Testing Unit workshops

This workshop theme is invaluable for members of the university working in the area of admissions to English medium undergraduate and postgraduate studies. It would also be of interest for those involved in PhD admissions.

• In the first part of the workshop, the thinking behind international examinations, such as IELTS, TOEFL, the Cambridge CAE & CPE and other relevant examinations, will be explained, in order to show the type of information about candidates’ language skills profiles these examinations actually provide for stakeholders.
• In the second part of the workshop, participants will be able to apply their knowledge and experience in a practical way by exploring what the balance should be between the 4 skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) in their courses, in order to build up the dream language skills profile.

In this series of workshops 3 levels are dealt with. The overall objective of these workshops is to help participants understand and use the CEFR effectively in their own work environment. The CEFR workshops are useful for language professionals. Other versions of the workshop on the CEFR are available for academic and administrative staff involved in internationalisation. The CEFR workshops are given by experienced trainers, previously involved in the EMBED project.

• CEFR Workshop – Stage 1 deals with familiarisation with the CEFR philosophy and levels. It also covers standardisation of raters in the assessment of course work, for example when using the European Language Portfolio.
• CEFR Workshop – Stage 2 focuses on standardisation leading to empowerment. The participants build up the ability to set up a systematic standardisation process within their organisation, with occasional external support. Participants will use language samples from their work situation in the workshop.
• CEFR Workshop – Stage 3 further develops the ability to standardise independently, using benchmarked samples, together with material from their own work environment, in order to produce locally annotated CEFR samples.