How LANGUAGECERT Academic Supports Employability

This article shows how LANGUAGECERT Academic prepares international students for university and how PeopleCert equips them, as new graduates, with the in-demand skills they need to be ready for the workplace.

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Everyone in and around the world of international higher education is aware that graduate employability is a key concern for institutions and the decision driver for students’ choice of university. We have all seen the surveys. There is a wealth of information, facts and figures. Behind the data lie millions of young people’s hopes, dreams and fears.

To follow their dreams, international students need to take the right road. Learning, acquiring, proving, using and building skills along the way to ready themselves for the next stage of their journey. Students need to be academic-ready for university and career-ready for work. For international students the road to employability starts with LANGUAGECERT Academic.

Academic-ready

LANGUAGECERT Academic is a four-skill, multi-level test of English communicative ability for academic purposes. All four skills focus exclusively on academic language, contexts and scenarios. LANGUAGECERT Academic assesses and helps develop the real-world English language skills students need to survive, thrive and flourish in an academic environment.

The test assesses the communicative abilities and language functions essential to the development of academic literacies. LANGUAGECERT Academic is designed to have a positive washback effect on language learning and facilitate the acquisition of extra-linguistic skills, such as critical thinking and verbal reasoning, necessary for higher education.

The Listening test assesses the ability to understand and contextualise academic vocabulary according to the academic discourse conventions of lectures, tutorials and seminars. The listening materials, to reflect the real world of higher education, include a range of accents from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the USA and the UK.

The Reading test assesses the ability to understand lexico-grammatical features, including academic vocabulary, how meaning is constructed in discourse and awareness of text organisation. It also assesses higher-level reading skills, including analytical and synoptic reading, inferring meaning, integrating contextual and rhetorical information, and comparing authors’ positions and arguments.

The Writing test assesses the ability to set out arguments in a structured, well-reasoned way, use the language of cause and effect, synthesise arguments and present conclusions according to the conventions of academic writing.

LANGUAGECERT Academic has a live 1:1 Speaking test with a Marking Interlocutor, who asks questions and awards marks. Using human interlocutors provides a more interactional approach to assessing speaking skills compared to an automated speaking system. Interlocutors create an authentic, interactive communication scenario that closely mirrors real-life conversational dynamics in an academic environment. As well as making the test taker's experience more personal and less alienating, interlocutors add adaptability, sensitivity and spontaneity to elicit the test taker's spoken communicative ability.

In the final part of the Speaking test, the test taker is shown an infographic and asked to speak about it for two minutes. The interlocutor then chooses from a set of follow-up questions to prompt the candidate to expand on their presentation. This task encourages the test taker's ownership of the infographic input and their presentation output. Ownership means taking responsibility for their position based on the analysis and evaluation of the information provided, being accountable for the reasoning behind their argument and justifying their position when prompted by the interlocutor.

Ready for life on campus

There is more to life at university than the lecture theatre, so LANGUAGECERT Academic also addresses students’ communicative needs to navigate and survive the demands and challenges of everyday life on campus and actively participate in all aspects of their higher education experience. For example, the Speaking test includes conversations and role-plays covering topics such as the benefits of campus accommodation for first-year students, the availability of suitable food in the college canteen and joining a campus sports club.

The employability gap

After graduation, international students face a global job market that is oversubscribed and highly competitive. Employers want career-ready graduates. In addition to degrees, employers are looking for graduates with practical skills relevant to the workplace. The need to close this gap and how to do it is becoming an increasingly urgent conversation in higher education.

Except for professions such as law, medicine and accountancy, it is not possible to seamlessly close the employability gap for everyone because you can’t align every graduate, from every course, from every university with every employer. The solution to closing the gap would have to be both universal and bespoke.

Ostensibly, school to university is an educational autobahn, straight and non-stop A to B. But after higher education the road ends. The clear, understood, signposted route of subjects, qualifications, grades, rewards and expectations vanishes. The way forward is at best nebulous and uncertain, and at worst opaque and unknowable.

Bridging the gap with PeopleCert

The bridge over the employability gap needs to emulate the clear, understood and signposted route through education. PeopleCert’s Accredited Academic Partner Programme (AAP) for universities builds the bridge. We certify in-demand skills for dynamic, expanding fields such as IT service management, project management, cybersecurity and digital transformation. Our portfolio of over 200 certifications, designed by industry experts, develops career-ready skills, provides globally recognised evidence for employers and improves graduate employability outcomes for universities.

AAP is fast to launch, admin-light and high-impact. Flexible and adaptable delivery models are designed to complement and add value to existing courses. PeopleCert provides comprehensive teaching and learning materials for each certification, along with expertise to support university lecturers to become delivery-ready.

PeopleCert certifications create the clear, understood and signposted route across the employability gap to connect institutions and graduates to industry.

English in the workplace

In addition to career-ready certification, employers want work-ready communicative English skills. Employers want graduates who can collaborate, problem solve and lead. During higher education, students build on the English language skills and academic literacies assessed and developed by LANGUAGECERT Academic. This repertoire of communicative ability and critical thinking skills, now refined at university, becomes a skills package that a graduate adapts to the workplace, whatever path they take. The ability to synthesise evidence, analyse different sources of information and account for multiple perspectives directly translates into the ability to make data-driven decisions, find solutions and solve problems. The ability to successfully argue a point in the seminar room or in an essay becomes the ability to persuade, influence and lead.

From enrolment to employment

LANGUAGECERT Academic and the PeopleCert portfolio offer students and institutions a clear pathway from enrolment to employment. We assess, develop and certify the skills international students need for higher education and for employment as graduates.

To find out more about how we help to make your incoming students academic-ready and your graduates career-ready, contact partnerships@languagecert.org