and application form are available here.
Submissions and further enquiries about the Award may be directed to the Panel Chair, [email protected]
The Award was established and is maintained from donations from individuals, professional associations and other institutions in Australia and overseas. To donate to the maintenance of this Award, or for further details, please email Professor Chris Davison, [email protected]
The Award is jointly offered by the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA), the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA) and the Association for Language Testing and Assessment of Australia and New Zealand (ALTAANZ).
The Award is for an outstanding doctoral thesis which benefits the teaching and learning of second/additional languages in Australian schools and pre-schools, including Indigenous languages, community languages, foreign languages, Standard Australian English as an additional language or variety, and/or English as a foreign language.
The Award consists of $500, a certificate and free conference registration at a conference of one of the sponsoring organisations. The winner will be offered a slot to present a paper on an aspect of their research at that conference.
The winner will be formally announced at the AGM of each Association and be presented with their award at their preferred conference. The winner’s name and a 300 word summary of their thesis will be published in each Association’s journal (ALAA – The Australian Review of Applied Linguistics; ACTA - TESOL in Context; ALTAANZ - Language Assessment Matters).
Application deadline: 31 October, 2025
Application requirements and application form are available here.
Submissions and further enquiries about the Award may be directed to the Panel Chair, [email protected]
The Award was established and is maintained from donations from individuals, professional associations and other institutions in Australia and overseas. To donate to the maintenance of this Award, or for further details, please email Professor Chris Davison, [email protected]
Winners of the Penny McKay Award
2024 Susanne Stanyer “Teacher assessment literacy: The relationship between language awareness and writing assessment behaviour” (University of New South Wales).
2023 Leonard Freeman "Fair vs. useful: Evaluating the fairness and validity of interpretations and uses of remote Aboriginal students’ national reading test performances" (University of Melbourne).
2022 Denise Angelo "Countering misrecognition of Indigenous contact languages and their ecologies" (Australian National University).
2021 Bonita Cabiles "Participation and cultural and linguistic diversity: An in-depth qualitative inquiry of an Australian primary classroom" (University of Melbourne).
2020 Kathryn MacFarlane "Transformational change for primary years' foreign language programs: Developing oral language skills for spoken interaction in the classroom" (Monash University).
2018 Amanda Hiorth “I want to grow my country”: Refugee-background Karen students in transitions: Experiences in the move from language school to mainstream schooling" (University of Melbourne).
2015 Jennifer Alford “Conceptualisations and enactment of Critical Literacy for senior high school EAL learners in Queensland, Australia: commitments, constraints and contradictions” (Queensland University of Technology).
2014 Julia Rothwell "Let's eat the captain! Thinking, feeling, doing: Intercultural language learning through process drama" (Queensland University of Technology).
2014 Susan Creagh "A Foucauldian and Quantitative Analysis of NAPLaN, the category 'Language Background Other Than English' and English as a Second Language Level" (University of Queensland).
2023 Leonard Freeman "Fair vs. useful: Evaluating the fairness and validity of interpretations and uses of remote Aboriginal students’ national reading test performances" (University of Melbourne).
2022 Denise Angelo "Countering misrecognition of Indigenous contact languages and their ecologies" (Australian National University).
2021 Bonita Cabiles "Participation and cultural and linguistic diversity: An in-depth qualitative inquiry of an Australian primary classroom" (University of Melbourne).
2020 Kathryn MacFarlane "Transformational change for primary years' foreign language programs: Developing oral language skills for spoken interaction in the classroom" (Monash University).
2018 Amanda Hiorth “I want to grow my country”: Refugee-background Karen students in transitions: Experiences in the move from language school to mainstream schooling" (University of Melbourne).
2015 Jennifer Alford “Conceptualisations and enactment of Critical Literacy for senior high school EAL learners in Queensland, Australia: commitments, constraints and contradictions” (Queensland University of Technology).
2014 Julia Rothwell "Let's eat the captain! Thinking, feeling, doing: Intercultural language learning through process drama" (Queensland University of Technology).
2014 Susan Creagh "A Foucauldian and Quantitative Analysis of NAPLaN, the category 'Language Background Other Than English' and English as a Second Language Level" (University of Queensland).