Employees working in recruitment had been the almost definitely to have a optimistic view of the vary of English language assessments on supply, in response to researchers presenting their findings at IELTS’ open day on the British Council headquarters in London’s Stratford on July 16.
The mission – a joint enterprise between the College of Cambridge, the College of Dundee and the British Council – concerned interviews of a complete of 63 college workers, together with educational school, recruiters, individuals working in admissions and people working in English language help.
The preliminary findings discovered that whereas 67% of the three establishments’ recruitment workers surveyed mentioned they had been ‘considerably happy’ by the vary of English language assessments their college accepted, simply 13% of 16 lecturers felt the identical manner.
An extra 50% mentioned they had been ‘considerably dissatisfied’, whereas some 13% mentioned they had been ‘extraordinarily dissatisfied’.
“You may see a little bit of a divide between the teams. For instance, educational school, fairly lots of people [are] not very proud of the assessments… and then you definately distinction that with recruitment,” mentioned Dr Tony Clark, head of IELTS analysis at Cambridge English.
The analysis recognized different key themes, such because the distinction between totally different English language competency assessments, IELTS’ place available in the market and the significance of assessments taking a look at educational functionality slightly than simply anyone’s grasp of language.
Clark cautioned delegates in opposition to pitting totally different ELT assessments in opposition to each other, declaring that they don’t seem to be essentially comparable.
“One factor we see taking place loads is rating comparisons [between different tests],” he defined. “So for those who’ve received this take a look at, then this take a look at [people think the scores are] equal. Be very cautious as a result of assessments are very totally different.
“If you wish to complement the rating desk like that, take a look at the take a look at constructs of the assessments – what does it truly take a look at?”
One widespread sentiment shared by EAP and admissions workers was the concern that school would really feel the necessity to “dumb down” the curriculum to cater to college students who didn’t all the time have a enough grasp of English, regardless of maybe passing an English language take a look at.
Sharing a slide highlighting recurring themes that got here up throughout interviews with respondents, Clark pointed to this niggle specifically.
“The highest one there may be feeling the necessity to ‘dumb down’. And that worries me slightly bit. College students that come to the UK, for instance, for a top quality expertise and dumbing something down is a little bit of a dangerous enterprise,” he mentioned.
One other key theme highlighted was that whereas establishments seem to belief IELTS’ providing, they’re changing into extra open to a spread of suppliers.
“There’s a vary of assessments on the market that wasn’t there earlier than. I don’t assume that’s a nasty factor. I feel it’s most likely a very good factor, however we’d like to verify it’s the best take a look at. In any other case I might fear rather a lot,” commented Clark.
