Aptis packages | British Council

Aptis packages | British Council

Aptis is an innovative English assessment tool from the British Council. It is designed to help organisations and institutions identify standards of English and select the staff or students with the right skills.

Aptis is a business-to-business product for use by organisations and institutions to benchmark the English language levels of their employees, potential employees, students or teachers.

Testing English levels from A1-C on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), Aptis is an English test for adults (16+), which can assess ability in all four English skills - speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Does Washback Exist?

Does Washback Exist?



The notion of ‘washback’ is common in the language teaching and testing literature, and tests are held to be powerful determiners of what happens in classrooms. Claims are made for both negative and positive washback, and some writers go so far as to claim that a test's validity should be measured by the degree to which it has a beneficial effect on teaching. However, very little evidence has been presented to support the argument that tests influence teaching, and what evidence has appeared tends to be based on teachers' accounts of what happens in the classroom rather than on observations of teaching and learning. This article explores the notion of washback and advances a series of possible Washback Hypotheses. It then reviews the empirical research in general education and in language education to see what insights can be gained into whether washback actually exists, how it can be measured, and what accounts for the form it takes. The article concludes with a series of proposals for further research into a phenomenon on whose importance all seem to be agreed, but whose nature and presence have been little studied.

Moving beyond accuracy: from tests of English to tests of ‘Englishing’

Moving beyond accuracy: from tests of English to tests of ‘Englishing’



This article examines how English is conceptualized in the domain of testing, and particularly the tendency to identify the concepts of ‘standard English’ and ‘native English’ with ‘the language itself’. I argue that such a monolithic view is inconsistent with the diversity of Englishes attestable across both native and non-native users and uses, and that this undermines the inclusion of accuracy criteria in English language tests. Adopting an alternative ‘plurilithic’ orientation, I challenge the traditional view on both cognitive and social grounds, arguing that the Englishes encountered and appropriated by non-native speakers will inevitably be qualitatively different from ‘standard English’ models, and that the effectiveness of the resources learners do develop should be assessed, where appropriate, independently of linguistic criteria. I conclude that a shift is required from tests of English to tests of ‘Englishing’: from testing how people use the language to testing what they can do with it

The Baljeatles - Somebody Give Me A Grade - YouTube

The Baljeatles - Somebody Give Me A Grade - YouTube

Value added – why its use makes me angry (OR: a good idea gone bad, again, in education) « Granted, but…

Value added – why its use makes me angry (OR: a good idea gone bad, again, in education) « Granted, but…