Why is assessing academic English important in university admissions?

Assessment of all kinds can have a transformative impact on the life chances of individuals. Exams are powerful gateways to new learning experiences, personal growth and development and must therefore be reliable, secure and fit for purpose.

In today’s dynamic landscape of global education and international student recruitment, there is increased reliance, rightly or wrongly, on English language proficiency tests to provide more than just a reliable measure of a test takers’ English proficiency at a given point in time. The tests used to measure English language proficiency must be accurate, relevant and up to date. All stakeholders (authorities, faculty staff, the candidates themselves but also the wider community) benefit from admissions of international students with an appropriate level of communicative English language ability. Any test which is inaccurate, outdated, irrelevant or unreliable will lead to frustration, disappointment and thwarted potential. There is also the high cost of international study and the financial impact that a lack of success brings.

For the academic domain, a test of general English is not necessarily adequate or relevant. Academic tasks, contexts and communicative objectives are different. Think of the distinction in tone, register and formality between adjectives such as ‘teensy-tiny’ and ‘microscopic’, or between the skills involved in writing an academic essay and those involved when emailing a friend.

Approved by the UK Home Office as a secure English language test for visa and immigration purposes at the end of 2023, LanguageCert Academic presents a reliable, research-informed approach to assessing English for Academic Purposes. The test is designed to measure the communicative English skills students need to thrive in an academic environment and, by focusing on academic skills across all four skills of Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking, LanguageCert Academic cultivates a linguistic foundation for success.

Catherine Jones, LanguageCert Head of Assessment, says “A high-quality English proficiency test enables reliable selection of students who are most likely to flourish in higher education. In an academic setting students will need to handle academic rigour as well as be healthy, happy, proactive participants in the university experience.” She explains “Informed by our ongoing stakeholder engagement and academic research programme, we have defined skills and aptitudes linked to real-world English language use that we think enable today’s international student populations to succeed in higher education. This includes writing, presenting, thinking analytically as well as social integration within an academic community.” This definition is the foundation of the LanguageCert Academic test design, through which task types, language levels and authentic source materials explicitly reflect how students will need to understand and use English in higher education. The definition extends to accompanying preparation and practice materials as well as the ongoing programme of research and validation.

As universities strive to attract and support a diverse range of international students, LanguageCert Academic emerges as a reliable tool fostering academic excellence and inclusivity. As Catherine Jones emphasises, “as conscientious test developers, it is our ethical and moral responsibility to ensure pathways to academic opportunities and progression are reliable, valid, secure, inclusive and accessible.”

If you’d like to learn more about how LanguageCert Academic can support international student recruitment, please email partnership@peoplecert.org.