Adult education is a key issue on the EU’s agenda. So is the promotion of second and third language acquisition, which is held to be a critical skill enabling EU citizen’s to widen their access to employment, to professional development and to the pursuit of leisure activities such as travel and tourism. The EU has invested significant financial resources in the development and promotion of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages, while publishers and exam boards across the continent have dedicated comparable resources to developing professional materials for language learning, as well as a vast array of formal course assessments. One key area that has been under-resourced until now is the development of next generation tools designed to assess the level of language learners before they start a course. In most language schools, both private and public, pre-course assessments are typically carried out using traditional methods such as multiple choice tests of discrete grammar and vocabulary items, sometimes combined with tasks designed to assess other skills (reading comprehension, aural comprehension, etc.) but often in an imprecise and archaic fashion. A good proportion of such pre-course assessments are still performed on paper. The inevitable consequence is that students are often assessed incorrectly and then assigned to a course that is inappropriate to their level. When this happens, students quickly lose the motivation to continue their studies and the drop-our rate spirals, making courses less economically viable for the teaching organisations concerned and less engaging for the teachers and students that remain. The main objective of this project is to develop a computer-based pre-course assessment tool that will accurately measure the current level of European adult language learners. In the first instance, this tool will be available to leaners of six languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Russian. The key characteristics of this next generation pre-course assessment tool is that it will be adaptive. In other words it will select items to present to students from a large data base of options, depending on their previous responses. This will avoid the need to answer questions that are either too hard or too easy, and home in on each student’s actual level. Another key characteristic is that it will be available online, on computers or mobile devices, with a user friendly interface featuring instructions in a range of languages. Data from the test results will be immediately accessible both by the test takers and by the institutions organising the courses. The project will be carried out by five partner organisations. The lead organisation, Amber, is a provider of Web-based software for language school administration and has all the necessary expertise in software development. The other partners are all organisations from the language teaching industry, working in four different countries. Collectively they have decades of experience providing language courses and assessment to tens of thousands of adult learners. The initial key activities include populating a data base with large a number of language test items, covering all levels of ability for each target language, and developing algorithms that will successfully select specific test items for each individual candidate. In the second phase the key activities will include a rigorous piloting of the assessment tool, together with the development of a dedicated platform, providing user-friendly access to the tests in several European languages. The methodology will be based around the development and implementation of a number of plans that will ensure the project aims are completed on time and within budget. These include an Action Plan, a Quality Assurance Plan, a Risk Assessment Plan, a Dissemination Plan, etc. Project management software such as Trello will be used to monitor progress, and fluent communication between the project partners will be maintained through four transnational meetings as well as frequent contact via digital media. The main result of the project will be the production of a next-generation assessment tool that can be used by language training organisations throughout Europe to ensure a correct pre-course assessment of their students. The impact will be significant in that it will provide thousands of language teaching institutions with an accurate and user-friendly tool, available through the Internet, that will avoid erroneous assessments and the consequent demotivation of students. The longer-term benefits to both students and training institutions will be immense. If students are accurately assessed before they start their course, they can be placed in the most appropriate group available and they are then more likely to complete their course successfully. The assessment tool could also be used as a template for other languages, or indeed for other forms of training.
Our main objective was to create a modern, technologically advanced and intuitive placement tests for six European languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. These tests would provide language teaching institutions and teachers with a tool to quickly and accurately measure existing language competence in potential learners and enroll them into appropriate language courses for further upskilling of language competences. To satisfy the needs of 21st century learners (but also modern teaching organizations), tests need to be delivered digitally, available online and across all platforms (PCs, tablets, smart phones, etc). Results provided by these tests need to be aligned with the CEFR, not just the six standard levels (A1 - C2) but all possible sublevels (total 16, including B1+ and B2+, as well as low/high modules) which correspond to most educational programs found in language schools. Ultimately, we wanted to achieve better placement into language courses, resulting in better acquisition of learning aims and outcomes and long-term upskilling of learners' language competences.
Increasing language competences remains one of the main educational priorities in the EU for a number of reasons: enhanced mobility of individuals across EU; upskilling language competences to increase employability; strengthening European dimension through preservation of language and cultural heritage, etc. This is why foreign languages became defined as main competences in national qualification frameworks, and language teaching became a part of the official adult education programs in many European countries (including Croatia). Language teaching begins with placement into appropriate courses based on current language competence of learners (particularly important for upskilling). Poor placement often results in low motivation for learning (with courses being too difficult or too easy), early drop-outs from educational programs and withdrawal from further language learning. While Council of Europe created a well-defined framework to define language competences (CEFR), assessment tools to determine the appropriate CEFR level in learners are outdated and often yield poor results. Therefore, we chose to address the need for modern and accurate placement tests for major European languages, to ensure proper placement in courses.