Language Centres at a Crossroads

NULTE is an offspring of the CercleS Focus Group “Language Testing and Assessment”. It represents a Network of University Language Testers related to National Members of CercleS and consists of six member institutions. It represents language testers in about 220 universities in Europe.

http://www.cercles.org/EN-H190/nulte.html

Under the umbrella of CercleS, the Network of University Language Testers in Europe (NULTE) represents more than 220 universities that offer their students university specific language certification schemes. The network brings together the competence and experience of six different university language testing and certification systems. It aims to guarantee and increase the quality of university language testing, e.g. by conducting comparative studies on language testing at European level. The different partners involved also offer – in close cooperation with each other – professional development activities for university language teachers in order to enhance assessment literacy throughout Europe. During the CercleS Conference, NULTE would like to meet CercleS members, share their expertise and invite more partners to help increase the standards of university language testing in our confederation.

During this panel discussion, the members of the network will present their commonly agreed minimum standards as well as their individual approaches to language testing. They will explain how they cater for the needs of new generations of students and how they help them to get ready for the challenges of their future professional career at regional, national and/or international level.

Panellists will provide participants with an insight in their process of developing a quality assurance scheme at European level for university language testing, despite fundamental differences in their legal and regulatory frameworks. Furthermore, they will present first outcomes of ongoing project activities within the NULTE group, like e.g. the development of criteria for “good university language tests” and the implementation of the content of the CEFR Companion Volume 2018.

Language teachers and testers within the CercleS community are invited to engage in a lively discussion on how language testing and assessment at university should look like and could be developed further in the future, how tests could be made more authentic and engaging for the test-taker, and what new approaches might be promising. Together with the audience we would also like to address the question on how to implement innovative approaches and how to support teachers in managing these changes in order to make them fit for teaching and testing new generations of students.

In diesem Diskussionsforum werden die Mitglieder des Netzwerks NULTE (Network of University Language Testers in Europe) ihre Minimalstandards und ihre jeweiligen Testsysteme kurz vorstellen. NULTE ist ein europäischer Verbund hochschulspezifischer Testanbieterorganisationen, der aus der CercleS Focus Group zum Sprachtesten entstanden ist. Die NULTE-Mitglieder werden sich anschließend mit den Teilnehmer*innen über die Bedarfe der neuen Generation an Studierenden austauschen und mit ihnen gemeinsam reflektieren, welche Auswirkungen dies auf die Prüfungspraxis an Hochschulsprachenzentren hat. Mit Blick auf den Begleitband zum GER stellt sich vor allem die Frage, wie die Testteilnehmenden stärker ins Zentrum der Prüfungsaktivität gerückt werden können und die Aufgabenstellungen noch authentischer konzipiert werden können. Gemeinsam wollen wir schließlich diskutieren, wie Lehrkräfte und Prüfer*innen auf diese neuen Herausforderungen vorbereitet werden können.

Johann Fischer is the Director of ZESS (Centre for Languages and Transferable Skills) at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and the Head of the Scientific Committee of UNIcert, the German quality label for language teaching, testing and certification in higher education. Former Secretary General and President of CercleS, he is currently a member of the Board of AKS. His research focuses on the implementation of the CEFR, task-based teaching & assessment, and staff development. He has been coordinator of European projects with the European Commission and the ECML. He is one of the founders of NULTE – the Network of University Language Testers in Europe.

Laurent Rouveyrol is a senior lecturer in English linguistics and language teaching at the University Côte d’Azur (Nice, France) where he’s been director of the Department of Modern Languages (Service Commun en Langues) since 2013. His current research concerns the link between interactional linguistics and second language acquisition in relation to language testing (CLES). He has also been involved in the CLES (French Higher Education Language certification) since 2006 and has been a vice-director of the National CLES coordination since 2013, in charge of International and scientific affairs, with the scientific director Professor Yves Bardière (Université Grenoble Alpes).

Helena Šajgalíková is teacher of English and communication and culture at the Faculty of Applied Languages at the University of Economics in Bratislava. She is the Head of UNIcert®LUCE, the Czech and Slovak language certification system in higher education. She coordinated international projects and published articles and books on language teaching and testing.

Jolanta Wielgus has been Head of the Gdansk University of Technology (GUT) Language Centre since 2019. She is a teacher of English for Specific Purposes (Engineering), Business English and English for Academic Purposes, and was Deputy Head for Education at the GUT Language Centre from 2006 to 2019. From 2014 to 2017, she was the GUT team leader involved in the international project “Communication in Mobile and Virtual Work” CoMoViWo. Since 2014 she has been the national coordinator of the Polish academic language certification system ACERT, issued by universities affiliated to SERMO.

Nicole Wolder holds an MA in Applied Linguistics from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She works in the Language Testing Centre in the Centre for Languages and Transferable Skills of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen coordinating classroom-based assessments, placement tests and task-based certification tests. She is also involved in quality management, professional development courses and UNIcert®. Areas of interest: Language teaching and assessment in the context of the CEFR Companion Volume (Council of Europe 2018), assessment literacy for teachers in Higher Education, useful and meaningful tasks for generation Z.

Julia Zabala Delgado holds an MA in English Philology from the Universitat de València, a Diploma in translation and interpretation from the Universitat de València, an MA in Language Testing from Lancaster University and a PhD in Language and Technology from the Universitat Politècnica de València. She works as a Language Advisor at the Language Centre of the Universitat Politècnica de València coordinating standardised exams, test development and rater training. Areas of interest: Language Assessment, Development of Assessment Tools, Rater training, Higher Education.