London Exams Hellas along with Pearson Language Testing organised a visit to Pearson's Headquarters in London for Foreign Language School Owners last October.
The FLS Owners were selected by draw and represented many parts of the country. These were:
1. George Tagalakis (Patra)
2. Ioanna Mersinoglou (Kavala)
3. Samantha Neal (Hania)
4. Costas Kakkos (Agrinio)
5. Tina Aggoura (Messini)
6. Maria Papavasiliou (Preveza)
7. Patritsia Andrioti (Corfu)
8. Fotini Douvleka (Lamia)
The group was accompanied by Christina Tsatsaba, General Manager, London Exams Hellas and Effie Stathopoulou, Pearson's Area Manager for Greece.
London Exams Hellas is the exclusive representative of PTE General in Greece. In collaboration with the PALSO Federation, the Pearson exams are administered throughout the country.
by Anastasia Spyropoulou, (anastasia@eltnews.gr)
Pearson offers a suite of English language tests which include PTE Academic, PTE General and PTE Young Learners.
PTE General integrates all four skills (Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing) and focuses on assessing the ability of communicating in English, rather than test taking skills.
The tasks in the test are a natural continuation of what happens in the classroom, giving test takers the opportunity to perform at their best.
PTE General consists of two parts: a written paper and a spoken test. The written paper tests listening, reading comprehension and writing skills and is marked by external examiners in the UK.
The spoken test is assessed by trained local examiners and is sent to the UK for moderation.
The exams are conducted in six levels, which are designed to be aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEF), are awarded by Edexcel and accredited by Ofqual in the UK.
In Greece, all levels are recognized by ASEP.
The programme
The seminar programme featured sessions on:
• Developments in the use of Technology
• Digital Marketing
• The future of English Testing
• Test Development
• Research
The Presenters
These were:
• Matt Yallop, Regional Sales Manager, who talked about the role of technology in education in general and in language learning in particular.
Digital Natives v Digital Immigrants
It is true that students today have changed radically. They are no longer the people various educational systems were designed to teach. Today's students have grown up with digital technologies.
They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. They are "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.
The biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.
To meet this challenge Pearson works on the development of services and products that motivate students, develop new skills, boost student progress in and beyond the classroom and maximise class time for improved communicative work.
• Brian O'Flynn, Head of Web and Digital, who suggested using the Internet and the social media to promote educational services. 'Word of mouth' has changed to 'word of mouse' he said. "If you are not already on the web, get started but make sure you keep it simple and sustainable" he added.
• Dr Alaric Rae, Sales Director, who shared with the group thoughts about the future of English testing and presented Pearson's new projects such as new books, CD ROMs and online games that introduce blended approaches to learning.
Regarding testing he said that "what really matters to Pearson is the reliability, validity, quality assurance and fairness of our tests. We want to continue to offer quality services, to meet our customers' needs and demonstrate impact."
• Shaida Mohammadi, Dr Yu-Hua Chen and Jeremy Hancock who described the exam papers construction cycle, a 9-month process, which goes through various stages and quality controls before being finalised, locked down and signed off.
They also explained how exam papers are marked applying highly sophisticated and technical methods which ensure that test scores are not affected by large random fluctuations.
• Glyn Jones, Senior Researcher, who talked about the research which is currently conducted at Pearson both by researchers inside the company and by external academics funded by Pearson.
He also presented the findings of researches indicating that: (1) a second hearing of the listening passages does not necessarily improve candidate performance in the listening part of the test and (b) paired speaking does not give a clear picture of how each candidate uses the language.
This intensive seminar was an excellent initiative of both London Exams Hellas and Pearson Language Testing. The lucky Foreign Language School Owners left London with the best impressions. They learnt what it entails to produce a test, met and talked to the people who work at the backstage, shared ideas and opinions and socialised in a beautiful and sunny London.
Anastasia Spyropoulou
