As a teacher, there are times when it is difficult to assess a student’s English level. This task gets easier with time but requires a high level of understanding of the language. What if you have no background in language teaching and still need to decide on someone’s language level from a conversation? It is a challenge that many HR recruiters face every day, which hopefully will get easier after this lesson!
One of my students, a professional HR recruiter, told me that one of her responsibilities is adequately assessing candidates’ language levels. She has her own way of checking the English level, but it isn’t foolproof. I decided to take on this challenge and created a plan that could help her understand the skills connected with each level, and also leave her with questions that she could use at work.
This is how this lesson plan was born. You can find the presentation, the worksheet and the teacher’s notes at the end of the blog post.
Don’t focus on the language level assessment just yet. Firstly, show three candidates answering the same question (very graciously created by ChatGPT 🙏🏽).
- I faced a challenge at work when I couldn’t meet a project deadline due to unexpected issues. To solve it, I communicated with my team, explained the situation, and together, we adjusted the timeline. We worked extra hours and delegated tasks more efficiently.
- I had a problem at work when my computer stopped working. I asked a colleague for help, and they showed me how to restart it.
- I encountered a significant challenge at work involving a complex client issue. To resolve it, I conducted a thorough analysis of the problem, collaborated with cross-functional teams, and implemented a multifaced solution. Additionally, I engaged in proactive communication with the client, managing expectations effectively and ensuring a positive outcome.
Obviously, all answers revolve around dealing with and solving a difficult situation at work. Students will certainly pick up on the variety of levels presented in the responses. Ask them to use their HR recruiter experience and try correctly guessing the CEFR level of each speaker. What would you say their levels are?
Proceed by giving students some speaking time. Students work in pairs and discuss how often they deal with situations in which they assess a candidate’s level and how they usually approach this task. Allow them to decide whether they believe their methods are effective and how they could be improved.
Now put a teacher’s hat back on. Show a set of basic language skills and ask students to name them (listening, speaking, reading, writing). Start by focusing on the first two. As a group, think of ways in which someone’s speaking and listening levels could be assessed. Then show three methods mentioned in the article Assessing English Proficiency by Case Western Reserve University, small talk, open-ended questions and behavioural job interview questions. Students work individually and match them to the reasons why a recruiter could choose this form of assessment. Think what positive and negative aspects you could observe during this task, for example, a candidate asking to repeat the questions, a long time to answer, or hard-to-understand pronunciation.
Now focus on the other two skills, reading and writing. Just like before discuss ways of assessing these skills and compare them with example answers (exchanging emails, giving a writing assignment, talking about past writing projects, reading an article prior to the meeting and discussing them later). Think about which of the methods students believe could be the most effective. Then discuss if they regard reading and writing as important as speaking and listening.
Say that to correctly identify candidates’ CEFR levels, it is essential to understand the skills required in each one. Show a list of levels and skills, which are also available on the British Council website in the blog post titled Understanding your level. Students work individually and match the levels to the set of skills. Put students in pairs and ask them to compare their answers.
Finish by showing a list of nine questions of various levels. Students may work together and predict the level of each question. Collect the ideas and explain why students chose the levels they did. These are all questions that could be later reused during a typical job interview. Say that students may want to put them in order and assess their candidates by how accurately they were able to respond to them. My student definitely appreciated this list!
Once again, put the students into pairs and ask them to ask and answer the questions as if they were participating in a job interview.
How do you assess the level of your students? Have you ever been assessed on your language skills in a job interview?
