The CAA International EALTS test wash-backAn important consideration related to language test design concerns its wash-back effect. The wash-back effect of testing can be described as the influence of testing on teaching and learning, and like the overall impact of the test itself, test wash-back can exert positive, negative or neutral influences. Within language teaching, wash-back may be reflected in the way trainers might model their curriculum around the form, content and focus areas of a test. Within language learning, it may be similarly reflected in the way that learners modify their learning strategies in order to succeed in a particular form of test rather than concentrating on mastering the content and skills addressed in the test. 1 The goal of aviation operational language testing is to ensure that flight crew and air traffic controllers have adequate language proficiency for the conduct of safe operations. Robust language training programmes are an essential component of a programme to enable pilots and controllers to achieve ICAO Operational Level 4 language proficiency. High-quality testing will encourage high-quality training. The proper relationship of any teaching and testing is a partnership in which one supports the other. A valid test, designed to match the construct and content being taught (i.e. communicative language skills as defined in the Rating Scale and aviation-related topics, themes, lexical domains, and functional language requirements as specified in ICAO doc 9835), will foster a positive wash-back effect. With the aim of all English for Aviation teaching, and learning being the attainment of language proficiency to meet prescribed minimum operational requirements, the EALTS testing techniques and test content are wholly compliant with the overall objective of any English for Aviation language training course – operational communicative competence. 2 Through the input of both language and aviation operations specialists, the design of the EALTS has taken into consideration aspects of test wash-back not only in the narrower context of language teaching and learning and attitudes towards language proficiency but also in the broader context of operational practice in the area of aeronautical communication and, ultimately, to enhanced aviation safety. Although the stakes in English for Aviation language testing are high and the EALTS should be regarded as important, it is not intended that specific preparation for an EALTS test should dominate all teaching and learning activities. Indeed, the nature of the test precludes specific teaching and learning other than that which may lead to overall language proficiency and good practice in operational aeronautical communications, and to this end the EALTS encourages language learning activities that genuinely improve language proficiency. Success in the EALTS (however success might be measured), should not in itself be seen as the overall language proficiency objective, but rather as a step along the way to the attainment and maintenance of the required levels of operational communicative competence. Below is brief summary of a number of the features incorporated in the EALTS as a way of encouraging learners to focus on proficiency-building language learning activities and good practice in aeronautical communications in their preparation for the test. Achieving beneficial wash-backThe EALTS offers direct, communicative tests of language proficiency. With texts and tasks as authentic as possible, the EALTS is a test of performance skills prescribed by ICAO in which candidates are required to demonstrate their proficiency specifically in the skills of listening and speaking in the context of aeronautical communications With the EALTS testing directly the skills that ICAO requires and that the regulatory authorities, employers and trainers are interested in fostering, then practice for the test represents practice in those skills. 3 The EALTS tests those language abilities whose development is to be encouraged. The EALTS tests directly the skills of listening and speaking in plain English in the context of aviation. 4 These are the skills that are required by ICAO and to be encouraged by regulatory authorities, employers and trainers in all operational personnel involved in aeronautical communications. It is this skills focus of the test should be reflected in any associated English for Aviation teaching and learning programme. The EALTS ensures that the training content is guided by appropriate operational performance objectives. The EALTS is criterion-referenced. EALTS test specifications detail what candidates have to be able to do and with to what level of proficiency, enabling them to have a clear understanding of what they have to achieve. Additionally, candidates know that they will achieve an award based on their own performance of the test tasks as assessed against the criteria specified, regardless of how their partner candidate or other candidates perform. The clear description of the test activities and the transparent ICAO specified criteria of language proficiency is a motivating factor for test candidates – the attainment and demonstration of the prescribed minimum level of language proficiency will equate to success in the EALTS. The EALTS is based on language proficiency objectives. The EALTS is not a syllabus focussed test based on detailed teaching and textbook content or objectives of particular language courses that candidates may have followed. It is a testing system based on the specification of what candidates have to be able to do in the language in order to be considered proficient. With the objective of the test being the measure of operational language proficiency, the assessments provided by the test offer a more accurate reflection of what has actually been achieved during the teaching and learning process. Once this assessment objective has been established, it can provide a yardstick against which teaching and learning can be evaluated. In turn, this evaluation of teaching and learning creates an on-going, positive pressure to achieve the objective. 