Language as a soft power resource

2011

This technical report describes the methodologies and procedures adppted to enable the ESLC to provide high quality data to support the European Commission in this area of policy. The descriptions are provided at a level that will enable review of the implemented procedures and solutions to the challenges faced.

Welcome to issue 52 of Research Notes, our quarterly publication reporting on matters relating to research, test development and validation within Cambridge English Language Assessment. This issue features articles on the first European Survey on Language Competences (ESLC) and from the second round of the Cambridge English Funded Research Programme. The issue starts with Dr Neil Jones, the Director of the ESLC, providing an overview of the project, summarising the main findings and describing the implications of these findings for educational policy makers and Cambridge English Language Assessment. Jones highlights the importance of this survey and how it confirms the widely held views that language learning is successful when language is used for communicative purposes. Martin Robinson, who was the Manager of Test Development for the survey, then describes the language testing framework that was used as the basis to develop the ESLC survey instruments. His article details the challenges that had to be overcome when developing comparable language tests in five languages. The next two articles describe how countryspecific ESLC data is being used for secondary research and to inform national policy decisions. First, Magdalena Szpotowicz, the ESLC national research coordinator for Poland, discusses the Polish experience while her counterpart in Croatia, Jasminka buljan Culej, follows with the Croatian experience. Karen Ashton, the ESLC Project Manager, reflects on the lessons learned from this first survey and offers recommendations for the second survey. Stephen McKenna then reports on the public reaction to the ESLC. The issue then moves on to highlight studies undertaken in 2011 as part of the Cambridge English Funded Research Programme (Round 2). The first is by Anthony Green, Hanan Khalifa and Cyril J Weir, which explores the features that distinguish reading texts at three proficiency levels using Coh-Metrix. The second, by Okim Kang, investigates criterial features that can be used to distinguish aspects of spoken language at different CEFR levels. The findings from these research studies can inform both test development and classroom instruction.

2011

Foreign Language Annals, 1984

This paper summarizes a presentation for the 1983 Conference on Foreign Languages for Business and the Professions at Eastern Michigan University. The authors discuss the origin of language proficiency assessment in government, its adaptation for use in academic contexts, and one example of the potential of proficiency-based tearning and its applications in an international corporate context. A Challenge: Foreign Language Job Requirements "Applicant should be fluent in one or more of the following languages ..." "...must be fully bilingual." "Knowledge of Portuguese preferred." "Excellent skills in both German/English are necessary." "Working knowledge of ArabidHebrew required." What does the employer really mean when specifying such requirements? How do applicants interpret them? What provisions is the foreign language profession making to clarify this job market shorthand? This article discusses the origins and uses of proficiency-based systems in government and education, an initial application of proficiency-Kalhryn Buck (Ph.D., University of Washington) is head of Buck Language Services, specializing in language and cultural training and consulting services for business and industry;

English Language Teaching, 2021

This study aimed at developing the Silpakorn Test of English Proficiency (STEP), in alignment with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and in accordance with the theoretical framework established by Alderson et al. (2006). Four major steps were involved in the test construction. First, English language lecturers who served as content specialists were asked to design can-do statements presented in the CEFR. Then the specialists designed the test specification based on the can-do statements. Four skill areas: listening, semi-speaking, reading, and semi-writing were targeted as the test construct. At this juncture, the content specialists were required to write test items in accordance with the test specification. Next, the test items constructed were determined for their validity and reliability. Finally, a standard setting was carried out. The results demonstrated that the framework offered by Alderson et al. (2006) served as an effective reference docume...

The creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has evidenced the need for the development of language policies at universities. University-based language centres have made a great contribution to the development of language learning since their emergence and have played a major role in the development and implementation of language policies and language education. In addition to teaching and training Language Centres have another important function as university students are now required to prove their language competence at different stages during their university studies for mobility, graduating, entrance to master programmes, etc., as well as for better job opportunities in the international market. This new function of language centres can be defined as the need for the development of more reliable systems for the accreditation or certification of language competence which will provide a basis for comparability of levels of assessment at European level. As a consequence, national language associations throughout Europe are immersed in a process for the design of a common model for the accreditation of language competence in higher education institutions that allows for comparability in achievement across languages and institutions, but which at the same time, allows for degrees of variation and the possibility to reflect the specific needs and aims of the different institutions. In the present work we describe the evolution of the accreditation process in Europe, with special attention to the model developed by the Spanish Association of Higher Education Language Centres (ACLES).

Language Teaching, 1997

Council of Europe and pluricultural competence which is deliberately transitory and heterogeneous, although unified in one repertoire, but that he or she should also have been able to work using varied learning materials, have tested various learning routes and have accordingly enriched his or her own perceptions of languages, cultures and learning pathways.

World Englishes, 2002

The prevailing wisdom in English proficiency assessment has long been that the appropriate norms for Standard English usage around the world are those that are accepted and followed by educated native speakers of English. This assumption has led to the presumed international validity of English proficiency tests based solely on native-speaker, often American, norms. Brutt-Griffler, 2002) has demonstrated that this assumption is no longer valid in Kachru's (1985) Outer Circle countries, where English as a postcolonial legacy is widely used by large numbers of non-native speakers as a second, often official, language in a broad range of intranational domains. In these settings, widespread nativized innovations in the forms and functions of English have developed, many of which have become local norms for English proficiency testing.