How did Cambridge ESOL’s range of exams develop? How have the different levels of difficulty been determined and sustained over the years? Cambridge First takes a look at the work behind the scenes that goes into making exams progress in difficulty.
When the University of Cambridge produced its first examination for learners of English, the Certificate of Proficiency in English in 1913, this examination was aimed at only one kind of candidate – postgraduate students with an extremely high level of English.
Following the Second World War, changes to social mobility meant foreign travel became possible for a much wider section of the public. With these changes it became apparent that there were many levels of language usage which were useful.
Pic Caption: In 1913 CPE was launched for high level English users
As other examinations were developed to meet these needs, they evolved into a progression of exams, which emerged from naturally occurring levels of functional ability (e.g. of being of use for travel, business or academic study).
As the range and volume of people requiring English Language tests increased, so the need to make formal distinctions between different levels of examinations became more important.
The Council of Europe’s work in defining practical descriptions such as ‘Waystage’, ‘Threshold’ and ‘Vantage’ was influential in developing the idea of a ‘learning ladder’ of levels. The development of Cambridge exams began to reflect the learning ladder and ultimately accredited achievement at each of these levels.
Also, as Cambridge exams themselves became more popular, they in turn influenced how people thought of the proficiency levels they represented.
In the 1990s Cambridge ESOL, working with the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) proposed a five-level system (the ALTE Framework).
The Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) later brought together these same five levels and added a sixth (Breakthrough). ALTE then aligned its framework with the CEFR. The CEFR has now become an international benchmark for language learning.
However, specifications of ability are only part of the story: accurate and consistent assessment is also an important aspect of how different levels of language learning are differentiated.
Cambridge ESOL maintains this quality and ensures each test is accurate and distinct from other tests by using an approach which includes:
- item banking as a key factor in test construction – this means maintaining a database of exam items (questions), together with the answers and other relevant information
- constructing a measurement scale for objectively marked tests such as listening and reading
- pretesting – trials using real students to measure the precise difficulty of each test
- maintaining a huge team of raters worldwide for subjectively rated skills (writing, speaking)
- the careful training, induction, monitoring and standardising of writing examiners
- ongoing research into the nature of language progression as observed in our candidates
- the Cambridge Learner Corpus: developed with Cambridge University Press, this is a unique reference of learners’ responses, which can be used to give definitions of how learners at any given level actually use language under exam conditions.
Cambridge ESOL is now also working on an ambitious extension of the Cambridge Learner Corpus, the English Profile project (see English Profile Network story on page 2). This will further develop the CEFR benchmark and provide an authoritative, detailed and objective analysis of what levels of achievement in language learning actually mean, in terms of grammar, vocabulary and discourse features learners can be expected to master at each CEFR level.
Once collated, this information will not only be of great help to those developing and constructing new exams, but will also provide an essential framework for those teaching students towards attaining CEFR levels.
To find out more about the progression of levels read: Taylor, L and Jones, N (2006) Cambridge ESOL exams and the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), Research Notes 24, 2–5. Available as a download from: www.CambridgeESOL.org/rs_notes