5 The EALTS is accessible to all candidates, regardless of language proficiency. Although a minimum overall rating of ICAO Operational Level 4 should be the goal of candidates, technically there is no pass or fail in the EALTS; only the award of an ICAO criterion referenced rating of language proficiency. The adaptive test format and the specification that the EALTS can be used to assess the continuum of language contained in the ICAO Language Proficiency Rating Scale allows candidates to be spared the dispiriting, demotivating experience of taking a test in which they are unable to answer the majority of the questions; it is another aspect of the test that encourages positive attitudes to learning and test-taking. The EALTS elicits broad and unpredictable samples of language. The range of aviation related themes, topics, priority lexical domains and functional language requirements of the EALTS means that, within the constraints of its tasks, the testing system is capable of eliciting a broad and unpredictable sample of language. Teaching and learning in relation to the EALTS should reflect the full range of specified test content. 6 Information available ensures that the test can be known and understood by all EALTS stakeholders. However beneficial the potential wash-back effect of a test may be, that effect will not be fully realised unless all test stakeholders know and understand what the test demands of them. The EALTS makes available to all preparing for the test the rationale for the testing system, its specifications, sample items and appropriate further information and details as may be required. The EALTS provides assistance to language trainers. The introduction of any new test may make demands on language trainers to which they may feel unequal. Preparing candidates for the EALTS, with its ICAO driven emphasis on communicative competence in listening and speaking, may lead language trainers to feel that they do not know how to teach communicative skills effectively. The EALTS, through its website at www.EALTS.com provides support, guidance and guidelines for language trainers in the preparation of candidates and effective teaching practice. Various features of test design reinforce good operational practice. Features of the test such as the SAY AGAIN option in the EALT Test of Listening and the reminder to candidates in the EALT Test of Speaking that they may ask for repetition, clarification or confirmation of anything they hear or that is said during the interview without penalty encourage candidates in good operational communications practice. In the context of the test, the acknowledgement of possible mis- or non-comprehension in a communication and the attempt to ensure full understanding through the use of appropriate clarification strategies offers potential reward to a candidate. In the context of operational aeronautical communications, such practices help to ensure aviation safety. The EALTS is a test of plain English in the context of aviation and aeronautical communications. The EALTS does not assess formulaic R/T phraseology, and neither does it assess operational skills or specific technical knowledge of operations. It is, of course, natural that test-takers will want to prepare for a test. However, while aviation language test-takers can memorise phraseology and passages relating to procedure, they cannot acquire language proficiency as described in the ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements simply by memorising words and phrases. If pilots or controllers think that certain types of narrow learning or practice activities will best and most readily prepare them for a test, they will be inclined to direct their energies to such activities, potentially at the expense of activities that can genuinely improve their language proficiency. With no credit being gained by candidates for their use of phraseology or other rehearsed language, the EALTS as a test of plain English encourages the acquisition of language proficiency as described in the ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements. In order to ensure the on-going positive wash-back of the EALTS beyond its international launch, research continues into the effect of the test on teaching along with teacher/learner attitudes towards learning for the test and into examinee attitudes to and experience of the test. 1 c.f. ICAO Cir 318-AN/180 Ch.1 Test Validity and Reliability 2.3 ICAO emphasises that test designers have a particular responsibility to foster positive wash-back as the testing process may have a considerable impact upon: 2 c.f. ICAO Cir 318-AN/180 Ch.1 Introduction to Language Testing 3.4 3 c.f. ICAO Doc 9835 Aviation Language Testing Ch.6 4 c.f. ICAO Cir 318-AN/180 Ch.1/4 Aviation-specific Language Testing Issues. Plain language is defined in ICAO documents as “the spontaneous, creative and non-coded use of a given natural language.” In simple terms, plain language can be thought of as the non-phraseology language that is used by participants in radiotelephony communications when standardized phraseology is not appropriate. 5 c.f. ICAO Doc 9835 Ch.6 Aviation Language Testing 6.8.7 6 c.f. ICAO Doc 9835 Ch3 Linguistic Awareness |