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DATAMIND EDUCATION SERVICES

The importance of English

Is your educational institution equipped with the right language skills?

In today’s global world, the importance of English cannot be denied. Good English skills open doors to social mobility and opportunities globally. Educational institutions now recognise that English language competency is of paramount importance if their teachers or students have to progress and work within the international landscape.

As educators you have an important role to play in enhancing the employability of your students and raising the teaching quality in your educational institution.

For this, reliable English language assessment is essential, which helps in evaluating students and teachers, staff recruitment, group training or choosing the right student for a specific programme.

You need a system which can quickly and affordably evaluate your students and teachers as per the needs of your educational institution. That is why we developed Aptis.

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Is your educational institution equipped with the right language skills?

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“English testing hasn’t changed much in 20 years – the world and

organisations like ours have! We need a new approach, right now. I’d

like to see a totally new kind of English testing, something that’s more

engaging, and relevant to today’s international English.”

- Rubina Khan, Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka

Aptis – created for educational institutions

Aptis is an innovative tool designed to test, assess and evaluate English language skills of educational institutions, corporate businesses and organisations around the world.

Developed by language testing experts and based on the latest research in assessment, Aptis is the smarter way to evaluate English reading, writing, listening and speaking.

The following are the Aptis tests available:

Aptis for Teachers

Aptis for Teens

Aptis

Aptis for Teachers

The growing demand for English in education and the workplace is driving language policies in many countries towards introducing English as the medium of instruction and improving the quality of English language teaching and assessment. Aptis for Teachers has been designed to evaluate the English language skills in the education sector. It can be fully integrated into existing systems and managed locally, enabling teachers’ English levels to be tracked over time and the success of training programmes to be measured effectively.

It is used to quickly and accurately test:

yy English teachers or teachers of other subjects working in Ministries of Education or educational institutions around the world

yy English teachers in large-scale language programmes, including commercially-run programmes

yy students on teacher training or university programmesyy other professionals working in educational contexts.

With Aptis for Teachers, you can:

yy assess English language skills of teachersyy conduct English language audits of teachers and identify their training needsyy identify English language levels of students on teacher training or university

programmesyy evaluate the effectiveness of language development projects at various

stages.

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“The partnership with the British Council

in the delivery of English language

teaching and exam services at our

university is a new philosophy and a new

stage to accept the most up-to-date

methods of learning languages. We used

Aptis to test approximately 5500 students

to determine the level of English and

assign students to corresponding groups

according to their CEFR levels.”

- Gigi Tevzadze, Rector, Ilia State University

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Aptis for Teens

Targeted at 13-17 year olds, Aptis for Teens is modular and flexible, enabling you to target specific skills and receive fast results.

Since questions have been designed to reflect activities that occur in a teenager’s everyday life like social media, homework and sports, tasks will be more familiar to them. This allows them to focus purely on their English skills and talk, write, speak and listen with ease. This modern approach to testing allows candidates to fully demonstrate their English knowledge and skill.

Aptis for Teens can be integrated into current education systems, which allows students’ English levels to be measured effectively and efficiently over time, opening the door to future learning in a broad range of subjects.

Aptis for Teens is used by:

yy lower and upper secondary schoolsyy Ministries of Education around the worldyy language schoolsyy private tutors or teachersyy bi-lingual schools.

With Aptis for Teens, you can:

yy streamline learners according to proficiency level within language learning programmes

yy assess readiness for taking high-stakes certificated examsyy assess readiness to participate in study abroad and homestay programmesyy identify strengths and weaknesses to inform teaching and support for learnersyy evaluate learning programmesyy test students’ progress over extended periods of study.

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“It was really helpful to make me

understand some of the areas which I’m

not so good at.”

- Georgia, 16, Cyprus

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Ma’arif for Education & Training, an educational

organisation which manages schools throughout

the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, uses Aptis to

benchmark English levels within their school

network. Aptis scores are also used as an

indicator of progress for students as they pass

up through their system. All students from years

7-10 are required to take a 4 skills Aptis test each

year and their scores are inputted into a central

school database.

Aptis

Aptis is a cutting-edge English test which allows you to reliably assess English language levels of students studying at college or university level. It can be integrated as a pre and post assessment tool into your educational institution’s development programme – whether face-to-face teaching, e-learning or a blended training/teaching solution.

If you want to evaluate candidates with higher English language skills, you can take the Aptis Advanced test.

Aptis Advanced is designed to test levels from B1 to C2 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The tasks are more complex and are designed to distinguish finer levels of performance. Aptis Advanced allows you to distinguish between CEFR C1 and C2 level candidates.

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Aptis can be used to:

yy identify the language levels of students for courses and campus placements

yy test students applying for scholarship programmes

yy assess the English language skills of high school graduates across the country

yy filter students and identify those who are ready to take international tests.

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Convenient to deliver. Easy to use

Aptis is simple to set up and easy to deploy. It is flexible enough to be delivered in any environment and location and suitable for any candidate regardless of current skill level.

Aptis is accessible through several modes of delivery:

yy computeryy pen and paperyy telephoneyy tablet

Powerful tool for your educational institution

The flexibility in the structure of Aptis makes it a more economical choice for your educational institution, as you only pay to test the skills you want. You select the core language knowledge module (grammar and vocabulary) and combine it with separate skills modules for accurate and relevant testing that meets your needs.

Writing

Listening

Speaking

Reading Core

Aptis – developed by experts

The test structure

Aptis has been developed by the British Council, a trusted organisation with more than 80 years’ experience in English teaching and assessment. Aptis has been designed by English language experts, and is a comprehensive assessment system to mirror the real language proficiency of test-takers. It is based on what has become the most influential test validation theory in modern assessment – the socio-cognitive framework. Candidate performance in each skill is mapped to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The individual test result is composed of two parts: an Aptis candidate will receive a score on a numerical scale (0 to 50) for the grammar and vocabulary section and a CEFR level for each skill they take. This individual report will show the score in each test module in detail, and provides a complete profile of a candidate’s language proficiency. This approach to scoring has the effect of giving a very accurate indication of a candidate’s real ability.

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Component

Grammar & Vocabulary

Reading

Listening

Speaking

Writing

Questions

50 items

25 tasks

25 tasks

4 tasks

4 tasks

Duration

25 minutes

30 minutes

50 minutes

12 minutes

50 minutes

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