Dr Leyla Karatay

Dr Leyla Karatay

Senior Research Manager

Leyla holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and Technology and an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Iowa State University (USA). As a Senior Research Manager, she collaborates with various teams within the English Research Group, focusing on listening assessment, artificial intelligent, and equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging (EDIB). Before joining the team, Leyla worked as a Teaching Assistant at Iowa State University, where she taught Academic Writing and Academic speaking courses and received Teaching Excellence Award. In her home country, Türkiye, she also taught Listening and Speaking courses at Duzce University. Her PhD dissertation focused on developing a rating scale for a paired oral discussion test. Her doctoral studies were partially sponsored by Ministry of National Education of Türkiye, and her dissertation received funding from British Council Research Award. In her spare time, Leyla enjoys baking and watching movies and TV series.

Xu, J., Lee, H., Karatay, Y., & Karatay, L. (in press). Reflections on Carol Chapelle’s contributions to Applied Linguistics: Perspectives from her students. In C.Coombe, T. Clark, H. Mohebbi (Eds). In Honour of Carol A. Chapelle’s Contributions to Language Assessment and Learning. Language Teaching Research Quarterly.

Karatay, Y., & Karatay, L. (2024). The impact of automated writing evaluation on language learning and teaching: A research synthesis. System. Available online.

Kim, H., Baghestani, Sh., Yin, Sh., Karatay, Y., Kurt, S., Beck, J., & Karatay, L. (2024). ChatGPT for writing evaluation: Examining the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated scores compared to human raters. In C. A. Chapelle, G. H. Beckett, & J. Ranalli (Eds.), Exploring artificial intelligence in applied linguistics (pp. 73–95). Iowa State University Digital Press. Available online.Available online.

Karatay, Y., & Karatay, L. (2021). Review of Automated speaking assessment: Using language technologies to score spontaneous speech. Language Learning & Technology, 25 (1) 44-47. Available online.

Recent conference presentations

Karatay, L. (2025, June). Development of A Rating Scale for an Oral Communication Test for University Placement Purposes. Paper presented at the 46th Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC) in Bangkok, Thailand.

Karatay, L. (2024, April). Rethinking L2 Oral Assessments: The Missing Listening Component. Paper presented for the 57th IATEFL conference in Brighton, UK.