When developing a test of Language for Special Purposes, such as the International Certificate in Financial English (ICFE) or the International Legal English Certificate (ILEC), ensuring that it is both accurate and fair requires many factors to be taken into account.
For example, ICFE tests the candidates’ knowledge of English in a financial context – not their knowledge of finance and accountancy. This requires striking a careful balance between a general English examination, and a specific test of a technical subject.
Without this balance, someone with a wider experience of accountancy might achieve a much higher score on the test than an accountancy student – even though their English language proficiency may be the same. Alternately, if too much technical content was taken out, the exam could be too general, and would not be a test of the ability to use English in the context of today’s world of finance. To avoid these potential issues, when developing ICFE, Cambridge ESOL worked closely with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), an international organisation which itself offers globally recognised accountancy qualifications. Together we examined how finance and accounting professionals use English in different accounting contexts around the world.
When developing ILEC we worked in a similar way with the international legal English company, Translegal. Both exams were then trialled on real candidates around the world.
This level of dedicated research and testing has ensured that both ICFE and ILEC are exams which have true value in the worlds of international law and finance.
This article was adapted from: Ingham, K and Thighe, D (2006) Issues with developing a test in LSP: the International Certificate in Financial English, Research Notes 25. Available as a download from: www.CambridgeESOL.org/rs_notes