Good growth of established exams
General English
The general English exams continue to do well year on year. Candidate entries for KET and PET increased significantly this year, with particular growth in entries from Argentina, Brazil, France, Greece and Mexico. The steady growth of these tests, updated in 2004, can partly be attributed to their wider recognition by government and educational ministries and commercial organisations.
Computer-based PET was launched in some countries in Europe this year. The shorter lead-in times between entry and exam and faster results turnaround time have proven particularly attractive in Italy and Switzerland. There is also considerable interest from centres in Latin America and other parts of the world. Work is progressing on a computer-based version of KET, with trialling planned before the official launch in mid 2007.
The more advanced levels, FCE, CAE and CPE, have also seen steady candidature growth this year, attracting high numbers of entries from all over the world. A further increase in FCE and CAE candidature is anticipated when the updated exam specifications (see page 7) are introduced from December 2008.
Business English
BEC attracts ever higher numbers of candidates and there have been highly successful adoptions in the state education sectors in India and Switzerland.
Demand for the BULATS test has also been exceptionally high. During the year, a new online ordering facility for the computer-based test was introduced and research into the feasibility of an online (rather than CD-ROM based) version for more effective test delivery and administration was undertaken. The Research and Validation team has been working on improving the efficiency with which test tasks can be produced and used in computer-adaptive tests.
Young Learners English
YLE continues to increase in popularity worldwide, with exceptionally high growth in candidature in China, Greece, Hong Kong, throughout Latin America, Spain and Russia. Testing children involves the serious consideration of many ethical issues such as how can English language testing be made non-threatening,
or can there be fair and accurate measurement of progress? Should children undergo formal testing
at all? These questions were addressed in an article ‘Ethical issues in the testing of young learners’ (Research Notes 22). Cambridge ESOL is very serious in its commitment to providing ethical and fair tests. Its work in producing tests for children emphasises the importance of privacy and protection as well as other issues regarding test design and children’s test taking experience.
English for Special Purposes
IELTS
In this period, IELTS candidature has seen record growth overall, particularly in Australia, China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and the USA. This rise in entries has been matched by an increase in global recognition for this high-stakes test. A new IELTS brand identity was launched this year to promote its key strengths.
Ongoing exam development work is undertaken by the Research and Validation Group to ensure IELTS stays relevant to test users’ needs and candidates’ purposes. Test performance data, based on studies of reliability of both objectively and subjectively scored modules, was integrated into a report for IELTS centres. A full report is published in Research Notes 23.
Teaching Awards
Cambridge ESOL’s Teaching Awards have again seen steady candidature across the six certificates and two diplomas. The CELTA certificate, the initial qualification for people with little or no previous teaching experience, remains the most popular with the largest candidature coming from Australia, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, UK and the United States. The new teaching test TKT has seen widespread interest from institutions throughout the world, and ICELT (In-service Certificate in English Language Teaching) is being used in a Peacekeeping English Project in the Ukraine to train promising teachers in the Ministry of Defence.
Research makes an important contribution to the monitoring and test development process for IELTS, and its outcomes help English language professionals to gain a clearer understanding of the test. For this reason, an IELTS research programme exists, financed by the partners, Cambridge ESOL, British Council and IDP/IELTS Australia to offer opportunities for research projects that reflect current concerns and issues relating to the IELTS test in an international context.
Good response to new exams
International Legal English Certificate (ILEC)
The first internationally recognised test of legal English took place in May. ILEC, tailored to the international language requirements of the legal profession, was developed in collaboration with TransLegal – Europe’s leading firm of lawyer-linguists. The development of ILEC was the result of teamwork between assessment experts and legal content specialists, each bringing their own expertise to the process, resulting in the production of test tasks which are absolutely authentic to the language situation at the same time as successfully assessing language proficiency.
Asset Languages
In the UK, Cambridge ESOL and its sister organisation, OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations), continue to develop the qualifications for learners of all ages and ability. The qualifications will help to raise the status of the diverse languages used across Britain’s multicultural society. Its first full year of the scheme has been extremely encouraging, with candidates taking the tests in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Panjabi and Urdu. Over 1,000 exam centres are signed up to run the exams, which next year include Arabic, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish and Yoruba.
ESOL Skills for Life certificates
In their second year, these new exams – serving a UK government initiative – saw excellent entries growth, with Cambridge ESOL now delivering a major share of these ESOL assessments in Britain. This substantial candidature is attributable to Cambridge ESOL’s prioritisation of the needs of teachers, exam administrators and centres and the rapid turnaround of results.
Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT)
Also in its second year, TKT has seen a sharp rise in candidature as teachers, prospective teachers, teacher training institutions and education authorities acknowledge its value, flexibility and contribution to career development and teacher training programmes. There has been very strong interest and candidature from Latin America as well as from Europe and increasingly from countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Government agencies and private institutions appreciate the benefits of this award and the contribution it can make to their policies, educational objectives and operations.
Exams recognition
Cambridge exams have achieved further recognition this year. In the US, more than 800 universities now recognise Cambridge ESOL exams and IELTS. The awards are accepted by 10 of the 11 major universities, known as the ‘Big Ten Schools’, and seven of the eight ‘Ivy League’ universities.
All of Australia’s most prestigious universities (the ‘Group of Eight’) also now recognise Cambridge ESOL exams or IELTS for entry purposes.
The European Personnel Selection Office trialled IELTS with a number of European Commission personnel in 2006 and is working on a proposal to use IELTS to certify civil servants’ English language skills on behalf of all the institutions of the European Union.
Cambridge ESOL qualifications are also increasingly being adopted as a key part of university curricula around the world. In India, the state of Kerala is now using BEC as part of the curriculum in Engineering. BEC is also benefiting thousands of other candidates in Arts and Science colleges in the state. There have been further curriculum adoptions in the Netherlands, Austria, France and Switzerland.
An online recognition database was incorporated into the website to make it quicker for people to find the institutions and employers that recognise their Cambridge ESOL certificate.
Keeping exams relevant
Cambridge ESOL regularly reviews its qualifications to ensure they are up to date and remain relevant to users and candidates in an ever-changing world. This entails a rigorous procedure of initial survey, external consultation and drafted specifications followed by trialling in many countries and test validation of the new items and formats. This rigour is to ensure that the changes do not affect the integrity of the exams or the reliability of the results.
YLE
To ensure these popular tests remain appropriate to the changing needs and learning environments of young learners, a YLE review was finalised this year. A survey – conducted with exam centres, teachers and parents – showed high levels of satisfaction. As a result, the ‘look and feel’, format, number of questions and timing remain the same. However, a number of changes were made following stakeholder feedback: updating vocabulary lists and altering some task types to test skills in a different way to ensure each task has a clear testing focus. The new task types were trialled on hundreds of children in different countries and both quantitative and qualitative data was analysed. The revised tests are available from January 2007.
FCE and CAE
Cambridge ESOL carried out a thorough review of FCE and CAE, two of the world’s best known and most widely recognised qualifications for learners of English. The purpose was to ensure, among other things, that the exams go on meeting the needs of users and test takers. The changes are: an overall reduction in exam time by about one hour, a wider range of skills and functions, some new or improved task types and some standardisation in content to increase the exams’ user-friendliness. The first revised exams are scheduled for December 2008.
DELTA
A comprehensive review focused on syllabus design and content, modes of course delivery, assessment of course components and administrative procedures to make sure that DELTA maintains its status as the most recognised and trusted ELT teaching qualification. A number of exciting ideas are being considered for the revised DELTA, to be introduced after September 2008.